Around town on Sunday, November 29th

At 50th anniversary of Garrison House Association in Chelmsford with Selectman Pat Wojtas and Janet Askenburg.

Photo courtesy of Tom Christiano.

Christmas shopping 2009: “The New Hampshire malls have definitely benefited from the sales tax increase in Massachusetts..."

Saturday's Boston Globe carried a concerning - but not unexpected - piece of news: Massachusetts residents are doing a lot of their Christmas shopping in New Hampshire this year.

One Mass resident quoted by the Globe made the reason for this phenomenon pretty clear: "Taxachusetts is getting to be a bit overbearing and intrusive toward my wallet... I just went up there [to New Hampshire] to buy a pair of running shoes last week because I just wasn’t willing to pay the taxes.’’

Gone unsaid, of course, is the fact that New Hampshire's gain is Massachusetts' loss - in business, in consumer spending, in revenue, in jobs and in taxpayers' confidence.

Our elected officials in Boston should revisit their stunningly unwise decision to raise the state sales tax by 25 percent.

The Globe article is available here: Shoppers head north for deals.

Around town on Sunday, November 22nd

At the Java Room in Chelmsford on Sunday 11/22 with Maxine Vaitses, Chair of the Chelmsford Republican Town Committee, and State Senator Scott Brown, candidate for US Senate.

New campaign site is up!

Let us know what you think - DahlbergforSenate.com.

A top campaign priority: improving the business climate

I'm proud to report that my State Senate campaign issued this press release earlier today:

DAHLBERG CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCES AMBITIOUS BUSINESS OUTREACH INITIATIVE
State Senate candidate to conduct weekly meetings with business owners across 3rd Middlesex District

Chelmsford, Mass – November 16, 2009 – State Senate candidate Eric Dahlberg today announced that he has committed to conducting weekly meetings with business owners across the Third Middlesex District between now and Election Day in November 2010.

"Improving the business climate will be one of my top priorities in the State Senate. I need the input of the experts - local business owners - to get it done," said Dahlberg. "I want to hear from all different kinds of businesses - large and small, multinational and mom-and-pop - about what our state government needs to be doing better to help businesses stay, grow and thrive in the nine communities of the Third Middlesex District."

Dahlberg's first such meeting will take place later this week with Candy Liu, owner of the Java Room in Chelmsford, a local coffee shop. "I applaud Eric for taking the initiative to reach out to area business owners to learn firsthand what's on our minds,” said Liu. “When he is in the State Senate, I know we can count on him to continue working for our community."

Dahlberg has made improving the business climate a priority during his time on the Chelmsford Board of Selectmen. He and a colleague partnered with the local business community to develop and launch the Greener Chelmsford Initiative (GCI), a successful town-wide effort to encourage organizations to go green. He also spearheaded an effort to formally recognize four Chelmsford businesses that were named to the Boston Globe's Globe 100 list earlier this year.

Additional information can be found at http://www.DahlbergforSenate.com. Content will be added to the site as the campaign progresses.

Losing our economic edge... to Michigan!?

A recent Boston Globe article highlights the cut-throat competition in which states are engaging to attract new green-tech businesses. No surprises here - states, like cities and towns, want to see job-growing, revenue-generating firms open up shop inside their borders.

What's alarming is that Massachusetts-based businesses aren't being targeted by the usual suspects - California, North Carolina, New Jersey, etc - but by Michigan, a severely economically-depressed state that I wouldn't have imagined could come close to matching what Massachusetts has to offer.

It seems Michigan's leaders have seen the writing on the wall and are offering businesses extremely generous incentives and tax breaks to relocate there. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is quoted in the Globe article as saying that she's doing “what you’ve got to do’’ in order to close the deals her state so desperately needs.

The Globe article paints a stark picture:
Michigan is emerging as one of Massachusetts’ fiercest competitors in the race to become a hub for clean technology companies. And Massachusetts, despite being the birthplace of many of these technologies and the companies they spawn, is losing ground to Michigan’s money and determination.

Our elected leaders on Beacon Hill must improve the climate for business here in Massachusetts, or we'll continue to lose out to other states. For starters, we need to reform our ridiculously expensive unemployment insurance system and repeal the recently imposed sales tax increase. We shouldn't be giving Massachusetts-based businesses a reason to pack up and move to Michigan... or any other state.

Globe article is available here: Michigan luring Bay State business.

Saturday, November 7th: Grand Opening of the Chelmsford Center for the Arts

Awesome Fall day for the ribbon-cutting and grand opening celebration for the Chelmsford Center for the Arts yesterday! Thanks to everyone involved. Photos courtesy of Tom Christiano.

Phenomenal op-ed in today's Globe: The bizarrely out-of-whack priorities (and light schedule) of our Legislature

Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei tells it like it is in an op-ed in today's Boston Globe.

The residents and businesses of Massachusetts face economic challenges of historic proportions, but the folks running the show on Beacon Hill are focused on things like designating the Fluffernutter as the official state sandwich and raising dog licensing fees.

I like a good Fluffernutter as much as any native son of the Bay State, but Senator Tisei is 100 percent dead-on. His op-ed lays out a few of the matters that the Legislature should be spending time on:

If we’re really serious about getting state spending under control, then we need to implement an immediate hiring and pay freeze, just like many private employers have been forced to do. We also need to consider moving the state’s Medicaid recipients into managed care plans to rein in health care costs, which make up a significant portion of the budget. And while we are at it, we should repeal the anti-privatization Pacheco law, which costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Good stuff. Of course, the Legislature can't tackle these important priorities if it keeps such a notoriously "fluffy" work schedule. During the week of September 7-11, the Senate was in session for a grand total of 25 minutes. The House was in session for a grand total of 51 minutes - regular workaholics by comparison.

Senator Tisei's op-ed is here: Lawmakers, don’t focus on fluff.

Information on House and Senate session calendar for the week of September 7-11 is available in the Concord Journal here: Beacon Hill Roll Call, Sept. 17 edition.

Beacon Hill: Out of Touch on business

The lead story in today's Boston Globe is a little wordy, but the message is clear: a movement is afoot on Beacon Hill to force already-struggling Massachusetts businesses to fork over yet more money in taxes.

Here's what's happening: the state "tightened up corporate tax laws" last year, which effectively resulted in a tax increase for businesses. In an effort to make the increase more palatable, a tax deduction provision was included in the measure.

The problem, as some see it, is that the deduction will save businesses an estimated $76.4 million annually when it is fully implemented in 2012. Some of the folks on Beacon Hill have decided that these savings are too generous and would like to "revisit" the deduction provision.

Let's be clear: removing the deduction would represent yet another tax increase for Massachusetts firms - a stunningly unwise move for a state that is hemorrhaging people, jobs, money and businesses.

The Globe article is available here: Business tax deal may cost $535m.

State revenue numbers for September: "That's a big twinkie"

An article in today's Boston Globe relays the grim news that state revenue for the month of September fell $243 million below expectations, despite all the tax increases that were imposed on us earlier this year.

According to the article:
Governor Deval Patrick announced yesterday that the state’s September revenues came in $243 million below expectations, a shortfall that is worse than initial projections and could trigger hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts and layoffs.

What makes this news even worse is that the Administration has announced that additional mid-year cuts to local aid are "on the table" as a potential solution to the budget crisis.

Once again, the folks on Beacon Hill are attempting to handle the crisis the only way they seem to know how: by sticking it to already-struggling businesses and families - with ever-higher taxes - and to already-struggling cities and towns - with more local aid cuts.

Why not take advantage of this historic crisis to implement some serious, long-term reforms?
- Give cities and towns unilateral control over health insurance plan design, as is enjoyed by the state itself.
- Repeal the "Pacheco law" so the state can outsource more efficiently.
- Incentivize cities and towns to regionalize so we can achieve economies of scale in the delivery of essential services here at the local level.

If not now, when?

The Globe article is here: Revenue in last month declines.

Note: quote and photo above are from Ghostbusters.