Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: State Representative Tacky Jane of Quincy is joining us on this first day of July for a tacky talk. Hey, Tacky.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey Joe. Welcome to July 1st, everyone.
A nice and soupy day.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Certainly feels like summer all of a sudden. It's like somebody flipped a switch.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I know, I know. We got through our first real heat wave last week, which is actually unusually early in June.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Yes, for sure.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Definitely hope everyone they stay safe through the last week and even this past weekend get a little warm again, you know, remember, you know, stay hydrated, keep cool. Understand energy bills spike during air condition usage, but you know, be judicious about it and you know, try to enjoy the, you know, ocean or pool or whatever. You have to try to keep cool. And what's important in mind, folks, of two things. Don't leave your kids and pets in cars at all in this weather period.
Do not leave them in cars.
Take them with you. And then obviously what's now virus is back. So I'm aware it's really hot and it's tough to wear sleeves during the warm weather. But be aware in the evening get your mosquitoes spray out if you try to go for a walk in the cooling.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Ah, yes, all the joys of summertime here. And a good idea to check on your especially elderly neighbors, especially if they live alone.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't feel heat like my mom does. She doesn't feel much heat anymore. So it's, it's, everything's a cold day no matter how hard it is outside.
And it's, it's tough on folks on so many different levels. And just because you don't feel hot doesn't mean you're not sweating. You're just drying out a little slower than most other people. But you do, you know, you do, you know, put out sweat. It's just natural occurring if it's warm enough.
And of course the artwork told us last week, I mean there are a lot of people that, you know, do a lot of work out there in hot weather because they have to do it and we sometimes don't always appreciate the hard work those folks do.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's very true.
And the new month also brings the new fiscal year and looks like there's a budget that may be in place.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, the House and Senate voted on the Congress committee budget Yesterday on the 30th, sent to the governor's desk. So it's technically on time. The governor has 10 calendar days to sign or veto or line in, veto or amend the budget.
I know they, they didn't get Much of a preview. They were taking some guesswork based on the pre conference reports. Basically the two versions of House and Senate. And the governor will decide if she wants to reemphasize some of her priorities through the veto pen or line of veto pen or amendment pen. Allow multiple ways for government to respond to spending bills in the state and we'll see how it plays out. So by July 10th there will be a budget in place.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah. How come this year Techie it seemed to go quicker than past several years.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: It's harder to explain how conference committee works because they really explain how it works. They don't really tell us. All I know is that this degree of compromise, whether they have confidence in the fiscal numbers going in, if they have no confidence in the numbers, you know, they may take a little longer as they try to get a better projection on the June actuals, not the May actuals which can delay it into July if they don't have faith in the previous set of numbers and want to get another projection. Other issues that may come up is outside sections. People aren't aware they can sometimes put public policy in the state budget on what are called the outside sections and that can tie up between the branches regarding debatable certain public policy matters. And this year the budget had very thin, very thin amount of outside policy issues. It really is predominantly budgetary which should make it easier if they agree upon what the projections are.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah, so I mean a lot of them are pre prefixed costs we've talked about before. The biggest difference going in that I saw was the amount allocated to the T. So what did, what was the final agreement?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: I don't have it in front of me.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Okay.
As I recall the House version was significantly more than the Senate version.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah, the problem with the Senate is that unlike the House, the majority of senators do not live in MBTA districts.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: People tend to forget that. So US&T world care. Those outside don't. However, we did provide some money through the surplus monies from the millionaires tax already to try to cover some of the T costs which should provide some relief for the, for the T structure deficit and then we'll see about what we can do this year. And there's always perhaps opportunity if there's surplus funds which I'm not wicked confident as you can hear from my voice makes makes an appearance. For those who don't want know, the MBT actually has a very major structural deficit where the two biggest costs really are a capital debt which is always around 30% of the budget. And the other was electric, which starts around 18, 20, 22% of the budget, depending on the electric rates. And even though they are an aggregate, they buy everything in bulk at fixed rates. Competitive supply style.
You know, it's, it's still expensive to run the mbta, so.
So the T's fixed costs pretty much, you know, half. Half its budget. Not quite half, but it's close to half the budget. Some type of fixed cost. So that's part of what we refer to as a structure deficit.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah. One thing I did see that was approved was funding for fare free regional transportation on the regional transit agencies. So that's, that's codified now.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah. This is really not the level of service you guys are used to in the mbta. Right. You have a lot of buses, you have a lot of close distance buses, meaning that you can get from Walls and to Quincy center on a bus.
It seems far in the city, but it really isn't when you're in the, in the rural areas. In rural areas that's like a short walk. Mm. So unlike here, a lot of the regional transit, you know, in the more rural areas it makes more sense. It also doesn't run nearly as frequently. So what you used to hear, you know, throwing up every whatever times an hour, you know, my over there might be one time every several hours. Right. The regional free transit is actually a little easier when you don't have a very frequent usage. In terms of time. It doesn't mean the buses aren't full, it's just that the time span between RTA buses are or more far apart. But you have self funded ones, for example, you have Brock is a classic sample. Right. The city funds their regional transit, provide some support for them. I know I've seen an Acton regional shuttle bus type thing go around there. Not exactly a big bus at all. It's a small little bus, but works for a small community, I think. Springfield, I think also has its own resource transit which pays for a chunk of it, if I remember correctly.
So there's no shared cost in those communities. Unlike here in Quincy. The MBTA is a shared cost inside the MBTA district area.
So the, you know, Boston, you know, Cambridge, Quincy, Braintree, I mean it's a shared cost. So your t fair subsidize somebody else, you know, on the al wife line, for example, at a Boston and vice versa and also share the capital cost on the statewide system. I'm sorry, regional MBTA system. But if you're an rta, you know those buses that need capital improvement there's no cost sharing. It's. It's really up to the CN Little really talents to pay for it. And the state provides some subsidies.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Right, right, exactly. Yeah.
So what happens now?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Wait for the governor got 10 days away for the various vetoes and line of vetoes and members that she may bring down on us. I have no idea how it's going to play.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Well, what didn't make it into the budget? Tacky. That's still kind of in committee.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: You may have seen in the press, you know, the bar advocates, the lawyers provide legal services for folks that, you know, cannot afford legal services.
That's still an issue that's somewhat outstanding.
That's highly clear because I got like one email about it. But derf on details other than what I see in the paper. And normally we do hear from the bar advocates if there's a rate increase problem. They haven't seen a rate adjustment in a dozen or so years.
So as you can already see, you know, they're not taking new cases. I think in Suffolk north and Nantucket is what I'm here hearing right now and something that you address down the road. So the budget line item only addresses the cost of our advocates, but it doesn't address the individual hourly rate. Depending on the type of case they take. The more serious cases, the higher the rate.
But again, the rate hasn't been adjusted in over a dozen years. And we've been talking about inflation for a long time here. And when you're living on a fixed cost rate and we had five really brutal years of inflation, you can imagine what it does to the bottom line for a business.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a pay cut essentially.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, yeah. Because you're fixed number, you're running a little, little business or mid sized business as a law firm and you're getting a fixed rate on these, on these fire advocate cases.
And yeah, fast business has. It just keeps going up.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Yeah. About the broker fees that we've talked about here in the past, did that make it in.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, they adopted the version that the Senate did once as well as the governor, which actually came on my committee.
The language and what it does is essentially prohibits the landlord and the landlord's broker from charging a fee. That's the bottom line.
And you only have to pay a fee with your own contract broker if you so choose to get a broker.
So some people may want to get a broker and you know, they have to engage any contract to do that. It has to be an active contract. You can't just like spring a fee on someone.
So we'll follow New York and other states now on, you know, some no more surprise fees on the day of closing. How's that sound?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. Funny that we're talking about the budget right now. I just got a news alert that Vice President Vance has cast the tie breaking vote on President Trump's quote, big beautiful bill after a vote Arama. So it looks like it passed.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Down in the Senate they have a different process over there depending what branch you're in. And this was an open game situation and amendments. And you can debate amendments.
I don't know if the rules set it up. We can debate amendments. We're just slowing the thing down.
And the goal of the Republican Senate because I only have 53 votes, was to try to get a majority vote, not a super majority vote. Those who pay attention to Washington may remember that the U.S. senate has this bizarro rule that if certain things come up, they have to get 60 votes in order to break a filibuster.
Those of you that think filibuster standing in a room and talking forever is not a thing in the U.S. senate, they just announced a filibuster and then people need to come up 60 votes to override the filibuster. So there was a lot of procedural issues going on in the US Senate trying to bring it down to just majority vote, which JD Vance, not surprising. Vice President, as a president of the Senate had a cast a tiebreaker because this was very controversial as May everywhere. Not necessarily because again, I don't understand how you cut taxes and spend more money for the love of. I just don't understand how that works. It's, it's not, it's a very Republican thing. Of all things. They do this a lot down there.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: In D.C. well, it's called deficit spending.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And they, they are addicted to it. I mean they, people blame Democrats for this, but I mean common sense people, you cut your revenue increase and you spend more money. Duh. I mean this is the part I would never understand about the public on this particular matter. It's like, oh yeah, we're going to spend more money and cut taxes. That's like you're going to take a pay cut and spend more on a vacation. I mean, what are we as a collective unable to do basic math? I mean, this is what dealing with in D.C. especially of a Republican administration, which I find astounding.
But also more importantly, they're doing cost shifts. For example, they were drinking cost shift snap benefits we saw last Week, which the parliamentary wrote out, they rejiggered, for lack of a better term, their Medicaid.
That results in more cost shifting to the states if this goes through creating more requirements for folks that are more able bodied, huge quotation question marks what that means to be employed to qualify for Medicaid. Very much how we do unemployment, unemployment for what we used to call welfare. Right. For a cash benefit, but we basically call welfare benefits.
So you know, there's some stuff going on in the bill that will very likely, you know, affect low income, lower middle income folks. And if we hit an economic period where there's an increased number of unemployment, you know, it's going to affect middle income folks in particular first they become lower middle income.
And you might find yourself on that situation and it probably may. It's a little tricky this one whether that affects Obamacare because Obamacare is just an extension of Medicaid.
And not surprising senators from states that are no tax lower income states have a high adverse effect on Medicaid. They don't have things like a commonwealth connector.
So they're much more dependent on government health care. So that's why a lot of these senators have been balking. There's no guarantee this is going to survive still. They still have to do a reconciliation between the House versions, right?
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: How the House knows where the Senate is and they know the Senate is, you know, very teetering on a vote. And the House, don't forget, only pass this by one vote too.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: So this is a very much, you know, standing on the chair, one leg, you know, balancing, you know, balancing dishes and cups on sticks on your nose. And they're really on a very teetered situation for the House and Republicans trying to thread a needle to deal with not necessarily just policy interest on deficit spending but also balancing act regarding individual constituencies about the negative impact this bill will have on their constituencies.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So here Massachusetts, how would it work tacky if the budget had to be revisited because of the to federal cuts?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, we wouldn't reopen the budget 9c cut, for example, which is a power that she has. If it's demonstrated that our state revenues work agreement from a ANDF is going to be, you know, 10% below normal. I think it's 10% direct note the governor can n see cut the budget.
Why do you see that less than 10%. So I, I don't think that's right number Mike. But there's a demonstration of revenue projection 12 9c cut the budget. She says she can cut the budget.
This is a little bit different because if there's a revenue shortfall that isn't tax related but federally related, you know, does she pay 9c cuts? She's probably going to have to. And then if she creates savings through these 9C cuts to have to come back to us for a reappropriation.
So for example, let's say, you know, we're short a billion dollars of Medicaid and you know, we start scrying through the trust funds and other reserve accounts we could use like the supplement, you know, like the rainy day fund and whatnot. Let's presume that everything's exhausted. No rainy day fund, no trust funds, no fancy accounting methods. You know, everything's been exhausted. In a theory could variants cut a billion dollars from all over the place and then send it back to us and then we could reappropriate the band dollars mitigate.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: I see. Okay.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: You have to trim like a billion dollars off only one third budget, which means 62, 65. Well, it depends on the fixed cost, but we're going to really call.
So you know, that'll be 1/3. So it's like $20 billion. So. Right. She has to slash a billion dollars off. For example, this is a hypothetical, you know, try to throw a bid out home, which means we have a contract of service.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: All right. So.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Okay. But it would be up to the legislature to. To rep.
Okay.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Reappropriate money that's been cut as to reality.
Or we could do this on our own by cutting budget, cutting line items ourselves. Oh, and then reappropriate the money somewhere else. But we would need a recommendation governor first.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: I see. Okay.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: We want to see what she's thinking so we can. We can think about.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: We. Okay.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: All right. Actually, the popular people think the legislature has like direct control operations. We do not. It's a specific branch function. It's all there in Washington D.C. it's executive branch function. However, you are required to utilize the funds in your line of for executing said executive power function. Which of CNBC doesn't seem to be working properly.
So here in Massachusetts, you know, the governor can't move move money between line items of us about us approving the moving.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: And you know, she has to spend within the accounts that she has and she underspends goes back to quote unquote supplemental. It's like, you know, like extra money, but it's not extra money because it's already been allocated. You just didn't spend it.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: All right. Right. Gotcha okay, interesting.
Any new taxes fees in the new budget?
[00:18:02] Speaker B: No, no.
No sugar tax, no fee changes. You know, nothing really in there to address raising revenues and. Right. We already did, as you're aware, some increased tax benefits for particularly middle income families were already increasing inheritance tax, adjusting and simplifying the dependency deductions and credits.
And we also did, you know, a number of different small items some years back. Plus we have the sales tax holiday coming up on August 9 and 10 this year.
So close to 10 11. Right.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: I'm just trying to look here.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: What's in the calendar?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: 9 and 10. Yeah, 9 and 10.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: So it's August 9th and 10th. It's a sales tax holiday. So yeah, it's going to cost us maybe another $40 million.
That's. But that's baked into the budget. We assume it's not going to be there.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Okay. So I mean, yeah, I mean it's, you know, a lot of question marks in the air. I just don't have it because we just.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: No, I understand. Yeah. Because, because it hasn't been decided yet.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we'll see what the, you know, the job opening numbers are tomorrow which going, moving the seasonal period. So those numbers are going to get really funky very quickly because of seasonal workers. If you can find a seasonal worker.
And the Trump administration is clearing a way to deport temporary visa holders, starting with Haitians.
So those numbers want to show up in unemployment. I've talked about, talked about this a lot. Every time you deport a personal work permit, they're not going to be here to collect unemployment. So you have an early fictional unemployment number.
I saw my Bloomberg News highlights email.
You know, NPR has reported that the administration's office trying to figure out how to deport naturalized citizens. These are people here are immigrants who come here, become naturalized citizens. So there's a lot of they're trying to figure that out down in D.C. whether I can get away with it. Which is why this birthright citizenship issue now becomes even more important because if they, you know, rubber rice citizenship is, is not a thing, you know, it could really expand the reach of, of them just, you know, deporting people.
Reason contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be a person of criminal record to be deported. They can just decide to pick up and let you go. The problem of courts of running across is whether or not anyone deserves due process in the 14th amendment to make the case for staying or going or not before a judge. And obviously the executive branches try to do everything they can to Avoid a judicial review.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Any Quincy specific things you can talk about in the new budget Tanky?
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Oh, we got some money for various local, not for profit agencies. QCAP Resources Charter, Neighborhood center, you know, it's overtime, patrol is on the beaches. It's going to be a hot and tough summer sounds like. So we do provide some extra money for overtime patrols for state police and French Book Parkway and Queensland Drive and there's a lot of scattering when it's here like the presidential library which is one of the marriage priorities, you know. So there's a, it's also a lot of like indirect stuff like you know, we didn't get as much money for homeless assistance, understand Father's bill statewide, not just father's bill, but statewide they were advocating at about 122 million, but we came up with like 112 billion.
So we didn't quite get everything we wanted because they're anticipating increased spike in homelessness giving the rate the economy is moving.
So there's, there's a lot of stuff that I call direct funding to the city and towns and there's like indirect, like you know we talk about Chapter 70 local aid. Right.
You know that that amounts to just under $50 million. Right.
When you factor in these libraries, transportation reimbursements, sped programs, I mean we start adding up all that. It gets pretty quick.
And you know we talked about before it's substantial part of the city budget here.
All those things add up. Accounts for aging is part of that calculation. All adds up pretty quick. Sure. So know the city does get a lot of assistance already on top of anything else we get at Y plus all the stuff we're doing on state properties.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Did the, the speaker's amendment for the parking garage downtown hold up?
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that was pretty much a no brainer.
Again, the speaker wants the earmark. It saves the city taxpayer money.
I have to double check it but I'm pretty confident it's just fine.
But yeah, the, you know what it does. Basically every state tax dollar we spend in the city, whether it be chapter 90, these kind of big dollar earmarks, adjusting things like tax credits for infrastructure development for the city, you know, saves actually your property tax money because that prop. That money's picked up by statewide taxpayers.
So literally every dollar we bring back for whatever reason, whether it be for local services. No local, not for profits or the city government, you know, is, is you know, money that we take out of the pocket of someone else in the state that receives less state money services and puts it into the city Here. And you know, that's how we kind of indirectly address your property taxes. So you know, we talked about like what 35% ish plus if the state budget comes directly from the city, budget comes from the state and they bake into the budget and you know, it's up to the city government to decide how they're going to manage the budget on your property taxes, you know, accounting for whether or not state funding for things like local aid, Chapter 70 counts on aging veteran services, school buses and so forth is available as well as all the various grant programs we provide. Like electric school buses was a state grant program, for example.
So you know, that's something for the state government decide, not us. We just get resources down from statewide taxpayers and then we redistribute it, you know, back to the city and then in city, not for profits. And then city has to decide, you know, what's property tax going to be based on this money. And yeah, I don't know how much the city gets in federal assistance, but I'm sure there's quite a bit too.
And especially CGB grant money, Community development block grant money, plus others.
And you know, those cover a lot of programs that also your property taxes don't have to pick up.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
Alrighty.
A lot of local events coming up, Jackie, for Fourth of July.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Yeah. July 3rd, those who live in Hell's Neck, there's the House Neck family funding on Edgewater drive starting around 10am they keep moving to start time a little earlier because of the heat.
It is on asphalt and you got the beach, you know, over the seawall. So there's a little warm in my life. It's really about Adam Shore at 9 on July 4, followed by Germantown at 10. And then you got the Marymount Parade kicking off at New. My understanding is still new. I actually haven't seen an email from Marymount association, believe it or not. But I'm presuming it's going to be a new kick off.
And then those citywide candidates, those who represent North Quincy, obviously have the school quantum parade starting I believe it also at 10 o' clock.
So yeah, I never leave the peninsula, Southern peninsula. I don't leave starting at 9:00am I just hang out there till like 2:00 clock. So hopefully it won't be too brutal.
And then there's also the Marymount. I don't know what the deal the Marymount family funded beach event is.
I suppose that normally is on the day before, on the third already. I think it still is. Yeah, yeah. They moving around every I've seen I've noticed it moving around depending on July 4th is and what's practical for families to be there.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: In July 4th being a Friday. You know obviously holiday travel has already begun starting this week because it's a four day work week for many people and they will you know take advantage of working out one week this week or they may take next week off instead.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, exactly. It's this this month pretty much is is a lot of folks time off, a lot of traveling going on for sure. Even though gas prices are low. They've gone up some.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I know that's he just said an interesting combination of words low but went up some.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: So again I don't know where these numbers are coming from because it's not reflecting our real world which the newly should. You know both the Trump administration and place like aaa you know projecting out lower gas prices this summer but we've not seen it. Despite the price of oil struggling to get over $70 and all the middle. Middle east conflicts going on.
Very busy, very busy few weeks on indeed.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Yes, for sure. Yes. And more to come. I think the prime minister of Israel is coming to the White House next week.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: That'd be a very fascinating conversation because I think the Trump administration foreign affairs underestimates the complexity of geopolitics and people protecting their interests in their regions.
No different from United States protecting our interests in our regions. But they have some reason they have a huge disconnect in D.C. understanding that complexity. But regardless locally gas prices have not really gone down.
Very confused. Very confused because again price of oil is not spiking at a rate.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Oh it's like 65, $66 a barrel and that really hasn't changed.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I have no understanding what's going on anymore because normally just there's no direct correlation. I just don't happening. I really don't.
And again the administration and AAA are projecting lower prices coming soon and I don't know where it is. And the airlines also have started snack stagnating their prices too because not necessarily the price of fuel but also lower demand the project to the summer.
So I think it'd be more people in the room this weekend in flying.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah that's probably true. I think, I think that's our survey people are traveling like at least 50 miles from home. Something like that.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah. You go to Berkshire, Hampshire, Cape Cod maybe visit some friends of Vermont or whatever. I mean yeah, I can that makes a lot of sense.
I don't have Airbnb figures.
Their earnings report data doesn't come out for quite some time. And I think in particular, you know, you get Expedia bookings.com, you got TraveloState. I mean, you have all these different websites. But I think, you know, if you're going to look at economic indicators regarding domestic tourists, not foreign tourism, not foreigners coming in, I think Airbnb is the way to go. I think whenever Airbnb puts out a set of numbers on the quarterly report, we'll give you an idea the US Spender can continue because Airbnbs tend to be cheaper than Marriott. Right.
People's first choice. The Marriotts of the world are more interested regarding foreign travelers in some ways. And given the political climate and the fact it's getting more and more brutal for people to get into this country, you're going to see domestic tourism hurt. And I think it's something the media should really talk to Body when the summer's not Marty. Yeah. Mass office of Tourism in Trade. Yeah.
When they get to the end of the summertime to see how things pan out, obviously it's beginning of summer. Tourist season is really kicking off for us on July 4th weekend.
You'll be happy in people at the Pops like we always do. Right. But it'd be interested if, you know, other countries are visiting with their dollars. The dollars actually pretty parody at this point for everybody else in terms of value. So you have a somewhat weaker dollar right now. So, you know, foreign travel to the US Is becoming more affordable for. For the moment.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I'd be curious to see how business travel is impacted too, later this year after summer.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Because, you know, obviously we don't know now. I mean, you can, you can get booking data from travel agents, you call travel agents or you talk to liquor. Mary. You can get some, you know, advanced booking data. Same thing conventions people, you know, call it convention center or like, you know, anywhere. In Vegas, for example, we did the big convention hub, probably one of the biggest country.
If the booking data is not good, it's an indication of whether people can spend. And international cities like ours, New York, L.A. san Francisco, Chicago, D.C. i mean, they're very dependent on foreign tourists.
So, you know, airline data plus, you know, booking data from hotels will clue you in how things are going. As I don't have information. It's only July 1st.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: You know, it's all like advanced bookings, but doesn't show like, you know, you decide like the weekend before you see a getaway deal and you run off and Take the gateway deal, like, you know, 40 off you just happened. Right time, right place. Right.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: But you have to be able to move quickly.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so I mean when you get to like, you know, September, we may have some good data in June. June, June, July, August. And of course we're leaf peeping area. So when October hits, that's our next big tourist crunch, for lack of a better term in this area. Because a lot of people come in and see leaf peeping from, from all over the United States, particularly around the world from here. So tourism's a number two or three economic driver depending on the stated economy.
You know, we need, we need these, not just domestic tourist dollars, but we need foreign tour for foreign tourist dollars. And we'll see in the fall of foreign students Come back.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: I was just going to bring up the international student issue because we don't know, right?
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't know. And again, I said before, it doesn't just affect the colleges, it affects all the elite high schools here. It also affects private schools that are doing college prep for frankly rich foreign kids for the most part.
And you know, that has directed our economy because they pay taxes that we get to keep but never, they'll never see the benefit of really since we have a national, a state sales tax on a national sales tax.
You know, foreign students are paying sales tax, Massachusetts, they don't get a refund.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Right. And they're not really costing services, really.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Correct. Yeah. So that's kind of part of the intriguing thing about all this. So, yeah, we'll see what the, you know, there is a economic impact associated with student visas, you know, temporary visas, working, you know, 10 year visas to HB1. You can create economic development visas. I mean, there's hundreds of visas out there and you know, not everyone can work with a student visa. Can't get a job like, like a regular job. They have to get special permission to get a student work visa, have to get the special permit again, a second visa on top of another visa.
So yeah, we'll see. I mean, I, I think you and I may be listening to this. Oh, I don't feel economic impact in this, but if you're a small business, you know, that are within, you know, 10 miles of college area and you're listening to this, you're like, oh, oh yeah, I'm already seeing this.
So you know, this, you know, the listeners, viewers, you know, we all have a different opinion on this because, you know, we'll always think, well, it's direct impact on me personally, but if you're a policymaker, you got to rethink necessary. How it affects you personally. Sometimes you actually have to think about people that aren't new, that aren't in the direct geographic zone and how that impacts you. How actually how it impacts them, which have a ripple effect back to you down the road.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, know, small coffee shops, diners, you know, I don't know, a myriad of small businesses we can't even think of right now.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Consignment shops, craft shops. When we used to have newsstands, newsstands was.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: I was, I was gonna say newsstands, but I said, oh, no, that'll date me.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that, that's us aiding. Dating ourselves. But newsstands were very much driven by.
Yes, no, remember the old one in Harvard Square. Of course. Yes, yes.
So, you know, but today that, you know, that's how that works. And I do understand we have digital books and all that, but, but there is a whole lot of things about, you know, when your parents visit, they want to take back that souvenir.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Sure, there is. Absolutely. And even the, you know, even the public libraries, I mean, they, they depend on students for their circulation.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: That. Exactly it. And also into. Into circulation between libraries and schools. People don't realize they have, again, we're dating ourselves, you know, into. Into. Into collegiate library services.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: I know, but, you know, there is some, there is some validity to that for sure, because if the services is viewed as not needed, eventually the money is going to be looked at as well.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Well, that's another thing the Trump administration is looking at, because the end of the Department of Education also ends intercollegiate information sharing. AK Libraries.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: No alternative system in place. So, yeah, there's, there's a real impact, folks. It's, it's, you know, just because you don't feel it, I say you don't feel it yourself personally, doesn't mean there isn't gonna be a ripple back to you later on.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Right, yeah, it's, you know, it's a global economy and it's a regional economy and it's a local economy, too. And we're all, we're all part of it in some. To some degree.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Because like, you know, when my observation, my lifetime doing this is always interesting because people are like, oh, you know, they feel an effect, but something else just happened like six months ago.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Right, exactly. Which is tariffs, ideally, is. That's how they're going to be impacted later this year.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Amazon announced yesterday that they had a massive buying spree before Tariffs and a lot of the third party vendors also, if they could, had a massive buying spree which explains this monster trade deficit. Right.
April, because people are desperately trying to get all their goods as much as they could to try to prevent a price shock near term at some point that's the stuff that's already in inventory is going to be consumed.
And depending on what happens in what, eight days from now, nine days from now, we determine what happens next because you're going to see another massive trade deficit number in June as people are trying to get all their stuff at a not low tap rate. But I mean still, I mean they're still paying tariffs and you won't see that inventory come up until later on this summer.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: And then some places, as I said before, we do advances, they charge earlier more money so they can pay the custom fees because they want their stuff released. Right?
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So it's, it's going to be all, pretty much all year to pay to kind of pan out.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And small businesses will see it first. You and I should really see smaller impact price raising sooner than Amazon because they can't warehouse same amount of volume. Right.
As we learned through the pandemic, half this country's economy is small businesses and lots of small businesses, restaurants and retail.
You know, you will have real actually tough situation where Amazon has always been able to undercut smaller businesses and same as Walmart, but now they can actually hold it longer on a fixed price. While small business may have the rights to raise their prices sooner where they're anticipating a tariff, already have already received goods, they're going to cost more. You as a consumer, you and I have been pinched already for inflation and wage inflation slowing down significantly.
And now you got to make this tough choice. Are you going to help this Main street shop that had to jack up the prices 10 + percent or you're going to go to Amazon, which is probably 10% or maybe even 20% cheaper than that Main street shop for that same good. And this really puts consumers in a bad spot because obviously you want to support the local businesses, our local economy, but your pocketbook is pretty tough.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like they say, charity begins at home, Right?
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I really believe most people want to help a local business. I just really think it's a hard situation right now where, you know, all of us are really tightening up our belts and prioritizing what's important. And Amazon and Walmarts will always have the distinct advantage in that situation.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a It's a stark reality for a small business owner, for sure. But they can't afford to charge less than they're paying for their items. That's a recipe for disaster.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And those are small business owners. You can tell I'm somewhat aware of this. My dad ran a restaurant when I was a child, so I, like a professional restauranteer by any stretch of imagination, I most definitely am not. But, you know, I understand the stresses involved because you saw, you saw when dad came home.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: Right. And so what do they do?
You know, employees are the biggest expense, so they're probably the first to go. And that adds to the unemployment rules.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why this employment data. Every week we, you know, new people getting on what the, what, what the percentage is, and also how many job openings, you know, and you want to factor in payroll numbers. How many people are coming off payroll numbers? A D, P, A, E, T may give you some clues what's happening. But like I said, the economic data is all over the place. Everything's not in sync. And the unemployment data is private, too. And, you know, like I said, if, you know, they start revoking people's permit visas, you know, work permits, students, and just start like deporting everybody, you know, it's going to be, you know, an impact. But again, it affects job opening number, but won't affect an appointment because.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. How does, do you know how Canada does it? Tacky. I understand that we as American citizens cannot go and get a job there or permanent job there.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Yeah. It's. Again, you would. You have to go in for a business visa.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: I mean, it's no different from any country. I mean, if you go into another country to like get a job, you have intention to immigrate.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Right. Okay.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: If you're just there in a business visa, meaning just conducting business back and forth between the two countries, but you're not really working in Canada.
So, you know, there's, there's, there's a huge difference because people that generally gets jobs in your country generally wants to stay in your country.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: You know, unless there's a temporary situation, like we talk about this all the time, Cape Cod, you realize heavily on foreign temporary workers, which I don't think is really going to happen that much administration, which creates a workforce shortage. And you know, the joke we have in Tucket's going to charge you $30 a cup of coffee where things are going because the labor cost is very high. And we saw the distinct covet that was a, that's how we know about this? Because Covid stopped foreign travel, which Cape Cod was unable to get any more help, which created a huge spike in wages and they're unable to provide the higher quality service that we all enjoy because of just lack of manpower.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Right, yeah, that. Yeah, that was directly evident because the hit summer season was beginning.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we're gonna feel it again, I suspect for this year and probably in the foreseeable future. So, you know, if you're traveling the Cape and it's a very busy time period while you're down there, you know, your service is a little slow. Well, now you know why people kind of have this misconception. People don't want to work.
Okay, I get it. Those people exist. But when you don't have enough people to work, it's not the same thing as people don't want to work.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Right, right, exactly. Yeah.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: So what are we, what are you.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: Doing at the State House now? Budget's all done.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Well, it's a quiet zone. So July 4th week, I don't expect anything to be happening in the State House. I have two back to pack public hearings. So there's one coming up next Monday and Monday after that. You can watch us at Emmyledge.
Feel free to watch us and watch our recordings.
I'm actually in process of pulling bills on a committee on my first set of bills under the rules that has me have bills out of committee either 30, 90 or into turn Route 10 in December, which is going to be the first Wednesday December. However, the House leadership would like to get stuff done within the, I'm sorry, 60 day timer, 1690 to OJ 10. So. But they'd like us to get our stuff done within 60 days, which we are going to do our best to meet the 60 day requirement. And we got a first set of polls that went out today to the committee members and hopefully they'll report back before the hearing starts on Monday and they can announce the results of that poll.
So at the committee level we're moving quickly because now we have joint rules, we have some understanding what's going on the committee level. And yeah, I'm getting stuff done. So we have two more hearings in July and then we won't do we have like at least two hearings September, but I think I have a little bit date around September and then we have, I believe another two in October and one November. And then in the interim, you know, I'm going to be having bills move out of committee every 60 or so days.
So pretty much every second week we're going to have announcement of moving bills out of committee.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right, so there is things happening then.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Yeah, this averaging about three hearings a day, four days a week at the moment.
And that's, you know. Well, there's no legislative activity in terms of formal sessions and we do have informal sessions every 72 hours where anybody can object to continuation.
The committees are full year since April and trying to get these hearing schedules moving and done and the senators don't have to move their bills until John Routende line in December.
The funny thing is now that we've adopted a position where House bills go to House, Senate goes to the Senate, we can't do maneuvers like attaching bills to go to the Senate or vice versa, and we can't move things to each other's study orders.
Know, it really changed the dynamic of how we operate. And that means that since we're no longer joint sharing for the purposes of moving bills out of committee, as I explained to folks, we are now not sharing work. Meaning that, you know, being the co chair used to like decide, all right, well we're not going to do. I'm not doing 100% of the bills. I mean, we got to work out a deal where you can take some off my hands, I'll take some off your hands and. Right. We'll see how far we get in moving our committee bills.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Is that going to slow things down, you think?
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Well, it's going to create a large number of volume, it's going to double up the normal amount of fair reports because normally half of those bills would go to the Senate.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: We would literally negotiate saying, you know, you go first here, I'll go first here. Okay. You know, you need this issue, you go first or I need this issue, I go first.
No, it's, it's going to be literally 100% release into the House and, and ways and means and third reading is going to have to deal with abnormally high number bills coming to committee for me.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: Yeah, you need, you need more staff.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Yeah, we're managing okay. I mean I have two committee staff folks we've been discussing about, you know, how we're going to do staffing given the high level work, but also have three personal staffers too, which helps pick up the load and then, you know, talk, you know, you know, and then that's just, just how it is. I'm not the only committee going through this, going through the same process.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: So it'd be a good time to visit the state House actually.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you one Advantage is coming when it's quiet for tours. One, you get the room of the building, you know, because it's not crowded. Although I've met even. Even this deep outside of COVID it's still far from the days when, you know, pre Covid, when you literally have 300 people roaming the hallways literally all the time. Between tourists and people doing business and advocates. So we're still far from those days where the building 3 average 300 people all the time, you know, every hour roaming around.
Um, but, you know, it's also a good time because, you know, you can actually kind of mose around a building undisturbed.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. See places you might not be able to.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah. For example, the stairs Library is beautiful and it is a real library. So, you know, always encourage people to come up and. And take a look at the stateless library. They redid the library, I want to say, a dozen 10 years, 12 years ago. So they did massive restoration.
So, you know, things like that, you know, tour guide would take you through. But, you know, you can also just, you know, go in there on your own. So, as you all know, every week I encourage people to come visit the stairs and walk the hallways of John Adams, Sean Hancock, jfk.
It's. It's again, one of the few places you can actually say, you know, for sure that you walk the hallways with them.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Of course, Independence Day here in Quincy is going to be very busy, as we talked about. But what about in. In the State House?
[00:47:33] Speaker B: Not much. I mean, you know, obviously the stairs was closed Independence Day, largely because it's Independence Day.
The last thing you want to deal with is being in Boston on Independence Day.
As I said earlier, half me a pair of people at the hat shell, but that means, you know, another quarter man plus or more of the city, you know, in June, July 4th, again, a major economic driver for the city of Boston.
And you know, locally, I mean, I know that people sometimes sit at Wall street beach, maybe we used to have radios, but, you know, listen to the pops and with a little bit of a time delay, watching fireworks from the beach. So does that have local firework events too?
Isn't. Did Branch already have theirs?
[00:48:21] Speaker A: They had theirs last week. Yeah.
Randolph has theirs on Thursday nights and I think Canton also.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So you have some regional events. The Patriot actually does a pretty good job on telling the local July 4th event. So you don't feel like going to Boston Pops and you want to see some fireworks locally? There's plenty still in the South Shore. And local geographic region that.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Weymouth typically launches them from west Augusta beach the night before the 4th, I think.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Yeah. In a bay point. Have been doing it for a while too.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Yes. I don't think they're doing it this year.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: I don't think so. Yeah. I didn't see a notice in my email. I didn't notice them doing that. So for those who don't want to brave the crowds, Boston, I mean, you can always look at the patriot ledger and find regionally, you know, you can go see some local fireworks. A little out of being squished inclusive. Hardshell. If you're so fortunate to find like a rooftop bar or you have a buddy that lives in the Charles, you know, obviously, you know, you should take advantage of that.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Or you have a boat.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: You have a boat, which I think given the heat, a lot of people be on the water.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Yes. For sure. Yes.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: So don't feel like you can't take your family scene not to see fireworks somewhere in the area. Of course we did flag day, which was spectacular.
In my mind. I thought it was spectacular.
And people obviously, you know, we don't do July 4th. As far as we've lived here. We've never done July 4th in Quincy in terms of like, you know, firework display, things like that. Because we didn't do it in flag.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: No. Although the Adams national historical park has some like reenactments going on of the reading of the declaration. I think there's a play at the first parish church as well that folks can check out so they, you know, those are free too. So folks should. Should see what the national park is doing here.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Right here in Quincy. Yeah, just go on the website. Obviously national park service, you know, has things. The u. S. Constitution available. The freedom trail is available to speak.
The aquarium, you know, in Boston, people love aquariums, things museum of science. I mean, there's no shortage of, you know, places to go to to keep cool and enjoy this weekend. Locally, if you want to do a staycation, got a lot of places you can visit.
You know, obviously we have the Adam stuff here, but you know, you can go down to Plymouth or you can go to battle of Lexington and conquer. They haven't quite ended the celebration out there. Look up on the website if there's any activities still going on in Lexington.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: Of course, Plymouth does huge things on 4th of July as well.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So again, we have the Internet, folks. It's not like you can't find something.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: And next year's 250th anniversary of the revolution. So there'll be more stuff going on.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: 1776.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: And if I'm still here, I mean 400 years for the founding of the Bay colonies in 2030, we'll see. I'm going to make it that far, Joe.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: Oh, is that a little hint?
[00:51:27] Speaker B: I don't know, be five years older.
So.
So what, you expect me still look the same five years in the future?
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Jackie, you're ageless.
[00:51:39] Speaker B: Sad part is now that we're doing some video and all my social media, you can actually make your determination. If I am truly ageless, I do age. It just was a different pace than other people, that's all.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: I see. Okay, so in the short term, we can still get a hold of you though.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Of course. 6177-2223-7061-7722-2370.
That is the status phone number.
We're in room 42, the state house. We are staffed. Please feel welcome to visit or give us a phone call if you need help getting a tour because you're having difficulties getting a tour. We can try to be helpful making the right connections.
Tacky chan@mahouse uv t a c k e y dot ch and we do see everything. I do read everything.
I don't remember everything unfortunately, but I do read everything and I do take out my testimony through my email but you know, please visit the state website to send it to the right email because I don't want to see your testimony twice.
But also prioritize constituencies first receive some calls regarding some road work issues. Not surprising between the code and the heat, you know, things like furniture, parkways take a bit of a beating. Plus being out there which is supposed to be doing some paving sometime this, this fall across my fingers. Yes, to clean up the work you did on that on the under electric line and but you know we, we do pay attention and of course we have state representative of Tacky Chan Facebook do not use social media to contact me because that's why I have email.
So please do not do that. And we have Attacky Chan which is the X Twitter account. I talk about melegislature.gov a few times already. Please make your own account on there. You can track bills, watch our hearing, watch our session. Go watch the recording of which if you're not able to watch live and then you know, obviously you know, I'm here with Joe every week or two weeks and everyone folks and never hurts to get his 10 minute update in the morning.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: Excellent. Happy and safe 4th of July tanky to you and your family.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: Thank you, Joe. You as well. And I wish everybody a happy and safe Fourth July out there. And please enjoy.
Please enjoy. Just be mindful of those things, like, I don't know, Triple E. So just be aware that. That there's a. You can have a lot of fun, but, you know, please, everyone be safe.
[00:54:15] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. All right, we'll check in next week.
