“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. “Albert Einstein is often credited with this quote even though historians believe he probably never said the words. In my opinion it is the perfect summation of everything that both major parties have failed at in governing the state of Massachusetts. Whether it be at the state level or local level in any of the 351 communities it never ceases to amaze me how government is incapable of learning from the mistakes of the past and insists on continuing to repeat them. Once policy has been passed, every decade or so there should be an evaluation to see what is working and what isn’t about each law. Certainly, there can be improvements made to laws that aren’t performing the way they should and updating them would create a higher standard of fairness for certain mandates from the state. For example, Chapter 61 and 40B legislation are two examples that are long overdue for amending.
Another textbook example of something that needs amending is Proposition 2 ½. Long heralded as a form of cost control and bastion of fiscal responsibility by capping the growth of property taxes to 2 ½ percent annually combined with new growth it has fallen far short of delivering on its lofty promises. Passed in the early 1980s, it was sold as the solution to rising property taxes and would cap the increase a community could impose on its businesses and residents without going to the ballot box. We are currently at the 44-year mark and not only is it a complete joke but had zero chance of being effective from day one.
We are a society of infrastructure. There is not much I do in my life that doesn’t require a road. Other baseline infrastructure in your typical Massachusetts community would be schools, public safety buildings, libraries, town halls, DPW annex, etc. Under Prop 2 ½ there is an auto excise tax. It is a progressive infrastructure tax. It is indiscriminate of one’s race, religion, gender, age, political affiliation, and perhaps most importantly, level of income. You are asked three questions before paying the tax. The make, model and year of the vehicle and then a valuation is assigned dependent on that data. So, once government collects this tax the revenue is used to take care of the infrastructure? Absolutely not, that would make too much sense. It is buried in the general fund and artificially supports a portion of the employee’s financial package comprised of pay, pension and healthcare. So, part of 2 ½ is to lie to the Massachusetts taxpayer, steal their money, mishandle it, and create billions of dollars in infrastructure liability which we then pretend to have no idea how to pay for it. There is no such thing as cost containment in Prop 2 ½ it is all geared towards cost creation and exclusively raising property taxes exponentially to pay for anything.
The other major failure is the notion of new growth. It is all predicated on supplies of land and water being infinite. They are not. Thousand-acre tracks of land don’t exist anymore. All the other communities in Plymouth County have attempted 2 ½ overrides over the last several decades because they have already passed the 95 percentile of buildout and have nothing but small scraps of land left. Water and land inventories are finite, and every community needs to prioritize having secure, sustainable sources of fresh water available long term. That is currently not the case in Plymouth.
Prop 2 ½ is essentially the James Bond or 007 of state taxation in America. It is just a license to tax with impunity, suppress economic development, promote antiquated, unsafe, obsolete infrastructure and being exclusively dependent on exponential property tax increases to pay for everything. Also, it mistakenly assumes that local governments can be trusted with tax revenue. This couldn’t be any further from the truth. State government is at its best when they don’t trust localities with tax revenue. Textbook examples of this are the model school program and the 1988 mandate that mandated all pension liabilities must be fully funded by 2040.
The first and most important correction that needs to be made is that the law should be amended mandating that the auto excise tax is not allowed to go into the general fund. It sits in its own separate interest-bearing account and can only be used to cover the debt service for any investment in the modernization or new construction of the baseline infrastructure. This alone in Plymouth would prevent property taxes from rising billions of dollars over the next several decades. If this were to be accomplished, then simultaneously the millionaires’ tax would be rescinded. It would then be redundant and completely unnecessary. I have absolutely no faith that any sensible changes will be implemented on anything. Both major parties are dominated by people who will not enact anything sensible that would improve the lives of our residents because it doesn’t benefit them politically. It is easier to sit back and look for scapegoats and point fingers. The majority of the time our employees – the central nervous system of every community – are blamed for the fiscal ills of the community. They are not the ones who pass the incompetent failed financial policies. They deserve better and so don’t all of our hard-working residents.
– John Mahoney
Mahoney is a former member of Plymouth’s Select Board.