On March 30th, the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions heard testimony on H.5007 An Act to Reduce the State Personal Income Tax Rate from 5% to 4%. MTF was asked to provide expert testimony on the proposal, which would reduce state tax...

On January 28th, the Healey-Driscoll administration filed its budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2027. The $63.36 billion plan increases spending over the FY 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) by $2.3 billion (3.8 percent) and over the...

On January 28th, the Healey-Driscoll administration filed its budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2027. The $63.36 billion plan increases spending over the FY 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) by $2.3 billion (3.8 percent) and over the...

On October 1, 2025, federal lawmakers failed to resolve a budget deadlock to start Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2026, resulting in a federal government shutdown. Forty days later, on November 9th, the Senate announced an agreement between Senate...

On July 4th, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law. The massive tax and spending bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the nation’s debt by $3.9 trillion over the next ten years, and...

The federal government spends more than $6 trillion each year through its annual budget. The federal budget process shares some similarities with the state, but it also differs in many ways.This resource provides a basic outline of that process and...

The purpose of this chartbook, and MTF’s follow-up research, is to contextualize the potential impacts of federal action on Massachusetts. In this introduction, we provide a rubric for how to think about those federal impacts, including the...

On January 22nd, the Healey-Driscoll administration filed its budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. The $62.07 billion spending plan increases spending over the FY 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) by $4.3 billion (7.4 percent) and over the...

On December 30th, Conference reports were released on two major pieces of health care legislation, engrossed earlier in the session:Senate bill 3012, An Act Relative to Pharmaceutical Access, Costs and TransparencyHouse bill 5159, An Act Enhancing...

In May of 2024, Steward Health Care announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection; beginning a process through which the for-profit health system looked to restructure its debt and sell or close assets, including seven Massachusetts hospitals...