Welcome to Trendlines. The secret password is “steam catapults.”

Today, I explain why the Legislature should reject a bill to increase the state’s tax on offshore corporate profits. Plus, Vince Gilligan’s new show is ready break big.

• Trump administration says SNAP will be partially funded after judges’ rulings.
• Your summer weekend in Nantucket is on Tuesday’s ballot.
• How the state’s most ambitious housing law in decades is tearing Winthrop apart.

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🫷 Hands off

Improving the business climate in Massachusetts was never going to happen overnight. But raising corporate taxes — a step lawmakers are weighing — would only undercut the modest gains they have already achieved.

Beacon Hill has cut business and capital gains taxes, reduced red tape, and made lowering energy costs a priority. They got religion after voters approved a 4 percent surcharge on incomes above $1 million in 2022 — a change that doesn’t make it any easier for the state to attract and retain jobs.

Still, the housing crisis persists. Unemployment insurance is a mess. Workers are being stretched thin by costs for child care and health care.

Those are reasons enough for lawmakers to reject a bill that would increase by 10-fold the amount of offshore income that’s subject to the state’s 8 percent corporate tax.

Instead of squeezing businesses, the Legislature should first rein in spending.

Catch up: The tax hike is being pushed by Raise Up Massachusetts, the same labor-funded coalition that backed the millionaires tax.

The proposal would boost to 50 percent the share of global intangible low-taxed income — a.k.a. GILTI — that would be taxable by the state, up from 5 percent today. GILTI is the foreign profits of US multinationals that aren’t taxed by countries at rates similar to the US.

Supporters say the GILTI tax increase would bring in revenue needed to offset the loss of funds resulting from the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and the Trump administration’s spending cuts. They justify targeting overseas earnings because “global mega corporations conceal their profits in offshore tax havens.”

Why it matters: Corporate taxes are already too high, even after the adoption of the “single sales factor” that will lower rates for some businesses.

Moreover, the increase wouldn’t provide much of a buffer against federal cuts.

“Is this the final straw for Massachusetts businesses?” Christopher R. Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, said in an interview. “It will certainly make a difference when they are deciding where to locate.”

The big picture: Despite recent improvements, the state is still widely considered unfriendly to business.

Last week, the right-leaning Tax Foundation once again put Massachusetts near the bottom in its annual state tax competitiveness rankings.

Massachusetts also received poor scores for cost of living, cost of doing business, and business friendliness in CNBC’s “Top States for Business” survey — though it ranked 20th overall thanks to strong grades for access to capital, education, and technology and innovation.

As my Globe colleague Jon Chesto reported, most states don’t tax offshore income. That includes key competitors such as North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and California. Of those that do, and have economies comparable to Massachusetts, most tax a small portion.

In New England, however, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont tax 50 percent of offshore profits. At the federal level, GOP tax law changes may boost many companies’ GILTI tax bills.

The case against: In a blog post last week, the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance said Raise Up was promoting a “misguided tax hike . . . taking aim at Massachusetts’ business community.”

The alliance was formed a year ago by three business organizations — Mass High Tech, the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, and the Pioneer Institute — to advocate for policies to strengthen the business environment.

In its critique, the group called out Raise Up’s assertion that the GILTI change would generate “over $400 million” in revenue. The state Department of Revenue has a much lower estimate: as much as $75.5 million in the current fiscal year and up to $151 million annually thereafter.

Mass Opportunity also noted that state spending has risen at a faster pace than personal incomes or inflation.

Caveat: But the business group underplays the state’s vulnerability to federal spending cuts.

“Massachusetts is one of the country’s least-reliant states on federal funding,” it said, noting that the revenue department estimates that federal tax cuts will cost only 1 percent of the current state budget.

Yes, this year, federal tax changes will have an insignificant impact, but overall, one-quarter of the state’s $61.7 billion in expected revenue this year comes from federal reimbursements.

As I noted in a previous column, Governor Maura Healey and lawmakers have taken steps to fortify the state’s finances. But more work will likely be needed to protect critical services, avoid tax increases, and mitigate the economic pain caused by Washington’s assault on the region’s core health care, education, and science sectors.

Unfortunately, Healey recently released $125 million in funding for lawmakers’ pet projects that she had held back since July amid signs of an economic slowdown. The Legislature overrode just more than half of Healey’s budget vetoes. Spending rose an average of 4 percent over the past three years.

Final thought: The modest revenue gain that the GILTI tax increase would bring isn’t worth the hit to the state’s business climate.

Until Beacon Hill shows some fiscal discipline, they should leave businesses alone.

Correction: An earlier version of this column misidentified the group that is underplaying the state’s vulnerability to federal spending cuts.

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“I think we are in good shape, but I think that there are sectors of the economy that are in recession.”

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNN, arguing that the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates further.

Medical emergency: Prospect Medical Holdings is seeking to close Rhode Island’s Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and Roger Williams Medical Center by the end of the year.

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Niche apps: Strava, Letterboxd, and Beli are growing in popularity by catering to people with specific interests.

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Risky business: Amid the Trump administration’s controversial claims linking Tylenol’s active ingredient to autism, Kimberly-Clark is buying the pain reliever’s maker in a cash and stock deal worth about $48.7 billion.

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Come dancing: Undisclosed donors to President Trump’s White House ballroom include money manager BlackRock, billionaire Jeff Yass, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and health care company Vantive, The New York Times reports.

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RIP: Setti Warren, the former mayor of Newton and first Black man elected to lead a city in Massachusetts, has died. He was 55 and no cause of death was given.

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$381.7 billion

— Berkshire Hathaway’s cash stash at the end of the third quarter, a record for Warren Buffett’s conglomerate.

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