Happy Independence Day! It’s late on the evening of July 4 as I write my weekly column for the Westfield News. Westfield will be celebrating the 237th birthday of our country with fireworks this Saturday evening in Stanley Park at dusk.
Here are the opening few paragraphs from the Declaration of Independence to remind us how this whole experiment in democracy and self-governance began:
“IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…”
July 1 marked the start of the new fiscal year in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The House and Senate met in their respective chambers at the State House on Monday and voted to pass a $34 billion budget for the 2014 Fiscal Year. For your information, I voted NAY.
Although I have joined with the Democrat majority in the House and voted for state budgets in the past, as I did last year, I just couldn’t do it this time. The vote in the House was 122 – 29, strictly along party lines. All of us House Republicans voted against the budget this year.
Before I make up my mind on how I will vote on any bill I go through a checklist in my mind and have to answer such questions as “Is this legislation good for the Commonwealth?” and “Is this bill good for my district?” I always ask the hard questions like “Is it Constitutional” and “Can we afford it?” I have also learned to ask “Will this bill hurt our state or have unintended consequences?” In my mind I weigh the pros and cons of any budget or bill on a scale.
As a Republican legislator in a democratically-controlled state I always find myself wondering whether it’s better to vote for a budget that contains good things even though there are also bad items or to vote against a bad budget even though it contains some good things. “Should we vote for a budget that contains many of the positive things Republicans have been championing in the Bay State even though it doesn’t contain all the things we’ve fought for?” Or, “Should we vote against the budget because it contains things we don’t like and wasn’t as good as we would have liked it?”
This year the answer was easy. I voted no because this budget grows faster than our economy has been growing, because it is based on a more than $500 million tax increase that includes job-killing taxes like an increase in the gasoline tax and a new tax on computer services that have yet to even be defined by the Department of Revenue, because it continues to draw money from the Rainy Day reserve fund ($350 million), because it doesn’t go far enough or fast enough to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government, and because many of the reforms my caucus asked the Democrats to consider were not included.
One person who posted on my Face Book paged summed it up very succinctly: “This tax budget crap is killing us. Everything is going up and us little guys are drowning. As it is now, we are fighting to live and it is getting tougher to stay afloat. No wonder why they call Massachusetts ‘Taxachusetts!’ We are getting taxed on everything and it is killing us, and they have over a billion dollar balance in a Rainy Day fund and they are upping our gas tax and cigarette tax. What the heck! Sorry but I am a little upset with all this. I am seriously thinking of moving out of Massachusetts to another state and you will probably seeing a lot more people move too.”
The budget is now on Governor Patrick’s desk. The legislature will continue to meet in formal sessions and hold committee hearings until we break for summer recess in August.
This month my cable show “From the State House to Your House” is all about Hampton Ponds and features long time Ponds resident Nelson “Ray” Dionne. We taped the program from his pontoon boat in the middle of Pequot Pond. The show airs on Channel 15 on Sundays at 4:30 p.m., Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m., Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m., and Fridays at 2:30 p.m.. I hope you will watch and enjoy the show.
Have a great week!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of the Westfield News.
Representative Don Humason and his Chief of Staff Maura Cassin McCarthy may be reached at their Westfield District Office, 64 Noble Street, Westfield, MA 01085, (413) 568-1366.
Representative Don Humason may be reached at his Boston office, State House Room 542, Boston, MA 02133, (617) 722-2803.
Email address: [email protected]
Website: www.DonHumason.org
