Word: budgets
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Despite the increases, which come as part of the state's $27 billion budget and will be effective Aug. 1, Massachusetts' sales tax is still relatively low compared to that in other states. Massachusetts first implemented a sales tax of 3 percent in 1966 and raised it to 5 percent in 1976, where it has remained since. Various essential goods, including clothing that costs less than $175 and unprepared food products, are exempt from sales...
...approved budget will also raise the state's meal tax from 5 to 6.25 percent, and will allow local communities to raise the tax to 7 percent and keep the extra revenue. A 5 percent gross receipts tax will also be exacted on satellite TV providers' receipts from subscriptions, and local hotel taxes will increase by 2 percent. Sales tax will now also apply to alcohol purchased from retail stores, which had previously been exempt...
...Patrick's signing of the budget followed approval by both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, which had disagreed with Patrick over the appropriate response to the state's fiscal crisis. Patrick had originally proposed taxing candy, soda, and gasoline, but eventually went along with the legislature's plan for a sales tax increase after lawmakers agreed to overhaul the state's ethics, pensions, and transportation laws...
...Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota noted in an interview that passing health-care reform under the reconciliation rule poses as many problems as it solves for the Democrats and for health reform. Any bill that passes under the reconciliation process must be deemed by the Congressional Budget Office to pay for itself in the next six years. (By comparison, a bill that passes under regular procedures has an 11-year window.) As a result of that tighter fiscal constraint, Conrad said, any bill that passes under reconciliation would likely provide "dramatically less health reform...
...There's been a lot of adverse publicity and the drumbeat of allegations," says Gregg Erickson, who watches Juneau politics as editor-at-large of the Alaska Budget Report. "She rises to the bait every time...