Taking Care Of Our Seniors And Veterans

We as a Commonwealth owe so much to our senior citizens and veterans, and we must do a better job of taking care of them. I have been a champion on expanding the senior circuit breaker tax credit by doubling the cap. The senior circuit breaker is the best way to provide relief to property taxes and rental relief that affect our seniors. Seniors should not have to worry about being priced out of their home as they have helped build the community to what it is today. The senior circuit breaker helps over 100 million seniors in the Commonwealth, it ensures that low to middle-income seniors are not paying more than 10% of their income is not being spent on their property taxes and half of their utility bills whereas it also ensures that seniors who are renters aren't paying more than 25% of their income in rent. Expanding the credit by doubling the cap on the credit ensures that the credit keeps up with inflation. Additionally, I have fought for additional relief for low-income seniors and veterans by allowing communities to waive local excise taxes as well as expand property tax deferral for low-income seniors. I have also fought for our Prisoners of War by trying to make them exempt from paying state income taxes as well as allow communities to secure parking spaces for veterans in large retail parking lots. 

The Commonwealth also passed a major veteran relief bill known as the Speed Act. Key provisions of this bill included in-state tuition continuity for military-connected college students: ensures that a member of the military stationed in the Commonwealth, their spouse, or their children are deemed an in-state resident after their acceptance at one of the state’s higher education institutions. The bill established the Massachusetts National Guard family education program to allow National Guard members to transfer their unused education benefits under the National Guard Education Assistance Program to their dependents. It also established a tax credit for the employment of National Guard members to support small businesses. 

This session, Governor Maura Healey signed into law the HERO Act, and Act Honoring, Empowering, Recognizing Our Servicemembers and Veterans.  This is the most comprehensive veterans’ legislative to ever be passed in Massachusetts.  It expands benefits, simplifies the delivery of services, and ensures that all veterans can be included in programs intended to assist them, I’m very proud of pushing for this bill and happy the legislature came together to get this done.  

Specifically, this law increases the annuity for both disabled veterans and Gold Star family members, increases the tax credit to employ veterans, simplifies the process for veterans buying back their active duty time for the purpose of public service retirement, and expands access to behavioral health treatment. In particular, I’m proud of two pieces of legislation that I filed that were included in this new law, which were to allow military medics and veterans with medical training to become EMTs more easily by allowing them to skip the course and go straight to passing the EMT certification test, and to exempt more veterans from the extra fee for some veterans’ license plates.