Republicans win the Senate!! Gridlock baby!! #DestinationZeroBills

Zero bills? Congress will have a flurry of bills come January. The thing is very few will become law, because they're likely to be things Obama would never sign.

Is that gridlock? Looks more like the executive and legislature each exercising their legitimate powers to me.

Great elections, hurrah for America.

Why abgemacht is getting flaked for his stance on ballot question 2 and not on ballot question 1 is beyond me.

Laws, w/e, no need for pedantism. I like the gridlock, voted for it. I'm happy for tonight.

I guess there has been some talk of inflation adjustment, but the real issue is that the Massachusetts gas tax funds the Commonwealth's transportation infrastructure, which is currently falling apart.

Gridlock would be a good thing... except we've passed the point where the congress is relevant. When El Presidente can unilaterally declare war, terrorize and incapacitate political dissidents, and dronebomb people to death without review, the only election that matters is the one every four (or eight) years for "Commander In Chief". I cannot imagine a Republican-dominated Congress getting too out of line when they all know the list of interns and lobbyists they're fucking can be outed by the NSA/FBI in the media with 24 hours' notice (see: "Bob Livingston", among others).

@abgemacht: you usually come across as fairly smart and reasonable but your position is, no offense, incoherent garbage.

First, the vast majority of taxes (e.g., income tax, sales tax) are structured as a percentage of prices or wages so they are automatically indexed to inflation. It is only very rarely that a tax is defined as a fixed dollar figure and thus needs to be inflation adjusted. I think gas taxes are generally per gallon because gas prices are more volatile than prices for nearly everything else.

Second, taxes need to be adjusted for inflation because prices of the goods and services purchased with the tax revenues rise with inflation. In this case, if the tax isn't indexed, the government won't be able to pay for the infrastructure projects that the gas tax is intended to pay for.

Lastly, your point about the worth of the money printed by the government is incoherent gibberish. The government of Massachusetts doesn't print its own currency and has zero impact on monetary policy. Also, inflation isn't some sort of universal negative -- every central bank in the world aims for some moderate amount of inflation.

Frank: Great explanation! I didn't know how to respond to the inflation-linking fears. I just know first hand that Massachusetts road and bridge infrastructure is disgraceful.

Interesting footnote- Massachusetts now has an official third party with similar legal rights to the Democrats and Republicans. The United Independent Party candidate Evan Falchuk got the requisite 3% to make it official.

Remains to be seen what, if anything, meaningful they will do in the 2016 elections. If they get some decent funding and pick their battles wisely, they might be able to pick up a seat or two in the immensely Democratic legislature. Democrats currently hold 36 of 40 seats.

Overall I'm happy with how the Mass elections went. Markey for Senate, baker for Governor. I would have preferred to keep the gas tax indexed to inflation(effectively what indexing it to the Consumer Price Index does) but it's a very minor issue for me.

stupidfighter: You don't drive, I guess? If you did you'd realize how shitty Mass roads are.

Mass has nothing on MI roads! I Michigan, we have two seasons. Winter and road construction. True fact.

what about rainier
knocking off potato head(quinn)

KingCyrus: Yeah, well the whole country's infrastructure is falling to pieces.

Things cost more because their money is worth less and because prices have also risen


aaaaa

JECE, what are you talking about? I'm FOR the higher tax to maintain the roads. And anyway, the bill that passed isn't likely to have much effect, beacon hill can and should still raise the tax as appropriate to inflation. Forcing them to vote to do this is just a waste of lawmaker time.

Even if Republican Gov Baker vetoed the bill (he campaigned on a platform of no tax hikes) the legislature would likely get the super-majority to override the veto.

Yeah, I realize my argument the other day was a bit lazy; that really shouldn't surprise anyone though, as I'm too lazy to even deposit bottles to save the world. O_o

Let me clear up a few points. I'd like to preface by mentioning though that Mass has one of the most inefficient DOT in the country, even when you take into account our weather. I'm all for better roads, but just throwing more money at the commonwealth is stupid when they clearly aren't using the money they already have wisely.

I think an indexed tax is noticeably different than a % tax for two reasons. First, a % tax is, by definition, always a fix % of the total cost of the item. A watch will always have a 6.25% tax if it's $10 or $1000. If the price of the watch goes up due to inflation (or any other reason) then the state gets more money without 1) Changing the % of the tax to total cost, 2) Wasting time and money deciding how much to raise indexed taxes every n years, and 3) tying the tax to the CPI, which has several flaws and is not always related to what consumers are experiencing. The second reason is that while there is no max cap, there is a min cap, which just seems unfair. I realize that deflation to that extreme is unlikely, but if the point is to prevent the commonwealth from losing income due to inflation, then why are they sneaking in a provision to make *more* money due to deflation?

It terms of printing money, that was a very poorly constructed slippery slope argument that I probably shouldn't have even brought up. My point was that the government prints money, controls the CPI, and has the power to levy taxes. That seems like a recipe for abuse. But, I'll grant that is a bit extreme and probably not worth defending.

"Things cost more because their money is worth less and because prices have also risen'

Yeah, I'm not sure how I constructed this train wreck of a sentence. The point I was trying to make is this. If you make x dollars to buy y items with a indexed tax of z, you have x dollars to pay for (1+z)y dollars worth of stuff. Y is most likely to increase first due to inflation a, followed closely by z, so you are now paying (1+az)ay dollars with the same x dollars. If you're very lucky, x may also increase, but as we've seen with things like stagnated minimum wages, that's often not the case, especially for low-end wages.

Anywho, while I'm still many of you don't agree with me, hopefully I'll have least proposed an argument that can now be parsed.

"Things cost more because their money is worth less and because prices have also risen'

This happens to be a true statement. As the value of the U.S. dollar declined against most foreign currencies, because of the interest rate policy in this country after the economic downturn. This inflated the inherent cost of everything bought in dollars. Printing money had the devaluing effect, but not as must as you think. Money supply did not grow that much. The printed dollars never made it to the pubic, only banks. Now that Japan and the euro zone are adding quantitative easing in their respective countries, the dollar has strengthened exponentially.

@abgemacht: your math is wrong since the tax is cents per gallon not a percentage. So you're not paying (1 + az)ay, you're just paying az + ay which is a(z+y) which is what you should be paying given inflation of a. Obviously a % based tax wouldn't need to be indexed. I'm sorry but your argument still makes no sense. :(

I agree with you that wages are unfortunately sticky -- they should also be indexed to inflation more often. And ok the CPI may not be perfect but its a good proxy and def better than not indexing.

The larger point (and one where we might agree) is that per gallon fuel taxes aren't an ideal way to fund infrastructure because revenue will decline as fuel economy improves. We should find some way to tax mileage (maybe through tire or axel taxes? Vehicle registrations? GPS technology). Also I think gas taxes are probably regressive since lower income people likely spend a larger share of their income on fuel.

"The larger point (and one where we might agree) is that per gallon fuel taxes aren't an ideal way to fund infrastructure because revenue will decline as fuel economy improves. We should find some way to tax mileage (maybe through tire or axel taxes? Vehicle registrations? GPS technology). Also I think gas taxes are probably regressive since lower income people likely spend a larger share of their income on fuel."

Yes on this we agree.

The problem with that last point is that fuel taxes aren't designed purely to fund infrastructure - they also exist as a disincentive to using fuel, for environmental reasons.

Not at all. They're sold as disincentives to use fuel so politicians can prove their environmental bona fides with voters who think that's important. If the government REALLY wanted to discourage fuel use the taxes would be much higher, but that would make consumer goods much, much more expensive since most products are shipped around on trucks.

The taxes should be much higher, but aren't because politics is largely corrupt at this point, and the oil industry is one of the biggest influences in this.

Politicians being averse to raising the prices of all consumer goods isn't necessarily a product of corruption. It's a product of democracy. You jack up gasoline taxes so much that it's actually a disincentive to drive and suddenly everything from baby formula to dry wall is much more expensive. Try running against those ads next election.

Taxes should be much higher? lol What sheer idiocy...demonstration of an absolute lack of understanding of economics.

Fuel taxes should not be much higher; but they should be a *little* higher, to fund infrastructure, so I hope that does happen. They could be indexed both to inflation and to average mpg of 15-year-old cars, say.

No, taxes should be higher or lower depending on the particular needs of your state to fund infrastructure goals. The blanket statement "taxes need to be higher" is absurd.

I can make the argument that my taxes on fuel should be lower AND my infrastructure should be improved....because we spend plenty on infrastructure...it's just the the Union-run shitbag road construction crews do a piss-fucking-poor job of building roads.

Hold the fuckers that build my roads **ACCOUNTABLE** to have to rebuild the roads when they fall apart after 2 years and you can lower taxes AND get better roads, because the shitbags behind the orange cones with a shovel in one hand and a smoke in the other might actually do (actual) better work.