Sales Tax

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted strongly Tuesday in favor of an increase in the MA sales tax to 6.25%.  The House voted 108-51 in favor of the increase, a veto-proof 2/3 majority.  After Governor Patrick threatened to veto any increase in sales tax Tuesday afternoon, the House didn't vote until Speaker DeLeo was confident the ayes would have it by a 2/3 majority.  The increase would raise about $900 million for the state over the course of a year.  

Read the whole story from Boston.com

Testifying to the Legislature

One Massachusetts and then Blue Mass Group blogged about our testimony.  In case anyone was curious.  And the comments on the Blue Mass Group post are interesting.  Most people think what we're doing is awesome.  One person says "It always amazes me how quickly those that pay no taxes (kids) embrace the idea of the rest of us paying more".  Even though, of course, we would pay a meals tax.  And no Boston residents would pay the hotels tax.  And we could be paying the parking excise tax if we didn't use the T, which adults can use as well.  

Student Union

So, Jenny Sazama thought that it might be a good idea if we headed the formation of the student union because we're student run and we're not affiliated with anyone else, but we have to remember that the BSAC kids have spent a long time working on this.  She also hadn't consulted them yet when she suggested that to us and they won't necessarily want us to take their project over.  

Also, I talked later to Wilne from BSAC and Tatiana from SL (Sociadad Latina) and Wilne said that there is an organization called BFF (not best friends forever, but Wilne wasn't sure what it stands for) and they are working on the student union.  He said people from all the different organizations of the coalition were part of that except us, so we should look into that.  

Meeeeetingggggs

Hi everyone!

So today I skipped school to go to a budget hearing before the state legislature. Unfortunately, I was unable to testify, but a few coalition members did in support of local options taxes. Hopefully, the revenue committee (the guys we testified to) will vote out favorably on the bill that would allow the legislature to vote for us to raise our local options here in boston.

Also, Jenny Sazama from BSAC has decided that we should head their student union campaign. I'd like to get everyone's input on whether or not we think bsac should be involved or on what level, because of jenny's (an adult's) close work with them.

Finally, I had an idea for an action. We could get students to boycott restaurants that don't support the meals tax and have a day where we all go out to eat at the restaurants that do support it! It'd be a nice way to get ourselves out there and support the businesses that are pro-meals tax. what do you think?