Government-Granted Groups Double-Dipping in Our Tax Dollars
Do you know how to make something affordable in Taxachusetts? You tax it.
That’s right; on Beacon Hill the Democrats believe that affordability can be achieved by imposing more taxes. I kid you not!
This week the Local Option for Housing Affordability Coalition is at the State House pushing legislation filed by Rep. Mike Connolly and Sen. Jo Comerford that would allow cities and towns to impose a transfer tax on real estate transactions — to fund affordable housing.
The bills would impose a tax of between one-half of one percent to two percent on homes selling for more than $1 million.
So you might have to pay yet another $20,000 in taxes if you sell your home for a million bucks. And of course as we all know that is not the only tax and fee you pay when selling a home.
In how many more ways can the Commonwealth of Massachusetts punish the ever-dwindling number of Massachusetts residents who work for a living at real jobs and save?
The Local Option for Housing Affordability Coalition consists of 117 groups. Here is a sample of the supporters: Boston Building Trades Council, Equal Justice in Needham, Equitable Arlington, Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution, Immigrant Services Provider Group/Health, Male Engagement Network, Mass General Brigham, Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund, Progressive Massachusetts, and South Shore Democratic Socialists of America.
Do you get the picture?
It’s easy to understand why the Boston Building Trades Council supports higher taxes to build – it would mean more jobs for their members, at least theoretically.
But why are Planned Parenthood and the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence involved? Organizations like Planned Parenthood, Greater Boston Food Bank, and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts receive government grants.
Why are they allowed to lobby?
If a corporation cannot donate money to political candidates, then why are groups with government grants allowed to weigh in on an issue such as taxes? Planned Parenthood will say that they have a separate arm which is funded by private donations. However, it is still the same name, so how do we know? We don’t.
If an organization gets government grants, they should be prohibited from lobbying. They should not be using our tax dollars to lobby against taxpayers.
Many of the other groups are just a bunch of ultra-left wing nuts including Equal Justice in Needham, which is anti-police and pro-illegal alien, as well as South Shore Democratic Socialists of America and Jamaica Plain Progressives.
Already several municipalities have passed this transfer tax at the local level and are seeking approval from the legislature to enact it. These woke communities include: Boston, Concord, Somerville, Nantucket, Brookline, Provincetown, Chatham, Cambridge and Arlington.
The only way this transfer tax or fee can make housing more affordable is if everyone who actually works for a living finally flees the Commonwealth, so that there is no demand for property. Maybe we should allow one community – Chatham, maybe? — to enact it so we can all observe how it works out.
If that happened, I predict that home values in Harwich would skyrocket while Chatham’s would sink like a rock!
That would especially hurt the middle-class property owners in Chatham who have seen their homes jump to an average of $1 million in value.
The way to make housing more affordable is to stop imposing crazy ideas like Brookline’s outlawing of oil heating and the importation of thousands of indigent, unskilled, non-English-speaking illegal aliens who immediately go on welfare.
It is the left wing’s lunatic agenda that is causing prices to soar — from local green politics to Biden’s inflation that has caused mortgage interest rates to rise beyond the reach of people who actually have jobs and keep America running.
