Massachusetts didn’t become an innovation powerhouse and one of the wealthiest states in the nation by accident. Our best-in-the-nation schools, world-class universities, outstanding health care systems, and vibrant communities were built on decades of public investment. The CEOs and senior executives of the Massachusetts High Technology Council know this — their members have benefited from those investments more than almost anyone. That’s why the High Tech Council’s 2026 ballot initiatives to cut billions of dollars in state investments aren’t just misguided. They’re a breathtakingly cynical attempt to strip-mine the state’s revenue base.
Let’s start with the biggest proposal: a major cut to the state income tax rate. Don’t be fooled about it being a “one percent cut” because it reduces our income tax rate from 5% to 4%. That’s a straight 20% reduction in the commonwealth’s largest revenue stream, and a $5 billion cut to our annual state budget.
The other tax proposal is just as unbalanced. It amends the state’s misguided “62F” tax rebate policy, which triggers automatic tax rebates when state revenues reach a certain level. By imposing an increasingly restrictive cap on state investment, the 62F tax rebate initiative would lead to escalating cuts to public programs over time, locking the state into a cycle of shrinking budgets.
A permanent cut of this scale — $7 billion for the two ballot initiatives — would blow a giant crater in the annual state budget just when Massachusetts is facing the most serious affordability crisis in decades. There is no version of the math that doesn’t end with catastrophic cuts to essential services like schools, colleges, health care, childcare, transit, affordable housing, mental-health and addiction treatment. Everything that the Fair Share Amendment made possible — free community college, child care subsidies, new school buildings, literacy programs, free regional transportation — will be slashed. Costs for families, like housing, childcare and health insurance will soar.
The High Tech Council has tried to say that these tax cuts would pay for themselves. But this is one of the biggest lies in politics, one that even George H. W. Bush called “voodoo economics.” No massive tax cut has ever paid for itself.
And let’s talk about fairness. A flat-rate tax cut in one of the most unequal states in the country doesn’t lift all boats — it mostly lifts the yachts. Families in Springfield, Lawrence, and Worcester struggling to keep up with rent, child care, and groceries would see pocket change while the public services they depend on are decimated. The state’s millionaires, who already capture a disproportionate amount of the state’s income and wealth, would get another windfall — just after Donald Trump and the Republican Congress sent them $3.36 billion in tax breaks as part of his Big Ugly Bill. If you think the big problem in America is that the rich don’t have enough money, then these ballot initiatives are for you.
The council insists its ballot initiatives are about “competitiveness” — not just tax cuts for the rich. But what’s competitive about a state that can’t fund the MBTA well enough to keep trains from catching fire? What’s competitive about a housing market so punishing that middle class professionals can’t afford it? What’s competitive about a health care system that can’t pay its workforce or deliver timely care?
The MHTC’s corporate executives know that their companies don’t choose Massachusetts for low taxes — if they did, they’d already be in a state that prioritizes low taxes over education and health care. But companies like Hasbro, Dynatrace, and Lego, who all moved their headquarters to Boston in the last couple years, come here because our talent is unparalleled, our research ecosystem is unmatched, and our public schools are the best in the country. All of this 21st-century infrastructure, built with public investments over decades, allows businesses to recruit and retain the best, and provides ample opportunity for profitable growth. The MHTC would like to slice the throat of this goose that lays the golden egg, all for short-term financial gain.
Perhaps most troubling is the immoral brazenness of pursuing these initiatives at the very moment Massachusetts is confronting billions of dollars in cuts from the federal government. The MHTC wants to be Trump’s accomplices at the state level — doubling down on his plan to cut taxes for the rich while cutting health care, education, and other public services for the rest of us.
Massachusetts voters are not naïve. They understand that the state’s economic strength is inseparable from its public investments. They know that good schools, safe and reliable transit, functioning public health systems, and affordable communities are not luxuries; they are the backbone of the commonwealth’s success.
The 2026 ballot initiatives aren’t reform. They’re a raid. Rather than being driven by broad grassroots concern, they’re backed by a well-financed business coalition whose members stand to benefit disproportionately from tax cuts while shifting the costs of diminished public services on to everyone else. And once the raiders have taken what they want, the rest of us will be left to deal with hollowed-out public goods with few resources to fix them.
The smartest thing Massachusetts can do in 2026 is stop this raid before it starts. Every political leader, and every concerned business leader, should be telling the MHTC that they will lose all credibility, all access, and all respect if they continue with their scorched earth policies.
Max Page is president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and Harris Gruman is executive director of the MA SEIU State Council.