Enough with all the doom and gloom, already.
That was the clear message that state Representative Aaron Michlewitz sent to the business community on Wednesday. Speaking at an Associated Industries of Massachusetts event at Northeastern University, the politically powerful House Ways and Means Committee chair noted how he’s been hearing a lot of grumbling about economic competitiveness lately. But when he joined the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce for a “City to City” field trip in Toronto earlier this week, he told the AIM members, he picked up on plenty of envy directed toward Boston and Massachusetts.
He said he would quote a former Boston Celtics coach, Rick Pitino. “The attitude in this town stinks,” Michlewitz said, “except he didn’t use the word ‘stinks.’”
Michlewitz continued: “The negativity I hear on a daily basis is enough to make you think we are bordering on the Great Depression, or almost wishing it into existence.”
Later, he explained to reporters that the griping began after voters passed the so-called millionaires tax two years ago. Michlewitz was trying to say: It’s time to get over it and offer up solutions instead of complaints.
“We’ve got to grow our economy, we’ve got to do it together,” Michlewitz told reporters. “The business community and government cannot do it alone. We both have to work together.”
As one successful example of cooperation, Michlewitz pointed to the proposal that the Boston chamber and other business groups made last week to Mayor Michelle Wu to adjust Boston’s tax rates for three years, to soften a potential hike for residential taxpayers — a proposal that finally led to a deal between Wu, who initially wanted commercial taxpayers to pick up an even bigger share of the property tax tab, and the business associations. Michlewitz wants to hear more from the business community on what lawmakers should do to address issues ranging from child care to transportation.
Toward that end, Michlewitz had good news for transportation advocates: He announced he would try to ensure in 2025 that more than half of the $1 billion-plus in surplus funds from the millionaires tax collections goes to transportation. The income tax surcharge for high earners had been framed as a revenue source for education and transportation programs, to be split 50/50 among the two. But in reality, education has been drawing most of the millionaires tax revenue so far. It’s only fair, he said, that the majority of the surplus funds from the tax goes to addressing the MBTA’s pressing needs and other transportation causes.
Speaking of competitiveness, much was made at the event about how hard it is to get into Northeastern nowadays. Michlewitz, an alum, said he was texting some college friends about how he was going to speak at NU, and “every single one of them said, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t get in there now.’”
And former House speaker Bob DeLeo, another Northeastern alum and now a university fellow there, rattled off some stats during his introduction to Michlewitz, a political protegee: 98,000 applications for this year’s incoming class, 2,800 accepted.
“Looking around this room,” DeLeo joked to the roughly 150 business leaders in attendance, “probably no one here would have been.”
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene.
Jon Chesto can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @jonchesto.
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