Help on Romney's History of Balancing Budgets

[Kregisen]

I'm talking to a few Romney supporters over the internet, and obviously they have no answer when I ask them to name just one thing Romney would cut as president, but one of them pasted this:


Balanced Budgets. Without raising taxes or increasing debt, Governor Romney closed a $3 billion budget deficit his first year in office with a heavily Democrat legislature. Each year, Governor Romney filed a balanced budget without raising taxes. By eliminating waste, streamlining government, and enacting comprehensive economic reforms to help spur growth, Governor Romney helped the state achieve a surplus totaling nearly $1 billion in 2005.

Lower Taxes. In the bluest of blue states, Governor Romney kept taxes down. Under his leadership, the state abolished a retroactive capital gains tax that would have forced nearly 50,000 taxpayers to pay additional taxes and fees.

Unemployment Lowered. When Governor Romney took office, Massachusetts was losing thousands of jobs every month. Today, the unemployment rate is averaging more than a full percentage point lower, and the state has added approximately 60,000 jobs in the last two years.



Does anyone here know anything about what he did to the budget as governor? Did he balance it? Did he increase taxes? Did he cut spending? Anyone from MA?

Keep in mind, Romney is STILL the frontrunner so questions like these need to be answered. Thanks. :)

[Nate G.]

@Kregisen I may be able help you :)

Yes, Romney did balance the budget each of the 4 years he was Governor, and yes he did it without raising taxes, and cutting quite a few taxes at the same time. When he left office there was a substantial "rainy-day" fund which the Dems depleted immediately upon Deval Patrick's inauguration.

How he balanced the budget it:
Vetoes - Mass has a line-item veto which gave Romney great ability to battle with the Dem congress on specific spending projects instead of entire bills. I believe he did over 700 spending vetoes while in office.
Close corporate tax loopholes - through lobbyists corporations were able to build a number of loopholes into tax code in order to avoid paying a fair tax rate. Romney's administration identified these and worked with the legislature to shut them down.
Fees - Yes Romney did raise certain fees during his administration which many equate to a tax raise, though there are important distinctions. Fees are pay-per-use charges. Many fees in Massachusetts were well below the national average for the respective services provided. Most of these were brought up to normal level. This does two things: 1- it requires the person actually receiving a service responsible for paying for it rather than the government - or rather the tax payers. 2- It saves government money as the consumers of non-essential services become more wary of cost as the service is no long "next to free" and begin to use them less. Example: marriage licenses were raised from $10 to $40. The $40 dollars is much closer to the actual cost the government accrues to supply and process the marriage application, at $10 they are surely losing money.
Good ole spending cuts - Romney administration identified and eliminated numerous "agencies" and organization that were either ineffective, unnecessary, inefficient, or redundant.

In the end (of Romney's term) there were 600 less people on the state government payroll than when he started. Romney also did away with much of the extravagance that is typical of politician: ie parties, expensive transport etc.

When Romney became CEO of the Olympics he did the same. Previously when they had general board meeting they were very lavish and expensively catered. He changed those parties to pizza and coffee only, and you had to pay $1 per slice of pizza. He understood that though the costs of these lavish parties were almost insignificant to the millions in red ink the Olympics currently carried, this type of behavior would set a tone and understanding with the masses that they were going to run a leaner, tighter ship and that this type of frugality was expected at all levels. He did this for himself too to set the example. No more private jets or 5-star hotels for Olympic executives.

As for what would Romney cut if he were president... that list is so long that he could not even list it. Romney has said he would start with a top to bottom audit of government to get a sense of what and where could be cut. He has said would push to get the US Gov to publish and annual balance sheet, which would help people understand just how vast our financial liabilities are, and that hopefully that could spur lawmakers to make necessary cuts to spending to rectify the budget crises.

Here are recent words from an op-ed he wrote called "Obama must slay the job-killing Beast":


....
To tame runaway government spending, the president should of course embrace the usual measures: freeze government employment; freeze growth in discretionary spending; veto every spending bill chocked with earmarks; work to regain an effective line-item veto; extinguish ineffective, wasteful programs. But these are just the start.

If the president is to become serious about spending, borrowing and deficits, he must subject government to the two budgeting rules employed by every well-run business and home.

Rule One: Start with the total, don’t end up with it. Decide from the outset the amount that the government will spend for the year. Don’t add up all the program requirements, departmental requests and political wish lists to calculate the total – that’s surrendering, not budgeting. The nation’s 50-year average annual tax burden has been 18 percent of GDP. That’s the right figure for total spending; it may take several years to rein in spending to that level, but it should be the target.

Rule Two: Go where the money is. With entitlement spending about half of all federal spending, the president has no choice but to address Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He should propose less costly progressive indexing for future Social Security beneficiaries – using the consumer price index inflator rather than the wage index for higher-income retirees. Medicaid should be granted in block to the states, giving them flexibility to meet the needs of poor residents in their own ways. Medicare will require reform of health care, making it more like a consumer market and less like a regulated utility. Medicare recipients should also be given better options for private coverage. Regardless of the reforms chosen, the entitlements budget should be subject to Rule One – set a total first and conform the programs to that level. Advocates of this course include the Brookings Institution on the left and the Heritage Foundation on the right.
....



I hope that answers some of your questions. It's late and I have not proof read my post - so I apologize in advance for the many grammatical errors.

[Kregisen]

That's a very vague stance on cutting spending Nate. How much is he gonna cut SS, medicare/medicaid by?

Every politician says they have to "address" these things, but when that's all they say and they get elected, they won't touch it because they never said they'd cut any of it.

He also won't touch any of Obama's foreign policy (a trillion a year)....when our country has annual deficits of $1.5 trillion, you HAVE to cut some of the foreign policy.

What things has he specificially said he would cut?

[Elwar]

http://www.massbudget.org

(Romney elected Nov. 2002)

Budget in
FY 03: $24,302,566
FY 04: $26,058,370
FY 05: $26,707,246
FY 06: $28,052,353

Total rise in spending under Romney: 13.4%

Health Care as % of budget in FY 03 (pre RomneyCare): 35%
Health Care as % of budget in FY 10 (post RomneyCare): 41%

[Elwar]

As for what would Romney cut if he were president... that list is so long that he could not even list it.

Perhaps he should consult with the lawyers on that one...

[Elwar]

Part of his budget also went toward locking up people for taking the medicine they need to survive.

YouTube - Gov. Mitt Romney meets a medical marijuana patient--Oct. 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY6UTnS6Z-A)

[Kregisen]

http://www.massbudget.org

(Romney elected Nov. 2002)

Budget in
FY 03: $24,302,566
FY 04: $26,058,370
FY 05: $26,707,246
FY 06: $28,052,353

Total rise in spending under Romney: 13.4%

Health Care as % of budget in FY 03 (pre RomneyCare): 35%
Health Care as % of budget in FY 10 (post RomneyCare): 41%

What files on the site did you find those in? I'm searching and can't find those.

[Elwar]

What files on the site did you find those in? I'm searching and can't find those.

Sorry so late...
http://browser.massbudget.org/

Compare past budgets...check "No inflation adjustment"

Now shown at http://romney.politileaks.com