While I love that they’re investing in rail travel, it would be so much better to make a separate national high speed rail service that competes with amtrak. Thier investors can inject their own billions.
Building an entirely new rail high speed rail network would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, with a construction time measured in decades and a repayment time of a century, if ever, because passenger rail is very low margin.
In our modern economy where quarterly results are the only thing that matter there is no company that will make that investment.
Yes, when you're a communist government and don't have to pay people for rights-of-way and don't need to worry about profit and don't need to worry about where the money is coming from you can do things very quickly.
I think it should be fully publicly owned, but OP said investors should get together to compete with Amtrak, and those investors ostensibly want repaid.
No, I meant amtrak can invest in itself. Taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to enrich corporations. Unless we’re buying shares and getting some control, perhaps.
Rail is something that works well when organized at government level, not by private entity.
Whether the privatization of the rail exploitation is beneficial or not is subject to debate but privatization of the rail construction and maintenance as been a disaster for the UK and I don’t know any other country who attempted to do that.
Founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to operate many U.S. passenger rail routes, Amtrak receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization.
Not disagreeing, but I want to add more context. High prices do not necessarily mean Amtrak is being greedy. As a quasi-public entity they are forced to keep open unprofitable routes and pass that cost on to the consumer. Over a third of their revenue comes from the Northeast Corridor alone, despite those railways being private and charging Amtrak rent to use them. They are stuck in a lose-lose situation unless something changes via government intervention.
Personally, one of my dream vacations is to take an Amtrak sleeper car across the nation. I just don’t see how that is remotely justifiable given the current prices.
the people of Boston realize that the politicians have completely fleeced us right? has there been any city works project that hasn’t been an absolute failure that the people of Boston aren’t still suffering from? they keep building things that fail immediately…
Child and Family Tax Credit – Eliminates two-dependent cap and increases credit from $180 per dependent child, disabled adult, or senior to $310 for 2023 and to $440 on a permanent basis, starting in 2024. An estimated 565,000 families will benefit, and this will be the most generous universal child and dependent tax credit in the county.
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – increases credit from 30% to 40% of the federal credit
Estate Tax – increases threshold from $1 million to $2 million with a credit that mitigates cliff effect
Short-Term Capital Gains – reduces rate from 12% to 8.5%Rental Deduction – increases cap from $3,000 to $4,000
Senior Circuit Breaker Tax Credit – doubles credit, indexed to inflation, which equates to an increase from $1,200 to $2,400
Single Sales Factor – shifts from three-factor apportionment system based on business’s share of sales, payroll, and property to apportionment based solely on sales
Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) – increases annual program cap from $40 million to $60 million
Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP) – increases annual program cap from $10 million to $57 million in 2023, and thereafter to $30 million annually
Student Loan Repayment Assistance – exempts employer assistance for student loan repayment from taxable income
Dairy Tax Credit – increases annual program cap from $6 million to $8 million
Cider Tax Rate – applies lower tax rates to a broadened class of beverages
Lead Paint Abatement Credit – doubles credit to $3,000 for full abatement and $1,000 for partial abatement
Title V (Septic) Tax Credit – triples maximum credit to $18,000, increases percentage of eligible expenses from 40% to 60%; and allows taxpayers to claim up to $4,000 in any year, versus $1,500 in current law
Deductible Commuter Transit Benefits – adds public transit fares, RTA fares and bicycle expenses to deductible commuter expenses
Municipal Affordable Housing Property Tax Exemption – permits municipalities to adopt local property tax exemption for affordable real estate
Property Tax Liability Reduction for Senior Volunteer Services – permits municipalities to increase the maximum property tax abatement available to seniors who perform volunteer services from $1,500 to $2,000
Stabilization Fund Cap – increases the cap on Stabilization Fund deposit from 15% to 25.5% of budgeted revenues
Really welcoming community here Boston. Downvote to oblivion two of the three commenters on this thread. How the heck is this space less friendly than the comments section on the Globe’s web site?
You didn’t serious just call Healey conservative did you? LOL!
The “lowered” capital gains tax is still higher than most states. That very much proves she’s not a conservative. People like you are hilarious. Rather than blaming people for doing EXACTLY what you knew they’d do, you blame people who are sucessful.
You’d rather have tons of discounts and write offs rather than not being over taxed in the first place, hilarious.
I wish people didn’t downvote because it looks like I downvoted you, which I didn’t.
Anyway, I most certainly did call her a conservative.
Going out of her way to push for lower taxes that no one is calling for, which overwhelmingly benefits the very wealthy is absolutely a conservative move. This spits in the face of voters who less than a year ago voted to increase taxes on these same people. The media drummed up her support for the millionaire’s tax while completely downplaying her support of lowering other rich people’s taxes. They let her always talk about the renter and child dependent deduction and gave no push back to the money gift wrapped to people who overwhelmingly wouldn’t even know it’s gone. Your bar for “success” isn’t too high.
And a tax that she lowered still being higher than “most states” doesn’t mean she isn’t conservative. This is like saying Alabama can’t be anti-abortion since they don’t have an outright abortion ban like Texas does because they allow for abortion if the mother’s physical health is at great risk. Whereas most reasonable people would say both of these are anti-abortion states.
You’d rather have tons of discounts and write offs rather than not being over taxed in the first place, hilarious.
You’re saying this will cost Massachusetts very little or nothing?
Also, Massachusetts isn’t overtaxed. We provide much better services to a wider range of people at more efficient costs than most other states.
So rich people get their capital gains tax cut and estate tax cut and seniors (also a wealthy demographic) get increased circuit breaker tax credits. Poor people get higher renters tax credits. People with kids get more credits. Commuters on public transit get to write off more of their bills. And the rest of us who don’t have kids, have no public transit to our jobs, and have a mortgage get nothing.
Remember when the renter’s tax deduction was justified by there being a large deduction in federal taxes by homeowners? After Trump, I don’t get that write off anymore and neither do most middle class people. But the renters still get theirs. We just keep getting screwed.
This was a frustrating article to read. It didn’t give me any policy information about the old/new candidates and spent the whole time talking about how the two losers lost because of scandals and discontent by voters with the city council. I basically have no idea if the headline is true or not because I didn’t get any info to tell me otherwise.
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