Jobs and National Health Care Reform:
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a Job Killer

In a study prepared for the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, the Beacon Hill Institute found that the current proposal before Congress to reform the nation's health care system will destroy up to 700,000 jobs over a ten-year period.The study uses a more realistic baseline from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to refute the claim made by the Center for American Progress that PPACA will create up to 400,000 jobs per year over the coming decade.

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BHI Survey: Overwhelming majority of state voters oppose a key feature of Project Labor Agreements

(BOSTON) – A new survey conducted by the Suffolk University Political Research Center for the Beacon Hill Institute shows that 69% of Massachusetts voters oppose a requirement under which private contractors who perform public projects must hire workers through union hiring halls. The finding is important because the requirement is a key feature of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs), which are strongly favored by construction unions for conducting public projects.

Last year, President Obama issued an executive order encouraging the use of PLAs on federal construction projects. The order is controversial in part because PLAs require contractors to use labor provided by the unions, whether or not their own workers are union members.

Proponents argue that PLAs guarantee the availability of a skilled workforce and labor “peace.” Opponents argue that nonunion workers are just as a skilled as union workers and that the requirement puts nonunion contractors at a competitive disadvantage, penalizes the vast majority of construction workers, who do not belong to unions, and increases construction costs. Worries about labor peace, say opponents, are an empty threat.

Opposition to the idea of requiring construction contractors to hire through union hiring halls runs counter to voters’ otherwise sympathetic attitudes to unions. The same survey showed that a majority (52%) of Massachusetts voters have a favorable opinion of unions. It also found that only 19% of voters believe that public sector union workers are overpaid. MORE

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Questions and Responses

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Cross-tabs.

ON THE ISSUE

The Massachusetts Scratch Card Lottery:
A Truth-in-Advertising Travesty

A BHI Analysis

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"TELling" it like it is: How Massachusetts could eliminate its structural deficit and still spend generously on safety-net programs

(BOSTON) In a new study entitled Massachusetts Fiscal Policy: The Legend v. the Facts, the Beacon Hill Institute shows how Massachusetts could eliminate the "structural deficit" in its state budget and still spend generously on safety-net services. The solution is to adopt a TEL (Tax and Expenditure Limitation) that fixes the growth of state spending at a rate equal to inflation plus the growth of population.

The study tackles two Massachusetts budget legends: 1) that the state is stingy toward the provision of safety-net services and 2) that it faces intractable "structural deficits."

David G. Tuerck, Executive Director of the Institute and co-author of the study, observed that "both legends are regularly invoked to justify new taxes and both legends are based on fantasy, not facts." MORE

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