I want to thank you for the opportunity to present testimony in support of two bills before your committee: An Act to Invest in Our Communities (H2553) and An Act Relative to the Taxation of Mutual Fund Companies (H3015). I serve as chair of the Whately School Committee but I’m speaking today on behalf of the Green-Rainbow Party’s Better Budget Initiative.

As elected representatives of our communities, every one of us states that our highest priority is the support of our communities, and in particular, the public services our constituents depend on and pay for.

The most important way we support our priorities is through our budgets. Budgets say what we are willing to pay for, and what we are not. Budgets say who we ask to pay for our priorities, and who we do not. When it comes to the state budget, however, our priorities have been forgotten. Adjusted for inflation, state funding for K-12 education has dropped more than 15% in the past 10 years. “Local aid” has dropped 30%. Higher-ed aid has dropped 45%. We are actively dis-investing in our communities and our people, and it is time to re-invest.

During the same decade, unproductive and unaccounted for tax breaks, tax expenditures, and outright giveaways of public funds to private industries have continued to grow: $60 million to Evergreen Solar. $75 - $150 million/year for the movie industry, 80% going to actors already earning more than a million a year. $150 million a year to mutual fund companies like Fidelity, a firm that has cut 1/4 of its Massachusetts workforce in the past 5 years. Over $2 billion a year in all.

How did spending our public tax dollars on public services for the public good become a lower priority than the subsidy of private industry? And what business wants to pay to subsidize its competitors instead of paying for police, fire, and transportation?

Instead of still more budget cuts to our cities, towns and schools, we call for a cut of at least $1 billion in tax expenditure giveaways. Start with mutual fund investment banks, and House Bill 3015. Instead of stripping public employees of their bargaining rights, start controlling health care costs and save $1.5 billion/year by adopting a single-payer health plan. And instead of asking the poor to subsidize the rich, adopt House Bill 2553, to help equalize the tax burden in the commonwealth and raise another $1.2 billion.

The cuts in this year’s house budget are painful & unnecessary. It’s time to make our priorities yours.