The Massachusetts Income Tax Cut is DEAD

[00:00:00]So guess what? The Massachusetts taxpayers end up getting screwed yet again. It is another day, another dollar out of your pocket. That's what is going on. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's in regards to the income tax reduction. So there was a ballot initiative, and I'm going to play you some videos here of these lunatics.

[00:00:23]There was a ballot initiative that wanted to lower the income tax to 5% to 4%. gradually, but somehow someway, you know, our local government, our local politicians, uh, figured out a way, let's say, in order to just completely get it off of the ballot.

[00:00:44]>> Commitment 2026. Now, you will not get a vote to lower the state income tax.

[00:00:48]>> The state's highest court threw that question off the ballot today. Political reporter Charatti is following this and joins us in the newsroom. Well, the question would have gradually lowered the income tax from 5% to four, but the Supreme Judicial Court says the attorney general's summary of that question is misleading. So, it can't appear on the back.

[00:01:08]Misleading? I don't think so. I I don't think it's misleading at all. I I feel like this was intentional to me. I mean, that's the way it looks to me. I I I'll talk about it a little bit later, but for me, this seems like this was a calculated mistake. Sometimes people make mistakes. There's absolutely no doubt about it. But other times, people like to make calculated mistakes, and that's what I think happened here this fall. Now, this is video of the Secretary of State's office delivering petitions for several ballot questions to lawmakers. The justices say the income tax question was not fair because it didn't let voters know it would also cut the state's long-term capital gains tax rate. They say Attorney General Andrea Campbell's written summary said the opposite. The campaign >> she messed up big time.

[00:02:01]>> Supporting the question says this decision challenges nearly a century of legal precedent and disenfranchises millions of voters. a spokesperson telling us, "We're deeply disappointed that due to the attorney general's summary, voters won't have the opportunity to decide on a measure with significant implications for their finances and for the state's competitiveness."

[00:02:22]>> You know what the crazy thing is about this? You know, I I know I'm getting into it and I keep pausing the video. I have to, by the way, uh but the fact remains is like the voters here have abs we have absolutely no voice at all. like this extends just beyond the the this ballot initiative every single time something that looks like and look let's be fair you could be for it or you could be against it right this is not a question of whether it's for or against this is a question of the process okay this is a question of the process itself how many times are people going to spend their time energy money and resources to try to get something that they want to advocate for only to have it completely squashed by the lunatics that are in the legislature. I mean, that's realistically what's going on.

[00:03:13]>> The Attorney General's office did share a statement saying, quote, "We respect the SJC's decision and will continue to work diligently to ensure that ballot initiatives are summarized fairly and independently."

[00:03:25]>> It's not independently.

[00:03:27]It says fairly and transparently. Not even our local. No offense. Okay. No, no offense. I I I have slip ups, too. Okay.

[00:03:35]But transparency is a is a is a dirty word here in Massachusetts. So much to the fact that even our journalists and local reporters can't even say it.

[00:03:44]That's how not transparent it actually is.

[00:03:47]>> Supporters of lowering the income tax say they hope to bring this ballot question back before the voters in two years. Live in the newsroom, Char, >> of course, only to to have it fail on some sort of pre-calculated technicality. Then I'll show you this one. We have, how about this? It says, "The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts tossed the ballot initiative to lower the income tax to 5% to 4%. Personally, as a resident of the Commonwealth, I am ecstatic. This is the Senate President, Karen Spilka. This is the Senate President. This we we have Listen, these people are like enemies of the state. They are they theoretically, realistically, they are they they will do everything in their power to try to disenfranchise people that they disagree with. That's what's going to happen.

[00:04:38]Then we have this and then I got to give you my ultimate opinion. This has me really fired up. I got to give you my ultimate opinion on what's going Just so you know. Uh do these look does this look like a familiar face to you? So, this person uh Erica, she's part of the uh the coalition, if you want to call it that. I think she's a part of the Sierra Club because she's um she's a huge advocate for renewable energy. This is what she has to say about this.

[00:05:06]>> Did you know there's another Supreme Court that just did something awesome?

[00:05:16]You know, you're we're never going to run out of content here in Massachusetts. Ever.

[00:05:23]We'll never ever ever ever ever run out of content.

[00:05:27]>> We're here to claim victory against the MAGA Tech Bros.

[00:05:30]>> Thanks for sending me this, by the way.

[00:05:33]The MAGA Tech Bros.

[00:05:39]This year, the MAGA Tech Bros tried to >> This is Okay, this is Vic. This This guy is from the uh I believe from the Sierra Club. This is who they've they do videos together.

[00:05:48]>> Watch the state budget.

[00:05:50]>> That's right. They tried to blackmail our state. Hi, I'm Erica.

[00:05:53]>> And I'm Vic.

[00:05:54]>> And we're two Asians who studied economics >> and have a selfie stick. Our homegrown local tech billionaires, Jim J and Chris, tried to lie to you in the courts about what their terrible tax cut would do.

[00:06:05]>> This isn't even true.

[00:06:07]That's why the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial came in and kicked her ass.

[00:06:11]>> That's not true at all. The attorney general completely botched the summary.

[00:06:16]That's what happened. The the the Andrea Campbell botched and her office botched the summary, more than likely on purpose.

[00:06:23]>> The fight's not over. Mag billionaires in corporate America will stop at nothing to blackmail our state.

[00:06:29]>> Join my newsletter to get involved with our union siblings at Mass Teachers Association to stand up and fight back against corporate greed.

[00:06:37]Yes. Yes. Yes. Because uh this would not benefit the majority of the people in Massachusetts. I understand you could argue for and against it and you could give reasons uh on both sides of the aisle, but here's the fact of the matter. Okay, let me tell you a a little well-known secret that happens in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is not in the affordability business, as some people have said before. they're in the, let's say, the accountability business specifically for dodging it and not delivering any levels of accountability or any levels of transparency. That is just the way it goes here in Massachusetts. So, you know, here's realistically what happened. And in my opinion, this is the mo one of the most egregious, outrageous, and ridiculous things that I've seen happen in a really long time. It really and truly is. First of all, as you know, there was a this ballot measure, and I've been following this for a while, by the way. I didn't really talk about it that much cuz I wanted to see how things were going to play out. And guess what? It played out exactly how I thought it was going to happen. This again would take your income tax from 5% down to 4%, but it was going to be gradually. It was going to be in terms of percentages, I think, over the course of 3 years. And there was like over 85,000 people that signed this ballot initiative, right? So here's what happened.

[00:08:00]Nothing that number one these people said this wasn't an error on the people that wrote the ballot initiative. The error falls under one office and one person. That is Andrea Campbell's office and Andrea Campbell specifically. So if you don't know how this tax situation uh would work in Massachusetts, there's a couple different buckets. There's bucket A, bucket B, and bucket C. Bucket A is interest and dividends. Bucket B is like your wages, your paycheck, uh basically your normal income. Now, bucket C is long-term capital gains. The petition itself, right, the petition itself basically did not include any legal text about the part C, right? They only touched part A and part B, meaning the interest in dividends and your paycheck.

[00:08:55]So part A and part B. Part C wasn't even included, right? They didn't even say a word about part C. There was nothing on this ballot initiative that actually touched it. And the reason is is because they more than likely know that Massachusetts laws ties part C to part B automatically. It's like chained to it, you could say. So if you cut part B or you cut the rate of part B, what would what would happen is it the law would force part C right along the line of that to comply with it. Do you see what I'm saying? So there was no separate uh no separate vote needed uh with no separate bill for specifically for for part C because part B would have taken care of it. Right? So basically, even though the petitioners never touched capital gains in their original text, cutting the original income tax was always going to cut the capital gains rates as well. That's not a loophole, by the way. And that's also not a trick or something like that.

[00:10:01]That's just how the law reads. That's how the law works. And that is how it's been since even before they got started on this. But then it goes completely sideways. It goes completely off the rails because Andrea Campbell, the attorney's general off uh attorney general's office is constitutionally required to write basically in plain English a summary that goes on the signature sheets. Okay. It also goes, I believe, in the voter guide and on the actual ballot. That's her job. That's her office's job. It's not the petitioner's job. It's Campbell's office's job to sit down and write that summary. and they told the voters that the cut would apply to wages and salaries and to quote other than interest dividends or capital gains income. So again, the AG's office, not the petitioners, the AG's office told the public in writing that capital gains were excluded, which is on based on technicalities, not true because B ties into C. Do you see what I'm saying here?

[00:11:12]So what ended up happening next is that the opponents sued the case was Finer versus the attorney general. And then just yesterday, the SJC, the Supreme Judicial Court, they basically went on a rampage. Every single justice there on that court agreed that the Attorney General's own summary pretty much lied to the public about who this tax cut would actually help because the attorney general's office print basically printed a false summary directly onto the signature forms before a single person signed and there was no way to fix it after the fact. That's what happened.

[00:11:48]So, every single, think of it this way, every single one of those 85,000 signatures that got collected, it got collected underneath a lie that the petitioners never wrote and never had control over. Do you see what I'm saying? So, the whole thing got thrown out. So the again, this tax cut would have saved Massachusetts residents around $5 billion in potential tax relief. And it's gone because the AG's office wrote a sentence wrong. They wrote a sentence wrong about a law that they're I would think paid to understand better than anyone else in this entire state. She blew it. That's what happened. She blew it yet again. How do you get to call yourself the chief legal officer of the Commonwealth? The person whose entire job is to like understand and read these statutes, read these mandates, and all of these other things for a living, and then have such a colossal failure because they don't understand how our own tax code works. I feel like this should be I mean really I feel like this should be a bare minimum for her office. What else does her office not understand, right?

[00:13:05]What does her office not understand? If if they could make such a mistake on something like this, what the hell else is happening? I mean really think about it that way. And you know the funny thing to me about all of this is look at it this way. When you compare what happened with this in comparison to the audit, we have two stark comparisons because when it comes to, you know, keeping the legislaturator's books closed, right, to keeping the legislature to zero levels of transparency, the AG's office finds every ounce of energy, uh, resources, and time to block the audit. They find every legal theory possible, and they find the willingness to drag it to court or out to court for years. But when it comes to writing one accurate sentence or one accurate paragraph about some form of tax relief or some form of tax cut that would have put money back in your pockets, somehow that's where her competence runs out. H Something's a little fishy to me here. Something is a little bit fishy to me here. Now, I understand people can make mistakes. I make them all the time, okay? But but this is this is not about one mistake.

[00:14:17]This is about a series of calculated mistakes that always land in the same direction which is protecting the very people meant to protect us. That's the truth. That's a fact. Something is going on here. Something is certain. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but something is going on here.

[00:14:39]Somebody needs to do some Maybe I'll maybe I'll do something on the back end.

[00:14:42]And I think a foyer request needs to be made because I don't understand how somebody could make such an obvious mistake. That's my problem. And at some point, you really need to ask yourself whether this is some levels of incompetence or this was some level of convenience because it looks like it was a mix of both, right? Like that's what I think happened here.

[00:15:10]It's absolutely crazy to me. It really is. It's really sad to be honest with you. It's sad because what this does, and again, you could be for or against it. It doesn't really matter to me. It's about the process, right? I'm sure if you're watching this channel, and by the way, a lot of people on both sides of the aisle and in the middle watch this channel. Like, you could vote for or against this for any specific reason. Of course, you know, getting more money inside of your pockets would be a good thing, but you also have to think about the consequences of what that of what that may do if they're pulling money out of X, Y, or Z. I'm not going to go down a rabbit hole here. All I'm trying to say is I could understand where people could could want to question this, but this video has nothing to do with questioning the intent of the ballot initiative. The video is in regards to calculated mistakes, at least what seem to be calculated mistakes that are being made to disenfranchise the voice of the people of Massachusetts. So, no matter if you were for it or you were against it, the way that the outcome happened is not right. That's what I'm trying to say. That's exactly what I'm trying to say here. the process of getting to the point where either it gets on the ballot or not. Uh and using, you know, like using um convenient mistakes. Let's just call them that. Convenient mistakes so that it gets dismissed, it gets thrown out and all of these other things. I think everybody should be concerned about this. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. Doesn't matter if you supported it or didn't support it.

[00:16:46]It's the process. Because what I see happening here in Massachusetts is that any single time that somebody, one of the taxpayers here in Massachusetts or a group or a nonprofit, no matter what it is, right, if it has to do with any levels of accountability, transparency, relief, any levels of common sense, somehow someway they will figure out ways to weasle around these things and get it thrown out almost immediately like this or in regards to the audit, they will figure out other ways in order to drag it out and then get people like the ACLU and Common Cause involved and then provide talking points to all of the politicians. And by the way, I don't know if you know this either, but I may as well just say this. So, Michael Walsh, I'm I'm going to I'll probably make a completely separate video about this. Michael Walsh, who's you know, I think he's an outstanding guy. I think he's an honest guy. uh they're trying to do everything in their power to try to get him off the ballot. That's what's happening behind the scenes. So, not only do you have this going on, not only do you have what happened with the audit going on, but in the meanwhile on the back end, any level of political competition that these people might face, they will pull every string in the book and they will accuse people of anything humanly possible to try to frame it so that somebody can't challenge the powers that be. Do you see what I'm saying? We we have a massive issue here in Massachusetts. We do. It's an enormous issue here in Massachusetts because the people that are in power here are protecting and sticking up for the other people that are behind them in power. That's what's going on. And meanwhile, the residents of this state get to have absolutely no voice. The residents of this state just have to comply, right? The government is effectively running your lives here.

[00:18:45]That's what's going on. They are running your lives here and they're running them into the ground. They do not care at all. That's the problem. These people do not care. Or they only care about some people and not all people. That's what I think. That's what I think. This is what I think needs to happen. By the way, a foyer request. I'll give you some insight, all right, of what I would do or what I might do. I think that a foyer request needs to be sent to the attorney general's office and I think all levels of communication in reg and I don't know if this is I'm not an attorney okay but some levels and or all levels of communication back and forth about what happened here and between you know AG staffers or her off I think that needs to come out of the woodwork I think we need to see how the decision basically how the decision-m process was to come up with the summary that they came up with that's what I think needs to happen. I also think that, you know, the inspector general should get involved. I do. I really do. I think or Leah Foley, somebody should get involved here because again, it's and no offense if if like I'm not saying I'm for or by the way, I'm not saying I'm for or against the ballot initiative, right? I I I don't have enough like firing from the hip, more money in people's pockets seems like a win to me, right? Cut and dry. I don't know all of the data points behind uh the like where they're going to cut from and all that other stuff and if it makes sense is what I'm trying to say. I didn't research it that far. That has nothing to do with my standpoint though. But what I'm trying to say, as I said earlier, is that it's the process that needs to be looked at. It is what is happening as a whole, not only to Massachusetts, but also to its residents. Because again, we are in a position where we are effectively being ruled by kings and queens. That is what is happening here, guys. That is essentially what is happening. And I think this is ultimately why they don't want the audit. I think it's this is this is one of the sole reasons they don't want the audit because everything would come out in the woodwork. That's truly and realistically what I think would happen. I I find this to be absolutely outrageous. It is completely insane to me. Anyway, that's it for today's video, guys. I got a lot to do today. Uh my daughter uh finished school yesterday, so we're trying to figure out, you know, a whole bunch of things behind the scenes. She's probably yelling outside my door. Uh and that's it. So I'll see you on the next one.

[00:21:08]Bye-bye.