EAST HAMPTON, Mass. – A new report says the fees that Massachusetts charges to people on probation are falling disproportionately on those who live in the poorest communities.

Wendy Sawyer, who authored the report for the Prison Policy Initiative, says advocates had long suspected those being hit the hardest by court-ordered fees are least able to afford them.

Now, her group's research shows of the 67,000 people on probation paying the fees, the vast majority live in the state's poorest communities.

"So, the courts that serve populations where the per capita income is below $30,000, their probation rate is 88 percent higher – so, almost twice as high – as the folks in the top bracket, which is over $50,000," she points out.

As an example, the report says residents of Holyoke are sentenced to pay probation at more than three times the rate of Newton residents. Sawyer says for Holyoke residents, whose average income is just over $21,000 a year, the fees amount to a regressive form of taxation.

State lawmakers started to address the issue last year when they ended probation fees for juvenile offenders.

The state currently collects about $20 million a year in probation fees. Sawyer explains when the fees were adopted in the late 1980s, they were meant to plug holes in the budget, not to punish poor people.

She says given the data, changes could be made by the Legislature, so these fees don't continue to fall most heavily on those least able to pay.

"Particularly for these people who are being released from prison, folks who are facing all the challenges of re-entry also have to pay these monthly fees,” she stresses.

“But, they're like, the least likely to have work, they're probably going to have some other court debts that they're working on paying. So, it's going to be even harder for them to pay these fees and try and get their lives on track."

Sawyer notes there is a waiver system in place to exempt people who are too poor to pay their fees, but in practice, these waivers are seldom granted.

The report, called "Punishing Poverty," is online at prisonpolicy.org.





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While cuts to food support programs and Medicaid gained attention as the debate over the budget bill went on, there is also a long-term likelihood it will result in automatic spending cuts to Medicare.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the reconciliation bill is projected to add more than $3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. If the estimate is accurate, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act would require the executive branch to enact automatic spending cuts, including 4% annual cuts to Medicare starting in January, translating to around $500 billion in cuts over 10 years.

John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, said a spring survey found Tennesseans were broadly opposed to cuts.

"We ask about Tennesseans' willingness to support cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veterans, etc.," Geer outlined. "And the truth of the matter is that Tennesseans are opposed to cuts in any of these programs. And it doesn't matter your partisan stripe, whether you're a liberal Democrat or a conservative MAGA-ite, you don't want to see these programs cut."

More than 1.5 million Tennesseans depend on Medicare. Congressional action would be needed to avoid automatic cuts, likely requiring a 60-vote majority in the Senate.

While funding to research under the National Institutes of Health would not be subjected to automatic cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency has already fired 2,500 researchers at the NIH and canceled more than 800 research grants. Geer's polling found more than 70% of Tennesseans oppose cutting funding for basic research.

"We asked a battery of questions about cutting research at universities, at hospitals, for drug discovery, etc., and again, there's partisan differences," Geer reported. "The MAGA folks, so to speak, are happy to do the cutting but the rest of the state has concerns."

The poll found 73% of Tennesseans support research at teaching hospitals and 66% supported research at universities.


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As the U.S. Senate has approved President Donald Trump's tax cut and spending bill, health care advocates are hoping to get California's Republican members of Congress on board to reject huge potential cuts to Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in the Golden State.

The House approved the massive budget bill once before but now must reconsider the changes made in the Senate.

Matthew Herdman, California state director for the nonprofit Protect Our Care, hopes three California House members in particular will "flip" their votes.

"We believe that it's possible to stop this," Herdman explained. "When it initially came through the House, it only passed by one single vote, which means any one -- of David Valadao, Young Kim or Ken Calvert -- could vote against this in order to stop it."

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the Senate version of the bill would slash about $1 trillion from Medicaid and other health programs and it is forecast to cause almost 12 million people to lose health coverage by increasing work requirements and requiring people to verify their eligibility more often. Backers said the savings are necessary to partially cover the cost of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

Rep. David Min, D-Calif., who represents parts of Orange County, said the bill would still increase the national debt by trillions of dollars.

"It's all because of this completely evil and immoral agenda to give more money to people in the world who don't need it," Min asserted. "This is so wrong, and we need to fight back."

Naida Tushnet, a member of the Long Beach Gray Panthers, said she is worried about low-income older people who rely on both Medicaid and Medicare, particularly for long-term care.

"If they have to keep filing, even if they're capable of doing it all, they're going to fall into the cracks, because the system -- that's all online -- has been stripped of humans, because they fired all those other people who could take it on the phone and talk them through it," Tushnet outlined.

President Trump has set a deadline of July 4 for final passage of the bill, so the Republican leadership in the House is furiously negotiating and will try to hold a vote in the next few days.


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An Illinois professor cautions against premature celebrations of victory or defeat after the U.S. Senate passed President Donald Trump's budget reconciliation bill Tuesday.

The Senate narrowly passed an amended version of the bill after Vice President JD Vance's vote broke the 50-50 deadlock. The bill now goes back to the House because of the changes made to it in the Senate.

Brian Gaines, professor of political science at the University of Illinois, said the narrow margin in both chambers still makes the bill's future uncertain.

"We've seen the House being pretty unruly lately and it's a very small margin for the Republican majority, so I think there's a lot of suspense about what the House is going to do next," Gaines explained. "This is not yet the time for a victory lap for Donald Trump or the '(One) Big Beautiful Bill (Act).'"

Gaines noted Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., the Speaker of the House, has already faced difficulties in uniting the Republican Party on key issues like Medicaid, Social Security and local and state taxes. He added the changes made in the Senate to address the issues could further complicate its fate in the House.

The House will now work to pass the bill by Friday. Gaines views the President's July 4 deadline as potentially flexible, yet strategically important, since most folks in Congress would like to go home for the holiday weekend.

"The danger, of course, of people going back home is that they're more likely to hear opposition than support," Gaines observed. "You might end up with a caucus that's even harder to get on board after they've had the chance to hang around barbecues and have people complain to them."

Gaines emphasized the difficulty of passing legislation with small majorities and praised Johnson's skill in navigating the challenges. He noted the unpredictable nature of large legislative outcomes and the uncertainty about exactly what's in the massive bill make it hard to hone in on any implications.

"Surprisingly often, when there's a very big bill like this, 'We have to pass it to know what's in it,' turns out to be true in some respects," Gaines added. "Some of the consequences you see months later are not the ones that we were talking about in advance."