Phineas Baxandall
@phineasb.bsky.social
Policy wonk. Public budgets, transportation, taxes. Massachusetts-based & nationally interested. The US Treasury's Harriet Tubman $20 bill redesign was halted in 2016.
Who says the public doesn't understand tax fairness? 83% of voters in Missouri rejected a ballot question to swap income tax for sales taxes, proved that voters across the political spectrum strongly support tax progressivity over giveaways for the wealthy. @itep.org itep.org/missouri-vot...
Missouri Voters Reject Amendment 5 and a Damaging Tax Shift onto Working Families
Yesterday Missouri voters rejected Amendment 5, declining to give lawmakers a blank check to raise or expand sales taxes, something some lawmakers sought to enable enormous income tax cuts for the sta...
itep.org
Companies like Crocs and Abbott Laboratories still use employee-free shell companies on remote islands to shield vast profits from income taxes. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/b...
How Malta Became a Tax Haven for Crocs and Other U.S. Companies
The Mediterranean archipelago is a hot destination for U.S. companies seeking to shield profits from income taxes.
nytimes.com
Maine’s new millionaire tax is set to make a lot of good things happen www.mecep.org/blog/what-to...
What to know about Maine’s millionaire tax - MECEP
This year, the Maine legislature passed landmark tax fairness legislation, creating a millionaire tax. Here’s what you should know.
mecep.org
Standing on principle? Every country in the United Nations pledged to cut the number of road deaths and injuries in half by 2030, all except one. www.forbes.com/sites/christ... @t4america.bsky.social
The U.S. Alone Votes Against A Road Safety Declaration
Yesterday the UN's General Assembly passed a near-unanimous declaration on cutting road-traffic deaths in half.
forbes.com
First study of impact of congestion pricing on EMS response times finds significant benefits in NYC, comparing inside and outside the pricing cordon before and after the policy is introduced. www.nber.org/papers/w35414
Congestion Pricing and EMS Response Time: Evidence From New York City
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
nber.org
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had projected that a few millions would lose SNAP benefits as a result of last year's big congressional bill. The reality is already far worse. www.cbpp.org/media/snap-p...
SNAP Participation Already Below CBO Projection for 2026
cbpp.org
Thank you for shifting the energy, Jaylen 🙏 Even as you’ve become an NBA Champion, Finals MVP, and Celtics great, you never stopped showing up for Boston.
Last year's Congressional megabill takes away health care, food assistance to pay for tax Cuts for the wealthy www.cbpp.org/media/76279
Republican Megabill Takes Away Health Care, Food Assistance to Pay for Tax Cuts for Wealthy
cbpp.org
This is so clearly a the right solution to Social Security shortfalls. Ordinary people pay social security tax on 100% of their salary. The highest earners should too. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/o...
Opinion | Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren: Our Plan to Save Social Security
nytimes.com
Opponents of millionaire taxes keep saying they will fail because millionaires will flee, but Massachusetts' Fair Share tax keeps beating expectations, debunking those claims. www.raiseupma.org/news/dor-fai...
DOR: Fair Share Revenue Up 20% Over First 10 Months of FY26, Already Exceeding $3 Billion — Raise Up Massachusetts
Tax on Million-Dollar Earners Continues to Exceed Revenue Projections, Proving Fears of Millionaire Flight False BOSTON – The State Department of Revenue yesterday certified that Massachusetts...
raiseupma.org
The administration killed Direct File, the successful free and easy tax filing program. But many lessons have been learned... economicsecurityproject.org/resource/the... @economicsecurityproject.org
The Future of Tax Filing - Economic Security Project
Table of Contents Chapter 1: The story of Direct File and tax access reform in the Biden Administration Chapter 2: Direct File and data import / pre-population Chapter 3: Direct File and tax scope Cha...
economicsecurityproject.org
📉 New Poll Shows Voters Oppose Income Tax Cut When They Learn the Facts: It Would Create a $5 Billion Budget Hole and Give Largest Tax Breaks to the Ultra-Rich
Poll: Massachusetts voters weigh in on ballot questions, transportation, and elections — MassINC Polling Group
Voters support Election Day Registration, flip against the income tax ballot question with more information. Transit-served communities say free transit on Election Day would help with voting. …
buff.ly
Many voters flip from supporting to opposing the ballot question that would lower the state’s income tax when they hear more information about who would benefit most and the consequences for the state budget www.massincpolling.com/our-work/pol...
Billionaire tech bros are getting some big handouts. @itep.org itep.org/meta-qualcom...
Amidst Soaring Tech Earnings, Meta and Qualcomm Disclose a $13.7 Billion Tax Gift from Trump Administration
Both companies acknowledge that they will save billions because of the Trump administration's weakening of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT). Meta and Qualcomm are just two of the corporati...
itep.org
Maine enacts a “millionaires’ tax” on income over $1 million ($1.5 million for joint filers and heads of households), making Maine’s tax system fairer while raising revenue to support families, workers, and students in the Pine Tree State. Read more at @itep.org: itep.org/maine-passes...
Maine Passes Millionaires’ Tax and Pushes Back on Federal Changes
Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday put her seal of approval on a supplemental budget bill that includes a “millionaires’…
itep.org
Massachusetts has the second highest life expectancy of any US state, but still less than Costa Rica, Albania, or Chile. There seems to be a partisan pattern. deanbaker22.substack.com/p/are-the-re...
Are the Republicans Killing You?
There is a huge gap in life expectancy between Democratic and Republican states
deanbaker22.substack.com
Myth busting with the facts on outmigration. Please prioritize policies that improve quality of life, like access to affordable housing, not throwing tax breaks at millionaires. massbudget.org/2026/04/14/n...
New IRS Data Points to Affordability and Not Taxes as the Cause of Massachusetts Outmigration - Mass. Budget and Policy Center
First, Massachusetts is not in the midst of a crisis of population loss. Second, the net number of households choosing to leave Massachusetts dropped significantly in 2022-2023 when compared to the 20...
massbudget.org
🚨NEW ANALYSIS🚨 14 states and scores of localities fail to disclose how much revenue they lose to data center tax breaks. Yet such losses are known to be soaring in states that do disclose, with three states already losing $1 billion or more per year. 🧵 goodjobsfirst.org/data-center-...
“The rich in high-tax states do not move any more often than those in low-tax states” finds a landmark study with anonymized access to every federal tax return filed from 2016 to 2023. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1... Whose interest is served evoking the myth of millionaire mass migration?
Taxing the Rich: How Incentives and Embeddedness Shape Millionaire Tax Flight1 | American Journal of Sociology: Vol 131, No 2
Taxing the rich is a central debate in an era of high inequality. Elite taxation can reduce income disparities and fund public investments, yet it also incentivizes top earners to relocate—potentially...
journals.uchicago.edu
Interesting discussion of the benefits of a publicly issued digital currency and its huge advantages over crypto. It's an idea that the crypto bros have worked very hard to stop. Free link from @deanbaker13.bsky.social: deanbaker22.substack.com/p/from-war-o...
From War on Iran to the War on Crypto: The Secret Weapon Is a Digital Currency
Give the crypto bros the gift of competition
deanbaker22.substack.com
Newest national economic data on consumption and prices today looks bad, and it's all pre-Iran war. The March inflation data coming tomorrow will be the first to show the surge in energy prices. deanbaker22.substack.com/p/february-d...?
February Data on Consumption and Prices: The Story Is Not Good
The economy is not looking very MAGA
deanbaker22.substack.com
“Municipal utilities don’t have shareholders pressuring them for ever-higher profits and dividends. Instead, municipal light companies have the luxury of investing surplus funds back into the business to become more efficient.” www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/05/s...
Massachusetts has highest electricity bills in continental US. But some ratepayers pay noticeably less. - The Boston Globe
Customers of municipal light plants in Massachusetts are paying markedly less for electricity than customers of big, publicly owned utilities.
bostonglobe.com
“The government ought to regard the existence of a tax preparation industry for standard returns as a parasite on the body politic. Intuit and its rivals are collecting fees for a service that should not exist.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/o...
Opinion | Trump Killed the One Thing That Made Filing Taxes Easier
nytimes.com
FACT CHECK: California Gov. Gavin Newsom was correct when he went to Texas recently and claimed: “Texas taxes poor folks more than we tax our richest." The bottom 40% of income earners pay a higher share of income in TX & FL than the "high" rate on rich in CA. itep.org/low-tax-for-... @itep.org
Low Tax for Whom? California vs Texas
California Gov. Gavin Newsom went to Texas recently and claimed: “Texas taxes poor folks more than we tax our richest.
itep.org
Maine set for millionaire tax as Governor recognizes popularity and success flips position (9.15 rate would exceed Massachusetts) www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/02/b...
Maine Governor backs millionaire tax, flipping from prior stance - The Boston Globe
Maine lawmakers have proposed a 2 percent surtax that would kick in at $1 million for single filers and $1.5 million for married couples and other filers.
bostonglobe.com
Smart response to surging gasoline prices: 2 Australian States Waive Transit Fares as Fuel Prices Soar www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/w...
2 Australian States Waive Transit Fares as Fuel Prices Soar
nytimes.com