The number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. shrank 8 percent to 11.1 million in 2009 from a peak of 12 million in 2007.The 33 miners trapped underneath a Chilean mountain are safe. The most challenging task now is making sure the miners don’t lose their sanity as they await rescue.From Baltimore to Lancaster avenues and along Market Street in between, University City is abuzz from the arrivals of college students and professors back after summer vacation.If you are what you eat, then most Cape Codders would be a clam — or maybe a lobster roll A land named for a type of fish should abound with chances to sample tasty seafood, and Cape Cod does not disappointPositive reviews of Wye Oak’s first two albums group the Baltimore duo into indie-rock subgenres with compounds like dream-pop, shoe-gaze and psych-folkWhile you can certainly find a decent number of micro-brews on tap at the city’s better pubs, it’s safe to say you won’t see a selection like this anywhere else when the Massachusetts Brewers Guild holds the Mass Brewers Summerfest on Friday. The festival brings 80 local craft beers from more than 20 breweries all together in one place.Coming fresh off of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion (did you all catch that horror show? One word: cray-cray) is the announcement that Bravo is set to release yet another Real Housewives franchise, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” next month.Even though it need not be said, it bears repeating: The preseason means nothing. It reveals nothing. And it is a predictor of absolutely nothing.With the fourth and final preseason game just days away, NFL teams were forced to reduce their rosters to 75 men yesterday.
Anatoly Kleyman of Newton : Would you support graduated (or another form of more progressive) income tax for Massachusetts?
Definitely, our current tax system is very unfair and it forces middle income and working families to pay at twice the rate of millionaires and that is a big problem and one of the reasons why we have painfully high taxes for everyday people and still can’t manage to fund our schools and invest in jobs and public transportation and the other things we really need.
Over the last several years Beacon Hill has been raising all kinds of unfair taxes and fees and cut local aid, forcing property taxes to go up and strongly agree that that’s the wrong approach.
We need to root out the wasteful giveaways in budget and sweetheart deals that have built up over the years. That housecleaning will give us a smaller amount we have to raise through tax but the next thing we need to do is get to a graduated system.
It takes a constitutional amendment to intact a progressive income tax in Massachusetts and that takes a while. But we can get there through another means and that is we can dramatically increase every tax payers personal exemption from the current $4,400 up to $24,000. That would give ordinary tax payers much needed relief and protect them from changes in the income tax rate.
So we can balance the budget and obtain the money we need to fund critical services.
No I like the flat tax. I think it works better for our state. In fact I would propose that we lower it to 5 percent from 5.3 percent. I believe people should be able to keep more of their hard earned income.
First of all it’s against the constitution and second of all no. I think in some respect in practice we already have it. It’s a flat income tax but actually it’s a graduated income tax because there’s so many exemptions that many people on the lower level of the income scale don’t pay anything at all in Massachusetts or pay very small amounts.
But I think graduated income tax is a bad idea. I think the income tax should be a flat tax and we have exemptions for lower income workers and I think that works pretty well.
Yes. That requires a constitutional change that is many years off. Right now there are proposals to roll back different taxes but I think there’s a time and place to look at that. But that time and place is when revenues are stronger and right now we’re in a very challenging time and there are a lot of our citizens that rely on programs and services to get by to educate their kids.
I think the idea of getting to a thinner and more transparent tax system for individuals and businesses is right. I think that’s a journey over the next several years. But the idea of cutting the sales tax in half or the income tax is just not wise right now.
1. What is your position on paid sick days?
2. With the legislature controlled by Democrats, how is the governor anything more than a figurehead?
Metro’s gubernatorial series continues next week with a question on paid sick days.
E-mail your questions for the candidates, along with your name, location and phone number to justin.rice@metro.us to be considered.
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In the July MMMpod, Young Veins talk about breaking away from Panic! at the Disco, Keith Lockhart talks about Buckwheat Zydeco throwing the Boston Pops for a loop, Zooey Deschanel talks about how Roy Orbison inspired a She & Him song, Derek Miller of Sleigh Bells talks about how awesome Funkadelic is, and we talk about how awesome Jimmy Cliff is, who in turn talks about Sam Cooke and divine intervention. An explosive show for July! Oh yeah, and we also test your knowledge of America songs in the MMMPod medley.