Community Investment Campaign - Phone Script

Hello, my name is ________________ and I live in ______ and I am a constituent of Rep. _______is the Representative in his/her office for me to talk with him/her for a minute?

If NO: - May I talk with the staff person who is keeping track of all the constituent phone calls that are coming in about the budget?

If YES: Proceed to section **

- Whom I am speaking to?

- I want you to tell the Representative that I called to talk about two things:

** I belong to ____________ (organization) that has been fighting for _____________ (describe your program). This year we are concerned because of the cuts of ___________ will do real damage to our programs and public structures and we would like the Representative to sponsor some amendments to restore those line items.

We know that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not have enough revenue to restore my program or anybody else’s program. We belong to the “Community Investment Campaign” and we are urging our elected officials to support our revenue package of $600 million dollars so that we can avoid some of these devastating cuts. We are specifically asking the Representative to support the following proposals:

1. Removing the sales tax exemption for smokeless tobacco +o-$8 million advanced by Rep. Hecht - Amendment #287

2. Removing the sales tax exemption for candy and soda advanced by Rep. Patrick - Amendment #329

3. Restoring the tax on dividends and interest to 12 percent, with provisions to exempt moderate-income seniors (+/- $500 million) advanced by Rep. Patrick - Amendment #323 

4. Supporting transparency and accountability measures advanced by Rep. Patrick, Rep. D'Amico, Rep. Callahan, Rep. Kaufman, and Rep. Sciortino – Amendments #734, #735, #330, #543, #565, #734, #735, #835 and #836.

Someone from our group will come to your office with a fact sheet outlining these revenue options that I hope you will be able to support.