1. Farmland and farms are a more stable tax base. According to the American Farmland Trust in Washington, D.C., farms return more tax dollars to the local town than the dollar value of services (school, police, fire) needed.
2. Farms are a dynamic economic engine. All wealth originates from our natural resources and the industries that directly use the natural resources are farming, fishing, forestry or mining. These are the primary industries of the world. As a primary industry, farms create new dollars to the local economy. This new dollar is circulated seven times through the economy until it is taxed down to zero dollars.
BOSTON – A Senate committee on Tuesday unanimously endorsed an annual budget that includes funding for 150 new residential substance abuse treatment beds, hundreds of new rental assistance vouchers and investments in education programs that exceed appropriations approved by the House in April.
The $39.497 billion budget roughly hews to the proposals by Gov. Charlie Baker and the House, which aim to limit spending growth next year to about 3.5 percent. The full Senate is set to take up the budget starting Tuesday, May 24 with a Thursday deadline for filing amendments.
