Jeff's Positions on Key Issues

Please read the information below to learn about Jeff Thielman’s positions on important issues that will be addressed by your next State Representative:

(use the links to the left to see different issues)

Revenue

Working in the non-profit sector has taught me to spend every dollar wisely and to use resources creatively, traits that are needed at the State House. Just as I have done as a member of the School Committee, I will look carefully at state budgets and seek ways to help our state government run more efficiently. We need to look at regionalizing some state services, and it seems possible for municipalities to reduce health insurance costs by joining the state’s Group Insurance Commission.

However, this year our state government faces an estimated $1 billion shortfall, and we cannot fix our bridges and roads, fund our schools, and strengthen our state without additional revenue. Decisions about closing corporate loopholes, increasing some taxes, and decreasing others are made collectively with legislators from across the state. I’ve helped build bridges in Arlington to address our community’s fiscal crisis, and I’m confident I can do the same at the state level.

To increase revenue, I will:

• Oppose the income tax repeal, which is likely to be on the state ballot in the 2008 elections. The initiative would reduce the state’s budget by nearly 40%.
• Oppose any efforts to roll back the state income tax to 5% as well.
• Vote for the two provisions of the Municipal Partnership Act that have not yet been enacted – allowing cities and towns to vote on a 1 or 2 percent tax on meals and hotels and updating a century-old provision that exempts telecommunications companies from paying property taxes on their poles.
• Oppose most special tax breaks for corporations, though I believe each tax break needs to be looked at independently. The tax rate cuts and business tax cuts over the past fifteen years have forced continuous increases in the property tax at the local level. The costs of these tax cuts prevent the state from investing as much as it should in local services, education, infrastructure, human services, and health care.
• Support Governor Patrick’s proposal to shift from the current practice of allowing separate entity reporting (each subsidiary is taxed separately) to requiring combined reporting in which companies with multiple subsidiaries are taxed as one company.
• If sufficient revenue is not raised in other ways, work with colleagues in the state legislature to develop a more progressive tax structure, which would include modest income tax rate increasescoupled with higher exemptions for lower and middle income taxpayers.

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