I'm not sure where you found the rates for Oil and NG. Oil is up way more than that from personal experience and looking the data from the Energy Information Administration, gas from December 2021 to now is up 44%, and with the availability of diesel low, that will only shoot up more since so much of our Natural Gas is shipped in by truck and boat.

Once, the list a property, lease it, they get paid. They don't get anything until the next time they lease it. There is a very small chance a broker puts something in for a renewal, but its rare. Most of the rental agents (not all but most) are in the rental business as a short term career before going into home sale listings, so they aren't forward thinking to put a renewal fee in.

Brokers get paid when there is a signed contract. If a broker got paid $3,000 for every 10 min walk-through, I'd be a broker, lol.

If listed by an agent, a tenant paying a broker fee can be to a tenant's advantage. Instead of the landlord raising the rent $100 a month to cover a $1200 broker fee, if a tenant stays for 2 years, they only paid $1200 fee to the broker rather than $2400 to the landlord.

Studies from the EPA, AAA and every automaker show that 55 is more efficient than 70. Here is just one source on a government website

https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10312

Just yesterday on CNBC they had where I think it was 1600MWh of wind power in MA is on hold.

I didn't forget wind, the question posed to me was about solar. Wind helps, but we are currently at a standstill in this state. Between objections to offshore wind, objections to on land wind, windmill supply chain issues and now patent lawsuits around offshore windmills, those are a little further out as a replacement energy.

It is a problem that has been compounding annually, if we don't do something now, next year will be worse. There isn't a magic natural gas fairy that will build a new well and a new pipeline by next winter.

Solar panels in MA can't meet our energy demand in the winter. We will for a very long time be dependent on Natural Gas. Maybe we get new better technology to supply and use energy, maybe some of these high utility rates encourage people to move south where utility prices, food, and taxes are less. One of the two would need to happen before we stop using Natural Gas.

I personally have the largest solar array on my roof allowed under MA's net meter laws. I have a heat pump for my heating and an EV. Those all run on electricity made by Natural Gas in the winter, and each evening and night all year. My massive solar array, due to our northern location, doesn't even produce enough in the winter for my lights, refrigerator and oven - and the load for my heat pump is about 10 times that, meaning I'd need over 400 solar panels to get me my heat in the winter, plus about $225,000 in home batteries.... Not happening.

Several of our powerplants can be transitioned between natural gas and oil. If oil were cheap enough and enough supply, we could use this for power. That was where I was going on gasoline. But overall, we could easily use to decrease our consumption to save energy.

If only we kept up our nuclear plants in this state... too late for that, now the only option is to be encouraging residents to reduce our energy use.

Programs like connected solutions that pays you to raise your thermostat in the summer, should be encouraging you lowering the thermostat in the winter, I keep my house at 62 day and night, 64 morning and evening (the times when I shower), and it's not so bad. I used to go to 59° at night when I had oil heat but this new heat pump I have isn't supposed to have more than a 2° fluctuation. It's no longer about who can afford higher temperatures and who can't, it's about reducing use so there is still a supply.

We should be lowering the speed limit to 55 and enforcing it. Some cars have up to a 23% reduction in fuel consumption going from 70 to 55. It would be good for the environment and good for our wallets to ease gas use and lower prices. Even electric cars use less electricity when lowering their speed, and since electric cars run on Natural Gas in this state, they'd use less. My mapping automatically takes me the greenest route in my EV, which is the back roads much of the time.

The state put all their eggs in the windmill basket, and that has now failed due to multiple issues. They didn't have a backup, so we are all paying the price of our state legislators' decision on that.

The difference is this cranberry farmer did his own work, made his own opportunity for success. Nothing says boot licker more than someone who has to punch the time clock at a business that was someone else's opportunity.

Get an assessment done by MassSave directly, not an installer, they have one company contracted in different areas that all they do is the assessments and incentives, they are not installation contractors, so they aren't trying to sell you anything - they will match you with an installer after the assessment if you would like. (In my area that's ClearResult.) Several of the contractors also do assessments, but their focus is more on selling you the work they do than determining all the incentives you qualify for. I had one of the largest contractors do my assessment and they didn't care to answer my questions about MassSave programs that wasn't their main line of install work.

I love seeing this leaving Boston through quincy on 93!

Just look up countries that had high taxes. Look at NY, they have to keep raising taxes from higher income people moving out. Reversing the increases worked just fine for Denmark, they ended up doing very well after cutting taxes back down, but that takes more guts to say "we're going to have a few years of major budget cuts before we can attract new talent again." Taxing the rich only works if there are rich people.

I do think you underestimate dramatically how easy it is to move. They don't even need to sell their home, they probably already have one in a lower tax state that all they need to do is stay in the other home more days than the state here. I think people confuse the challenges someone earning $40k may have moving and someone who earns $5M a year, it's as easy as signing paperwork.

I am fortunate enough to have worked a lot of hours in my 20s and can pick up and go if my kids school starts to have teacher cuts or if the state now tries to raise taxes on me. I already once left a state that raised taxes on working folks when the rich left, I can easily do it again. From the sounds of it, many people on this discussion think moving is hard and that leads me to believe they wouldn't be able to leave as easily as I could if conditions suffer. Just to be clear, do I think this one measure is doom and gloom, absolutely not. I don't believe enough people would leave that we will have catastrophic layoffs of teachers, but I do think there will be some issues 3 or 4 years down the line. Add that to the highest electricity rates in the US, my property taxes up are 40% since I moved 5 years ago, the cost of produce seems to be increasing a little more than other parts of the country, eggs which used to be the cheapest source of protein is up 1,100% in MA but no where else in the country is anywhere near that increase, heating costs are growing at a crazy rate; when you compound it all, we aren't making smart thought-out decisions in MA. It seems we are going for legislation based on talking points rather than looking at the full consequences of our policies.

That's not the same comparison, 90% of shareholders can't vote that the other 10% of shareholders have to invest more in the business.

They didn't make their money alone, they are paying a lot more in taxes than I am. I'm not opposed to a progressive tax rate, but calling it "fair share" just makes me cringe, that is not fair to decide that someone else should pay a higher percentage than you do.

We all benefit from roads, you can't say a business benefits more or less. Walmart gets the benefit that customers can drive there to pick up apples and shampoo, but I as a citizen also need those roads to buy apples and shampoo otherwise my life would be a lot worse off. We equally benefit from those roads. I pay 5% on my little tiny income, someone with higher incomes, their 5% is a lot more toward the roads. I can agree maybe they should pay 6 or 7, but the one thing that is not is the definition of a "fair share".

In history, people haven't always gotten better education or roads by increasing taxes, they sometimes get less of that, because it is so easy to leave. This is a common problem in NY, Illinois, California, and in many countries in Europe, higher taxes meant less services because they brought in less revenue as people left. Denmark, Greece, France, all experienced this. How we are going about it here in MA may be even worse; If someone sent your picture all over the state and called you greedy and got the whole state to vote to tax you more, would you not leave? I sure as heck would.

And we don't need all 42,000 to leave. The 20,000 that make just over $1M, who will each pay a few thousand more, they probably won't leave, but more than a few of those making $5,$10,$20M leave, and we have a budget shortfall on our hands.

Those are all strategies to reduce taxable income, which is a different discussion than rate of tax. Certainly a valid discussion, but unrelated. If I don't have taxable income, the tax rate can be 100%, it doesn't matter because I don't need to pay. But you do bring a good point, if they are willing to pay accountants hundreds of thousands to manage those tax strategies, the easiest strategy to avoid this new MA tax is very cheap, to just leave, no accountant necessary.

What is fair? They pay 5% just like I do. We drive on the same roads. They pay a lot more than I do. That is fair.

Exactly, that's fairly exactly what I told my wife. I think 6% at $1M, 7% at $5M... I would have voted for that... And not sending postcards personally attacking people. It wouldn't have seemed like such a personal attack on those people, which to me, the personal attacks is going to make people move who were on the fence over the tax rates. I think the Yes superpac, the way they are proposing this by attacking people, is going to create more tax avoiders than analysts would otherwise expect, which is why I think we will become net losers.

You didn't answer the question. "How's that boot taste" is a cop out when you don't have any real response. If say an Abigail Johnson decides to just retire and change her residency to another state, something that happens a lot when a parent passes in businesses like hers, her dad passed this year, and if they live in a high-tax state - I wouldn't call MA a high-tax state today, but I would if this passes. I'd guess she pays $37M to Massachusetts in taxes each year, plus or minus $10M. If after these postcards go out making her look evil and voters have gone alone with it and decide to increase her taxes by 80%, if she decides to leave, she no longer pays her $37M to Massachusetts, are you going to be okay with about 300 teachers less in the classroom due to that cut? Are you okay when Maura Healy has to propose raising the sales tax rate to compensate?

Whether you'd like your head in the sand or not, that is exactly what happens in other states when they raise taxes, the wealthy leave, leaving less services and higher taxes for those who remain. Higher income tax rates do not always mean more revenue, especially when they are forced upon those who are most mobile.

They aren't holding us hostage, they are paying more in taxes than I am. You can't tax a billionaire (or anyone else) if they aren't here. How is them leaving a "freeing" thing for us?

”[Police] don't have quotas, just a suggested number of encounters.” - My cousin, a state police officer, when asked about quotas. Lol.

I truly am concerned that this backfires and I'm the one that gets less stuff out of it. Less teacher in the classroom for my kids, or more taxes for me because rich people, who pay the majority of taxes in this state, leave and I'm the one without. I don't count NY as a neighbor to the hub of Boston where most people live, I count Maine at the highest 7.15, RI at 5.9 and NH at 0 wage 5 investment as neighbors, although you can fairly call me out for being eastern-centric, but that is where the majority of people in this state live.

If we had a surplus this year, why risk it, why even take the chance that we could be worse off? I will tell you right now if my state taxes went up 72%, I'd be pretty pissed off and would leave, and my extra 72%, is nowhere near the dollar amount of a rich person. I just think everybody has blinders on thinking that rich people will just roll over and after being called all these greedy names during the election cycle, having their picture sent on postcards with their salaries or net worth as if they are bad people, why the heck would you stay in this state after that?

They don't have to go far, they don't even have to actually move, just extend the time in their vacation homes so their tax burden gets shifted to that state. People do it all the time. People left whole countries to avoid high taxes, they left Greece in droves. My parents live in Florida, and most of their neighborhood are people who left NY or Illinois to save $10 or $20k in taxes, the guy next door moved his kids and mother in law from Oregon, and everytime I'm there the neighbors talk about how much they save in taxes and ask when am I coming. It's totally nieve to think someone wouldn't at the least just spend extra time in a vacation home to avoid taxes. I know people who work in Boston but work from home in NH just to avoid wage tax a few days a week.