Green-Rainbow 2006 gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross joins abortion clinic action last summer [photo: annie butler]

Governor Duval Patrick is putting together his first budget for the Legislature. His plans to generate revenue are not more progressive than Romney’s; in fact, some of us see them as more regressive. Tell him you think the Republican tradition of balancing the budget on the backs of working class and—more and more these days, middle income—folks is unacceptable. Don’t give him a pass just because he is a Democrat.

It’s not like we don’t live in the third highest income state in the richest country in the world. Obviously there is money here but Patrick has to stop turning a blind eye and give the moral call for everyone to contribute.

Folks on the bottom already pay the most in taxes out of their income—largely because of sales taxes, and because they spend all their money. Reputable sources show that those in the bottom 20 percent actually pay out more in living expenses every year than they bring. Their deficit continues to grow—impacting housing, heat, food and healthcare—no matter what they do.

In contrast there is plenty of money in other places—the higher the places, the more money and the less taxes per dollar that monied interests pay. Romney put forward a number of initiatives to close tax loopholes on corporations. Patrick just came out saying he might also propose some of those—not even all of them. This, even though those tax breaks hurt small businesses that try to compete. He did come up with one corporate loophole to close, the telecommunications companies’ exemption from local property taxes. On the other hand is ignoring the huge sums lost in siting deals for huge corporations and developers and has not even addressed combined reporting which is used in some other states.

Candidate Patrick promised property tax relief, as well as numerous critical new expenditures. After coming into office he quickly took property tax relief off the table and has told anyone who would listen not to expect him to fulfill most of his promises of new programs because of the tight budget.

On the other hand he has proposed regressive fees and taxes that Romney never did. The lower income you are, the harder sales taxes hit you. Most of the services used primarily by higher-income individuals are exempted from sales taxes. The more local the level of government levying a tax, the more regressive it is generally as well. Governor Patrick has said he will authorize more sales taxes and only at the municipal level—the most regressive combination.

He has proposed increasing fees on those convicted of crimes. The average income of someone convicted of a crime is 11,000 a year. He has said he opposes local school related fees like school bus fees but he has proposed no new revenue stream for local aid or public school budgets from the State.

This society is supposed to belong to all of us. And all of us, especially those in supposed economic and political leadership, should contribute. Doing what Patrick said about providing property tax relief would allow him to raise income taxes on higher income individuals while still protecting most of us who keep losing spending power and are shouldering more and more of the tax burden.

Tell Governor Patrick to stop looking at increasing regressive fees and taxes—local meals taxes and fees on those who are already being punished in our criminal justice system. He should at least try to do more than Mitt Romney.

The social programs he talked about during the campaign season still matter, and he has to shift the tax burden if we are going to see any of those promises fulfilled.

The amount of hope Patrick tried to pump up in the people of Massachsuetts, makes the need for him to take bold leadership even more important. Tell him you consider bold leadership an obligation he created; now he needs to live up to it.