Will the contents of this tax returns have an impact on my opinion of him? Not unless there is something crazy illegal in there.
Should the media spend this much time on the issue of whether he should release his taxes or not? No. They should focus on Governor Romney's record tax and fiscal policy not Mitt Romney's record on personal taxes. If Mitt Romney was a complete no one with no public record perhaps then the contents of his tax returns might give us some small insight into what sort of President he might be. Perhaps they might tangentially speak to his honesty, respect for authority, etc... Would the contents of his tax returns tell us about his views on tax and fiscal policy. Almost certainly not - and this is what really matters. After all there are lots of people with clean tax returns and most of them would be lousy presidents. But Mitt Romney has been in public view for years. He was governor of Massachusetts for four years. So he has a record on tax and fiscal policy. He also has stated views on taxes and fiscal policy.
Since the media is busy with more important issues (like will he release his tax returns) in what little time I have today I will do their job and summarize his real record on taxes and fiscal policy.
Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts from January 2003-January 2007. He entered office with about $3BB deficit to close. The below is a summary from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney
REVENUE SIDE:
- An increase in windfall capital gains tax enacted under the previous administration which went into effect under Romney increased revenue by approximately $1.3BB per year.
- He increased state fees for services which brought in about $501MM in new revenue per year.
- A 2 cent increase in the gasoline tax brought in another $50MM.
- A increase in internet taxes yielded an additional $128MM
- Closing additional business tax loopholes yielded (by the end of his term) an additional $300MM per year.
- In total he cut $1.6BB in state spending from previous budget (this does not square with data below btw).
- Of this $700MM was from reductions in aid to cities and towns - many of which made up the difference by raising local taxes.
- Including both state and local the $1.6BB would be substantially lower.
The Tax Foundation provides this breakdown of taxes for Massachusetts state and local governments. It appears that during Governor Romney's tenure the state and local tax burden in MA ticked up by between 0 and 0.3% depending on where you decide to start his impact and where you decide to end his impact. MA rank among states stayed pretty constant.
From the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center here is a table of Massachusetts state budgets for the period 2002 through 2008 (in 000s USD). Note this table is only state spending - it does not include local spending.
| Budget Category | FY 02 | FY 03 | FY 04 | FY 05 | FY 06 | FY 07 | FY 08 | FY 08 |
| Minus | ||||||||
| FY 02 | ||||||||
| Education | 5,580,245 | 5,454,928 | 5,250,912 | 5,383,585 | 5,747,780 | 6,297,014 | 6,583,749 | 1,003,504 |
| Environment & Recreation | 214,689 | 170,347 | 159,633 | 163,172 | 234,750 | 209,869 | 205,662 | -9,027 |
| Health Care | 8,209,337 | 8,584,785 | 10,164,641 | 10,041,993 | 10,226,094 | 11,223,455 | 12,196,175 | 3,986,838 |
| Human Services | 2,822,950 | 2,856,441 | 2,878,593 | 3,009,740 | 3,176,323 | 3,312,262 | 3,396,657 | 573,707 |
| Infrastructure, Housing & Economic Development | 1,318,735 | 1,278,831 | 1,211,796 | 1,261,972 | 1,434,556 | 1,789,898 | 1,531,655 | 212,920 |
| Law & Public Safety | 1,942,550 | 1,892,839 | 1,958,488 | 2,041,903 | 2,191,915 | 2,428,079 | 2,573,258 | 630,708 |
| Local Aid | 1,272,092 | 1,121,970 | 1,103,646 | 1,131,646 | 1,159,746 | 1,327,596 | 1,345,296 | 73,204 |
| Other | 3,038,108 | 2,942,424 | 3,015,049 | 3,673,234 | 3,881,189 | 4,122,784 | 4,199,306 | 1,161,198 |
| Totals | 24,398,706 | 24,302,565 | 25,742,758 | 26,707,245 | 28,052,353 | 30,710,957 | 32,031,758 | 7,633,052 |
From this table it appears that all categories of spending increased under Governor Romney - but that is not quite fair since that does not account for the effects of inflation. If we instead deflate by CPI we get
| Budget Category | FY 02 | FY 03 | FY 04 | FY 05 | FY 06 | FY 07 | FY 08 | FY 08 |
| Minus | ||||||||
| FY 02 | ||||||||
| Education | 7,179,567 | 6,867,260 | 6,469,042 | 6,438,733 | 6,622,122 | 7,071,879 | 7,129,855 | -49,712 |
| Environment & Recreation | 276,220 | 214,451 | 196,665 | 195,153 | 270,460 | 235,694 | 222,721 | -53,499 |
| Health Care | 10,562,167 | 10,807,467 | 12,522,680 | 12,010,159 | 11,781,669 | 12,604,533 | 13,207,818 | 2,645,651 |
| Human Services | 3,632,019 | 3,596,001 | 3,546,382 | 3,599,630 | 3,659,500 | 3,719,845 | 3,678,401 | 46,382 |
| Infrastructure, Housing & Economic Development | 1,696,690 | 1,609,932 | 1,492,914 | 1,509,310 | 1,652,778 | 2,010,150 | 1,658,702 | -37,988 |
| Law & Public Safety | 2,499,293 | 2,382,913 | 2,412,827 | 2,442,103 | 2,525,345 | 2,726,861 | 2,786,703 | 287,410 |
| Local Aid | 1,636,679 | 1,412,459 | 1,359,675 | 1,353,441 | 1,336,164 | 1,490,960 | 1,456,885 | -179,794 |
| Other | 3,908,842 | 3,704,245 | 3,714,494 | 4,393,164 | 4,471,588 | 4,630,104 | 4,547,628 | 638,786 |
| Totals | 31,391,477 | 30,594,728 | 31,714,679 | 31,941,693 | 32,319,626 | 34,490,026 | 34,688,713 | 3,297,236 |
Under this view it appears that most categories of spending stayed fairly constant under Governor Romney with the exception of Health Care (Romney-Care) and Other. If we drill down into Other it appears that the categories which increased were Debt Service and Pensions.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center has some great information. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment