At a legislative hearing today before the Special Committee on Initiative Petitions, Pioneer Institute Executive Director Jim Stergios testified on the urgency of addressing Massachusetts’ affordability crisis, slowing job growth, and continued loss of investment, and why a gradual reduction in the personal income tax would help reverse those trends. You can find a link to his testimony below, along with a link to the accompanying visuals here.
Stergios testified as head of the institute, which has published extensive research showing that the Commonwealth’s worsening tax and affordability climate is putting growing pressure on families and businesses. The Institute released this statement after the hearing.
Massachusetts is unaffordable, and there are too few job opportunities. It’s no wonder so many people—especially the young—are leaving for other states, taking their skills and wealth with them. People need help now—and so do our homegrown small businesses so they can stay open and have some breathing room to create jobs.
Big government proponents don’t get that their policy choices have created this mess. So they are scaremongering—calling an annual incremental tax cut of 0.33 percent implemented over three years radical.
It isn’t.
The scaremongers say the government can’t handle it.
It can.
Over the last decade, 26 states have lowered taxes—and they are taking our talent and businesses. Massachusetts has done the opposite—raising taxes and failing to take action to lower electricity, healthcare, and housing costs.
Over the last 15 years, Massachusetts government spending has grown twice as fast as the growth in Massachusetts taxpayers’ earnings. Bay State residents have tightened their belts, and now the state needs to do same. Consider last year’s supplemental budgets: They alone amount to 10 times the cost of implementing the tax cut proposal in 2027.
Massachusetts residents need a break—and this tax cut would immediately return money to their pockets, grow jobs, and support our small businesses. It would put the state on a more sustainable long-term path.
The Legislature shouldn’t wait for November—it should vote to put money in people’s pockets and grow jobs right now.
