Keller @ Large: What Should They Cut?

BOSTON (CBS) - Governor Baker, Senate President Rosenberg, and House Speaker DeLeo will meet Monday afternoon at the State House and they have a lot to talk about.

For instance: what on earth is going bad with our local economy, and how much worse things could get in the very near future.

Tax receipts for the fiscal year that ends June 30th are coming in way below the projections the budget was based on.

And according to the most recent report by Mass Benchmarks, a consortium of local experts who track the state economy, our gross domestic product and overall economic growth are lagging well behind the nation, a complete reversal of the trend in recent years.

Despite all the profits employers have been pocketing during the boom times, according to Mass Benchmarks, "wage and salary growth in Massachusetts has stalled in the last two quarters."

Which brings us back to this meeting of the Big Three on Beacon Hill.

Baker has been a staunch opponent of new broad-based tax hikes; DeLeo has been as well for the most part, but he backs the proposed income-tax hike on millionaires heading for the November 2018 ballot.

But when I interviewed Rosenberg, a consistent voice for new taxes, the other day, he pointed out that even the roughly $2 billion the millionaires tax might bring in could be wiped out by Trumpcare, which if enacted could cut our federal Medicaid funding by about that same amount.

So here's the question – are you ready to pay higher taxes, not just the millionaires, you, even though chances are you haven't been getting fat raises?

And if you aren't, what do you want the Big Three to start cutting?

Listen to Jon's commentary: