MA gubernatorial debate on Fox News: on Tax Reform

Christy Mihos: Get money out of Beacon Hill and back to cities & towns

MIHOS: Well it’s not local property taxes, it’s local property assessments for residences and businesses. Look, under the Republican’s administration, they’ve been in charge for 16 years, the Democrats have been in power forever. Massachusetts has become unaffordable. We have to do it, we have to get the money back out of Beacon Hill, back to the cities and towns and it can be done. We’ve run billion plus dollar surpluses in revenue over the last three years. This money is sitting up there on Beacon Hill. They’re giving it to the Turnpike Authority, $31 million to start the Rose Kennedy Greenway up again with your money, they’re giving it to the Red Sox and their corporate neighbors to upgrade the infrastructure up around Fenway Park. That’s your money, that’s money that should be going back to the cities and towns, not to the special interests.

Christy Mihos: Roll back taxes but restore local aid

MIHOS: I’m for it. The people voted overwhelmingly for it. I’ll work the legislature to get it done over time, certainly. Statutorily it’s being done as we sit here, but this administration has taken local aid away from this cities and towns. They’re starving. They’ve taken well over $2 billion in local aid away from the cities and towns so the property taxes have gone up.

Deval Patrick: Cut property tax; expand circuit breaker & senior exemption

PATRICK: Well, no is the answer to that. I think it’s a mistake to roll the income tax back to 5% right now. I think we can do it but we have to grow the economy so that we can afford to do it. I think its interesting to be lectured on taxes by the Lt. Gov., whose administration is responsible for $985 million of new taxes and fees. That’s what’s come from this administration. What I want to do is cut the property tax. I want to expand the senior exemption for property taxes and the circuit breaker. I want to extend them to low and moderate income home owners. I want to eliminate all those nuisance fees for playing on a high school team or parking in the school parking lot, and I want to restore local aid so we can get property taxes down and keep them down.

Deval Patrick: Tax rollback is shell game, shifting burden to property tax

HEALEY: By rolling back the income tax we’ll put more money into working peoples’ pockets, and I have a plan to take pressure off our local taxes as well by reforming our pension system, and allowing our cities and towns to invest their pensions with our state treasurer’s office. That will take literally hundreds of millions of dollars that is wasted right now and put it back onto the plate of our cities and towns and that will relieve the pressure on local taxes.

PATRICK: We’ve been playing the fiscal shell game with this administration. This is an administration that talks about rolling the income tax back and is responsible at the same time for proposing $985 million in new taxes and increased fees. $1.8 billion in increases in property taxes. That’s all about shifting the burden. Let’s be clear and candid with each other. People are ready for the truth. We can afford a 5% income rate when the economy has expanded to enable it.

Grace Ross: We don’t have enough income tax

ROSS: I support the idea that we shouldn’t be rolling back the state income tax. Our taxes have gone through the roof because we don’t have enough income tax and so the local cities and towns are raising property taxes. Those hit the rest of us. The income tax is the only thing that folks at the top actually have to pay the same amount as the folks at the bottom. Fees and property taxes tend to hit folks at the lower end more.

Grace Ross: Tax rollback kills cities via property tax increase of 35%

ROSS: This no new tax pledge -- anybody at the state level who wants to argue that you’re not raising taxes because you’re rolling back the income tax is just not telling the truth. That’s why we’ve got property taxes at 35% or 42% above what they were before. Our cities and towns are dying, but they need increased minimum wages, help to the small businesses and things like that.

Grace Ross: Tax rollback gives middle class $100s, but $100,000s to rich

Kerry Healey: Avoid property tax increases by reducing waste

HEALEY: By rolling back the income tax we’ll put more money into working peoples’ pockets, and I have a plan to take pressure off our local taxes as well by reforming our pension system, and allowing our cities and towns to invest their pensions with our state treasurer’s office. That will take literally hundreds of millions of dollars that is wasted right now and put it back onto the plate of our cities and towns and that will relieve the pressure on local taxes.

PATRICK: We’ve been playing the fiscal shell game with this administration. This is an administration that talks about rolling the income tax back and is responsible at the same time for proposing $985 million in new taxes and increased fees. $1.8 billion in increases in property taxes. That’s all about shifting the burden. Let’s be clear and candid with each other. People are ready for the truth. We can afford a 5% income rate when the economy has expanded to enable it.

Kerry Healey: Failure to roll back taxes cost people $2 billion since 2000

HEALEY: The people of this state voted overwhelmingly back in the year 2000 to cut the tax rate to 5 percent. Since that time they have paid in $2 billion in extra taxes that we didn’t need. The last two years we’ve had billion dollar budget surpluses, each of those years. Now the legislature has spent that money. We need to take it off the table in order to have fiscal discipline and my opponent cannot provide that.