BOSTON-Advocates and workers across the Cape called upon leaders on Beacon Hill to invest more funding into public services during a recent virtual meeting with Raise Up Massachusetts.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, reopening plans progress, and leaders in Boston finalize state fiscal budgets, members of the meeting stressed to officials that there are still plenty of workers and public industries that are struggling. Cuts in the state budget, they added, would make a proper economic recovery even more difficult.
Senator Julian Cyr was notably in attendance to hear these thoughts.
Meghan Frazier, a registered nurse and member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, gave a glimpse into how busy medical workers have been in recent months. With less help from the state, she believes that the future could be worrisome.
“The COVID numbers are going back up, there’s a second wave coming,” Frazier said, “and I shutter to think what that’s going to look like for us at Cape Cod Healthcare.”
Raise Up has brought up increasing corporate profit tax rates as a way to help bolster public services in need. Senate District Organizer for the Massachusetts Teachers Organization Marilyn Bemis believes that this strategy is far more preferable compared to state budget cuts.
“It’s time to get creative and time to support progressive revenues,” Bemis said.
Bemis believes that tax rates for big businesses should return to 2009 levels. Raise Up has also called for increasing the tax rate on global intangible low taxed income along with lifting the tax rate on unearned income. The organization claims that hundreds of millions of dollars annually can be brought into the state budget by adopting these measures.
About Brendan Fitzpatrick
