STATE CAPITOL BRIEFS (LUNCH EDITION) – TUESDAY, FEB. 16, 2010
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

MENINO WHACKS WEATHER GUYS
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who last week granted parking amnesty to Boston drivers after a much-feared snowstorm merely dusted the capital, led off Tuesday-morning remarks with a shot at the forecasting industry. “Just imagine if you have a job like a meteorologist,” Menino told the Mass. High Tech Council. “You’re right 25 percent of the time, and you make big bucks. It’s amazing, it really is. Last week, we had this fake snowstorm.” Menino, leading off a political speaking lineup that includes four gubernatorial candidates, also went after unions he said worked to block the public education legislation that became law  last month, paving the way for more charter schools and granting new administrative authority to superintendents and the state. “The problem is, the unions never endorsed me. They never helped me,” Menino said, adding, “These guys who are fighting against us, they’re allowing their kids to go to schools that are failing.” The mayor, in an evidently feisty mood, also discussed his Beacon Hill lobbying in favor of the bill, noting that he had not inveighed against suburban lawmakers, instead concentrating on the Boston delegation. “I took care of my city folks,” Menino said.

IN WALTHAM, CANDIDATES UNANIMOUS ON SALES TAX CUT
All four gubernatorial candidates addressing (the Mass. High Tech Council) in Waltham Tuesday endorsed cutting the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax rate, positioning Gov. Deval Patrick as the only member of the field on record backing last year’s 25-percent increase. Patrick, who preferred a gas tax hike and other targeted increases to the sales tax bump, ultimately signed the budget the Legislature sent him. Administration officials said Patrick would support restoring the 5 percent rate once revenues recover elsewhere. Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein, unenrolled Treasurer Timothy Cahill and Republican Charles Baker want to ratchet the sales tax back to 5 percent, and Republican Christy Mihos would peg it at 3 percent, they said in Waltham Tuesday. Democrat Grace Ross said she would trim the rate to 5 percent, and recalled speaking at a rally against last year’s increase.  “I think we should scale it back to where it was,” Ross said in a telephone interview. “It both hurts the wrong people and it’s a losing proposition, but I think it’s problematic because it forces people to choose between cuts and a losing proposition.” Stein said she thought that the state should offset the sales tax reduction she prefers with higher taxes on the state’s wealthiest.

BAKER SAYS THERE’S A BETTER WAY THAN PATRICK’S SOFT CAP
Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker, the former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, said Tuesday that Gov. Deval Patrick should have keyed on reducing the cost of health care rather than imposing the “soft cap” on health insurers that the governor announced last week. “I would rather reduce health care costs,” Baker said after remarks to the Mass. High Tech Council in Waltham. “He’s been in office for three-and-a-half years. It’s a little late. I’ve been talking about transparency and public disclosure around pricing now for five years, and I really believe if you’re serious about reducing the cost of health care and enhancing performance, you have to start with public disclosure around pricing.” Pointing to recent studies published by the administration and by Attorney General Martha Coakley, Baker said there was evidence that health insurance cost increases flow from prices of delivery and disparate prices among different care providers. Baker also brushed off the mockery directed his way by Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray, calling Murray’s comparison of Baker’s fiscal rhetoric to Paris Hilton discussing chastity a straying from the administration’s campaign talk in 2006. “The governor and lieutenant governor ran on a platform of bringing a new kind of dialogue to public life,” Baker told the News Service. “I think statements like that run directly counter to the rhetorical position of what the campaign was, and the administration. I’m certainly not going to engage in that kind of activity. I’m running because I’m scared to death about the future of Massachusetts, and I don’t think this administration’s doing a particularly good job of building a plan to get us out of the jam that we’re in, and that’s what I’m going to talk about.”

CAHILL SAYS REVERSAL ON INCOME TAX WAS ABOUT THE NUMBERS
Treasurer Timothy Cahill said his shift in income tax positions – from reluctance to lower the 5.3 percent rate to last week’s embrace of a 5 percent policy – was due to a fuller understanding of what the lower rate could achieve. “When we did our formal plan, which we announced last week, we just realized that in order to make our state more competitive, we needed to look at all taxes, including income taxes, especially because so many people run their small business and declare their taxes as individuals. So it didn’t make sense to talk about corporate taxes and capital gains, without including that.” When he said last month that the income tax reduction was not “necessary,” Cahill said, “We really hadn’t finished our plan, and really hadn’t done the analysis.” The treasurer, who spoke to the Mass. High Tech Council in Waltham Tuesday morning, said he would support a ballot initiative repealing last year’s sales tax increase on alcohol, eliminating a longtime exemption.  Cahill has declined to say how much he'd like to reduce some of the tax rates he feels are too high, saying he'd work out such details with the Legislature, if elected governor in November.