BOSTON – In a brief public hearing lacking of any counter-arguments, members of the Legislature's Joint Revenue Committee listened Tuesday to a western Massachusetts lawmaker's pitch to let cities and towns decide whether to slap drivers with a 3-cent-a-gallon fuel tax surcharge at the pump.
"I just look at it as another tool in the toolbox for municipalities to kind of chart their own course," state Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat, told the committee. A tax under the measure would apply to gasoline and diesel sales at filling stations with the boundaries of the city or town imposing it.
WASHINGTON – An atheist group dropped its attempt to block state funding of faith-based groups' work with ex-convicts in Florida.
The New York-based group, the Center for Inquiry, declined to appeal a Florida county court ruling on Jan. 20 that let the state fund work by Lamb of God Ministries and Prisoners of Christ. The Christian groups have provided housing, food and job assistance to former prisoners to help reduce recidivism in the Sunshine State for more than two decades.
