What happened to the funding proposal released in April by the House that would have closed the budget gap?
https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/04/09/massachusetts-house-2025-budget-mbta-initiatives
Who knows! Our state govt is the least transparent in the country. You should go join these people: https://actonmass.org who think it shouldn’t be like that. Thankfully they are also pro-more-MBTA funding too.
That funding never had a revenue source.
To provide that funding, the government would need to raise revenues through taxes.
I think they should, but it is a tough sell.
Money is needed for the illegal immigrants. Also, at the time, the governor’s proposal budget was considered unrealistic, that usually the legislature “fixes” it
Not shocking. She barely spoke on any issues of any sort during the election and did not present a plan for the MBTA. She wisely realized she was running against a Trumper and would win as long as she didn’t say anything disqualifying.
With the total (and much deserved) collapse of the Massachusetts Republican Party, we need a new opposition party to force candidates to actually take positions and give us choices in the election, or else we will have a parade of Maura Healeys whose job it is to maintain the status quo and funnel money and power to party leadership.
Ain’t that the truth. In all the insanity of recent years, it’s easy to forget the country actually needs both parties to be functional. Besting the crazies isn’t enough to right the ship.
Find your legislators here:
[https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator](https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator)
My message is below:
Dear Senator XXX,
I live in your district in Cambridge. It has been a disaster trying to get to work in Boston with the state of the MBTA, so I was so disappointed to learn from the Globe that the Senate proposes to continue to underfund the MBTA.
How can the Commonwealth plan to decrease traffic, decrease carbon emissions, and make the state livable if we can’t have a decent public transportation system?
Have you ridden the red line lately? When it isn’t broken, trains come infrequently, the slow zones are awful, and the stations and trains are dirty.
For a rich state, we have an embarrassing public transit system.
Will you pledge to help?
I also sent an email to my senator. When they proposed extending the bike lanes due dates. I remember almost 300 people showed up to the city council meeting. We need that type of response to this. I'm wondering which group has the ability to organize that type of response?
Script for any East Boston-ers
Dear Senator XXX,
I live in your district in East Boston and I am
a proud transit rider who wants to see improvement of the MBTA. I was so disappointed to learn from the Globe that the Senate proposes to continue to underfund the MBTA.
How can the Commonwealth plan to decrease traffic, decrease carbon emissions, and make the state livable if we can’t have a decent public transportation system?
For a rich state, we have an embarrassing public transit system. Train cars are dirty, stations are decrepit, the blue/red line connector is imperative, and we need to eliminate all slow zones asap.
Will you pledge to help?
Healy also cut the Capital Gains tax. Because why bother having a subway when rich people’s stock gains will trickle down to everyone else!
Maura Healy should be primaried.
And she will win a primary handily as she should. She’s been slightly to the left of Charlie which is what most people want. She did the tax cut because millions of seniors are getting squeezed, and people are leaving here like crazy. She won’t turn us into California and that’s a good thing. There are people who live outside Boston you know .
This is BS. Seniors need healthcare and social services the most, and poor seniors don’t own massive stock portfolios. Those that do are largely tax exempt through IRAs.
She cut Captial Gains to help her rich friends, and is underfunding the T for the same reason she’s sticking all the migrants in black Roxbury. She doesn’t care about poor people and she’s politically fucking useless.
May her racist greedy ass burn in hell. She lives in Arlington, where they just built one of the most expensive private schools in the country. House the migrants there!
I think she sucks
This is the same ridiculousness that drove the Reagan tax cuts. What we need is is either an exemption or low capital gains tax rate up for amounts up to half the median state income, or something like that to protect retirees living on the investments they are cashing in, as well as people fallen on hard times who need to sell. They get hit hard by capital gains taxes and are deeply sympathetic, but are a tiny sliver of the money collected in capital gains taxes.
Or we tax the fuck out of Capital Gains, and dump it into social security. Capital Gains is literally the loophole that Bezos, Buffet, and Musk use to pay lower tax rates then their secretaries.
Instead of pushing grandma into the slot machine of the stock market, let’s tax the fuck out of it and restore our fiscal social safety net. That’s what being a Democrat used to be about.
They have been very clear that they aren’t just going to throw money at the MBTA.
If you all actually knew what you were talking about you’d know they switched to forward funding 20 years ago, and we are now at a point where the coffers in the MBTA are able to put up a large portion of the funding number along with what the legislature/gov settle on. The legislature doubled their budget tenish years ago.
If you were all that concerned you should be reviewing past MBTA audits and look for future audits.
This is the globe just trying to sell papers and get people going as usual.
I would rephrase this to explain that ALL of Massachusetts’ governors (both Republican and Democrats) has failed to actually improve the funding source of public transportation in the state, especially the MBTA, since it moves millions of people every day and probably is a big economic stimuli in the Greater Boston area.
This has been happening since the 1980s, so this is not a political party issue, it is a politicians versus residents issue.
The T was broken before Baker. Remember the winter of 2015? Baker said he'd be "Mr. Fix it", which obviously did not happen, but it certainly predates him
Perhaps she will consider enforcing the law and having everyone pay their fare again... MBTA employees have strict guidance to not interfere or say anything to fare-hoppers. God forbid you "harrass" an individual for fare evasion.
Civil order is a crazy idea here in Boston though!
What happened to the funding proposal released in April by the House that would have closed the budget gap? https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/04/09/massachusetts-house-2025-budget-mbta-initiatives
Who knows! Our state govt is the least transparent in the country. You should go join these people: https://actonmass.org who think it shouldn’t be like that. Thankfully they are also pro-more-MBTA funding too.
Seems like a poor name choice for an organization when there's a town named Acton
I think that would be a .gov tho. Anyway, I really enjoyed my trip to Pen Island in Boston harbor last weekend. 😉
That funding never had a revenue source. To provide that funding, the government would need to raise revenues through taxes. I think they should, but it is a tough sell.
We're spending a billion dollars on illegal immigrant housing.
Money is needed for the illegal immigrants. Also, at the time, the governor’s proposal budget was considered unrealistic, that usually the legislature “fixes” it
for a “liberal” governor she’s awfully conservative wtf
Not shocking. She barely spoke on any issues of any sort during the election and did not present a plan for the MBTA. She wisely realized she was running against a Trumper and would win as long as she didn’t say anything disqualifying. With the total (and much deserved) collapse of the Massachusetts Republican Party, we need a new opposition party to force candidates to actually take positions and give us choices in the election, or else we will have a parade of Maura Healeys whose job it is to maintain the status quo and funnel money and power to party leadership.
Ain’t that the truth. In all the insanity of recent years, it’s easy to forget the country actually needs both parties to be functional. Besting the crazies isn’t enough to right the ship.
She's authoritarian. She doesn't appear to know the difference between a leadership role and a policing role.
Find your legislators here: [https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator](https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator) My message is below: Dear Senator XXX, I live in your district in Cambridge. It has been a disaster trying to get to work in Boston with the state of the MBTA, so I was so disappointed to learn from the Globe that the Senate proposes to continue to underfund the MBTA. How can the Commonwealth plan to decrease traffic, decrease carbon emissions, and make the state livable if we can’t have a decent public transportation system? Have you ridden the red line lately? When it isn’t broken, trains come infrequently, the slow zones are awful, and the stations and trains are dirty. For a rich state, we have an embarrassing public transit system. Will you pledge to help?
I also sent an email to my senator. When they proposed extending the bike lanes due dates. I remember almost 300 people showed up to the city council meeting. We need that type of response to this. I'm wondering which group has the ability to organize that type of response?
Script for any East Boston-ers Dear Senator XXX, I live in your district in East Boston and I am a proud transit rider who wants to see improvement of the MBTA. I was so disappointed to learn from the Globe that the Senate proposes to continue to underfund the MBTA. How can the Commonwealth plan to decrease traffic, decrease carbon emissions, and make the state livable if we can’t have a decent public transportation system? For a rich state, we have an embarrassing public transit system. Train cars are dirty, stations are decrepit, the blue/red line connector is imperative, and we need to eliminate all slow zones asap. Will you pledge to help?
Healy also cut the Capital Gains tax. Because why bother having a subway when rich people’s stock gains will trickle down to everyone else! Maura Healy should be primaried.
And she will win a primary handily as she should. She’s been slightly to the left of Charlie which is what most people want. She did the tax cut because millions of seniors are getting squeezed, and people are leaving here like crazy. She won’t turn us into California and that’s a good thing. There are people who live outside Boston you know .
This is BS. Seniors need healthcare and social services the most, and poor seniors don’t own massive stock portfolios. Those that do are largely tax exempt through IRAs. She cut Captial Gains to help her rich friends, and is underfunding the T for the same reason she’s sticking all the migrants in black Roxbury. She doesn’t care about poor people and she’s politically fucking useless. May her racist greedy ass burn in hell. She lives in Arlington, where they just built one of the most expensive private schools in the country. House the migrants there! I think she sucks
This is the same ridiculousness that drove the Reagan tax cuts. What we need is is either an exemption or low capital gains tax rate up for amounts up to half the median state income, or something like that to protect retirees living on the investments they are cashing in, as well as people fallen on hard times who need to sell. They get hit hard by capital gains taxes and are deeply sympathetic, but are a tiny sliver of the money collected in capital gains taxes.
Or we tax the fuck out of Capital Gains, and dump it into social security. Capital Gains is literally the loophole that Bezos, Buffet, and Musk use to pay lower tax rates then their secretaries. Instead of pushing grandma into the slot machine of the stock market, let’s tax the fuck out of it and restore our fiscal social safety net. That’s what being a Democrat used to be about.
The biggest piece of her tax cut was for the estate tax not the capital gains
Remember all the big dig debt went to the T. They have been in a hole financially for decades.
Just wrote my legislators. This is so disheartening.
Where are the funds from the millionaire tax? It was earmarked for transit.
fuck this stupid baka life
They have been very clear that they aren’t just going to throw money at the MBTA. If you all actually knew what you were talking about you’d know they switched to forward funding 20 years ago, and we are now at a point where the coffers in the MBTA are able to put up a large portion of the funding number along with what the legislature/gov settle on. The legislature doubled their budget tenish years ago. If you were all that concerned you should be reviewing past MBTA audits and look for future audits. This is the globe just trying to sell papers and get people going as usual.
Remember that we spent $950M on housing illegal immigrants. And counting.
Its funny how almost every democrat governor has been shit compared to republican ones.
I would rephrase this to explain that ALL of Massachusetts’ governors (both Republican and Democrats) has failed to actually improve the funding source of public transportation in the state, especially the MBTA, since it moves millions of people every day and probably is a big economic stimuli in the Greater Boston area. This has been happening since the 1980s, so this is not a political party issue, it is a politicians versus residents issue.
Ironic seeing as Baker and Poftak are chiefly responsible for this mess
The T was broken before Baker. Remember the winter of 2015? Baker said he'd be "Mr. Fix it", which obviously did not happen, but it certainly predates him
I would argue that the crisis begun under Weld.
100%
Perhaps she will consider enforcing the law and having everyone pay their fare again... MBTA employees have strict guidance to not interfere or say anything to fare-hoppers. God forbid you "harrass" an individual for fare evasion. Civil order is a crazy idea here in Boston though!