UNDER CONSTRUCTION - MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON
https://middlebororeviewandsoon.blogspot.com/
Monday, August 4, 2025
The good, the bad, and the uncertain in Trump’s tax bill
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New from CommonWealth Beacon
OPINION: Efforts to end federal support for undocumented residents – by initially holding up $716 million in adult education program – have understandably drawn recent focus, writes Lane Glenn, president of Northern Essex Community College. But it is clear from other White House communications and actions that the broader agenda is to practically eliminate immigration into the United States entirely.
A few proposals aimed at boosting investment in low-income communities came buried in the sprawling Trump tax and spend bill, which on the whole has been scorned by Democrats for its assaults on social services funding like Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
President Trump signed the almost 900-page bill into law on July 4, after Republican leadership wrestled the bill through the House and Senate on largely party-line votes.
On The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon executive editor Michael Jonas and reporter Jennifer Smith discuss a few provisions of the tax package that are not straightforwardly reviled in Massachusetts – expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and making permanent the Opportunity Zones program. Smith recently wrote about the two provisions here and here.
Both give tax breaks to developers who build projects aimed at low-income areas or populations, with the almost 40-year-old Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program set for its largest expansion in decades after years of bipartisan support. Affordable housing advocates and supply-side building boosters alike cheered the change, which they say could open the door to more than a million more homes aimed at low-income households in the next decade.
The Opportunity Zones changes are more of a mixed bag, touted as a way to encourage investors to back projects in low-income census tracts by reducing their capital gains tax burden if they stay invested in those projects. Yet the limited data on the 2017 program found the zones that got new investment didn’t look all that different afterwards in measures like job creation or education attainment. Those areas had also already been on a slight upswing in the years before the program took effect.
“There are two ways to read this,” Smith said. “The charitable read is that the zones are helping smooth the process for developers in areas that are getting better but aren’t still great investments. And the less charitable read is it’s giving these tax break for projects in areas that may have been more likely to attract them anyway while leaving distressed or rural or stagnated areas out.”
While the two provisions in the sprawling domestic policy bill offer some hope to those on the bottom rungs of the economy, they do so through an approach Trump has long viewed favorably -- tax breaks to well-off investors. When it comes to direct government spending to help those struggling to make ends meet, it’s been a very different story.
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Trump has proposed cuts to federal rental assistance programs like Section 8, which are sometimes crucial to low-income tenants being able to cover the rent in the affordable housing developments made possible through tax credits.
All of that, Matt Noyes, of the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, told Smith for her recent story on the housing tax credits, adds up to policies that “are not rowing in the same direction.”
During the episode, Smith and Jonas discuss Opportunity Zones (3:00), low-income housing (14:45), and the administration’s tax-cut-first philosophy (20:00).
GREENER PASTURES: The Boston Water and Sewer Commission is offering grants to homeowners of up to $8,000 to fund installation of “green roofs” that help reduce stormwater runoff and can also provide some insulation against summer heat. But the program hasseen few takersto date, as Tavishi Chattopadhyay and David Abel explain.
ENVIRONMENT: An increasingly vocal group of Martha’s Vineyard residents is calling on state environmental leaders and the Steamship Authority ferry agency to track emissions and take concrete steps to shift some of the fleet away from diesel to less polluting hybrid ferries. (GBH News)
****GOP VOTER SUPPRESSION COMES TO MASSACHUSETTS!***
INTENDING TO CURTAIL NO-EXCUSE MAIL-IN VOTING WHAT HAS BEEN WILDLY SUCCESSFUL & MANDATE VOTER ID - IF YOU VOTE REGULARLY, YOU ARE KNOWN TO ELECTION WORKERS. THIS IS PART OF A NATION WIDE MAGA GOP PUSH TO DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS - SEE DEMOCRACY DOCKET! WELL FUNDED ELECTION DENIAL ORGANIZATION ARE CHALLENGING VOTING RIGHTS!
JOHN LEWIS RISKED HIS LIFE FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE THAT MAGA GOP ARE ERASING!****
POLITICS: A group that bills itself as focused on transparency and accountability in elections, whose founder has donated to Republican candidates in past years, plans to pursue two ballot questions in 2026 that would require voter identification at the polls and strip away Massachusetts residents’ ability to participate in no-excuse mail-in voting. (Boston Herald PROPAGANDA RAG – paywall)
***TRUMP LIES!****
EDUCATION: Harvard president Alan Garberhas told faculty that a deal with the Trump administration is not imminent and denied that the University is considering a $500 million settlement. (The Harvard Crimson)
***GUN ZEALOTS ARE WELL FUNDED & WELL ORGANIZED, but they don't represent TRUTH, FACTS or THE MAJORITY! ***
The NRA has proven itself to be incompetent & failing to even regulate itself from abuse & corruption.
COURTS: Multiple lawsuits are taking aim at the gun licensing system in Massachusetts, in which police chiefs are usually the authorities deciding whether or not a person can carry a firearm. (MassLive – paywall)
***WHAT IS THE CARPETBAGGING NEWTON NEBBISH HIDING?***
POLITICS: Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft, son of billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, released an income summary showing that he earned $6.3 million in 2024, and nearly $6.5 million in 2023. Kraft did not provide the sources of the $6.3 million. (WBUR)
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