The Chamber and the other major business groups worked collectively to defeat Question 1 – the proposed ballot initiative to repeal the state income tax that was overwhelmingly defeated in yesterday's election.  To support these efforts, the Chamber, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation commissioned a study by Global Insight, the nationally-known economic consulting firm based in Lexington. This study, released in October, analyzed the negative economic consequences of repealing the income tax, including the effects of reduced support for public education, lower public infrastructure spending, cuts in basic government services, and the diminished private investment that could follow from such cuts.

The full report, entitled Economic Impacts of Eliminating the Massachusetts State Income Tax, can be accessed by clicking here. To listen to Chamber president and CEO Paul Guzzi argue against passage of Question One on WBUR's morning edition, visit blog.bostonchamber.com.

Last week, the Chamber released a new report, Greater Boston’s Challenge: Sustaining the Talent Advantage, that identifies weaknesses in our workforce development pipeline, and makes five recommendations to ensure we solidify this strength. The Chamber’s report complements a research report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on The Future of the Skilled Labor Force in New England: The Supply of Recent College Graduates, which investigated the factors that affect the stock of recent college graduates in the region. Over the coming months, the Chamber will work to implement the report’s recommendations.

Read the full report and recommendations here.

State government officials recently released regulations to implement an identity theft law enacted last year. While the need for an enhanced data privacy law is clear, some of the regulations have raised concerns among businesses in a wide range of leading industries. At issue are rules dealing with encryption, inventory, and third-party verification which require companies to ensure that all of their vendors are in full compliance with the regulations, including those located far from Massachusetts. In addition, these regulations are slated to take effect January 1, 2009, leaving insufficient time for companies to become compliant or for their vendors to revise their own data security procedures.

The Chamber has shared its concerns with the Office of Consumer and Business Regulation and other senior Administration officials and is working for revisions to the regulations that will adequately reflect the time and resources businesses need to comply.

In mid-October, after several months of advocacy from the Chamber and other business groups, the Health Insurance Connector Authority adopted new Minimum Creditable Coverage (MCC) regulations that are an improvement over what had been proposed. For those employers who offer plans that are not completely compliant with MCC standards, the Connector now has the discretion to determine compliance if these plans are actuarially equivalent to the Connector’s most basic, Bronze-level plan. The new regulations also allow federally approved high deductible health plans to be MCC compliant, which was an uncertainty prior to the adoption of these regulations.

The Chamber will continue to work in the weeks ahead with leaders in business, health care, and state government, to ensure proper implementation of the law.

Federal research funding is the lifeblood of the region’s innovation economy, and the Chamber-led National Business Coalition for Federal Research (NBCFR) has been working to secure funding increases in several key accounts in the FY 2009 federal budget.

In September, President Bush signed into law a $630 billion continuing resolution that includes final FY 2009 appropriations for the Dept. of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security (DHS) – two NBCFR priority accounts that have been the focus of much our advocacy this year. The DOD Science & Technology portfolio would grow 6.6% in FY 2009, adding $882M, with a whopping 12.9% increase for basic defense research. This funding level is a significant boost for DOD’s basic and applied research accounts and represents a nearly $2.7B increase over the Administration’s FY 2009 request. DHS R&D portfolio would grow 9.4% to $1.1B, surpassing last year’s substantial increase for this account which funds many critical technology-oriented projects. The Chamber-led NBCFR will continue working to secure robust funding for other critical research accounts including NIH, NSF, Dept. of Energy, and NASA – all of which will remain at FY 2008 funding levels through March 2009.