Repblcn_in_Mass
08-06-2008, 07:59 AM
JEFF JACOBY
A resolution: Abolish the income tax
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 30, 2007
ON ELECTION DAY five years ago, 885,683 Massachusetts citizens voted for a ballot measure to abolish the Massachusetts income tax - a 45 percent level of support that shocked the state's political establishment, which had expected the question to go down to ignominious defeat, not come within a few percentage points of passing. So when Libertarian leader Carla Howell launched a new effort to junk the income tax earlier this year, the powers that be made it clear that this time they would do everything they could to discredit it.
In August, Howell's Committee for Small Government filed its updated ballot language, and Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation wasted no time pouring scorn on it. (Its name notwithstanding, the Taxpayers Foundation is a business lobby that often opposes broad-based tax relief.) Howell's proposal is "absolutely unreasonable," Widmer snorted. "Essentially she's trying to repeal the 20th century."
Undeterred, tax-repeal supporters collected 100,000 voter signatures on initiative petitions, well above the number required to move the measure forward. So Governor Deval Patrick is cranking up the rhetoric. He told the Associated Press last week that undoing the income tax is "just a dumb idea" that would utterly devastate Massachusetts.
Massachusetts gets it on the ballot (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/12/30/a_resolution_abolish _the_income_tax?mode =PF)
An updated Article (http://www.taxfoundation.or g/blog/printer/23359.html)
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I knew I wasn't the only Repub around!
Our neighbors to the north, New Hampshire, have no state income tax and have some of the best roads AND schools in the Northeast.This measure would require the state to trim some of THEIR expenses, but they will turn it all on to the cities and towns as retribution, that's the way they are.
(Edited to add updated Article)
A resolution: Abolish the income tax
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 30, 2007
ON ELECTION DAY five years ago, 885,683 Massachusetts citizens voted for a ballot measure to abolish the Massachusetts income tax - a 45 percent level of support that shocked the state's political establishment, which had expected the question to go down to ignominious defeat, not come within a few percentage points of passing. So when Libertarian leader Carla Howell launched a new effort to junk the income tax earlier this year, the powers that be made it clear that this time they would do everything they could to discredit it.
In August, Howell's Committee for Small Government filed its updated ballot language, and Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation wasted no time pouring scorn on it. (Its name notwithstanding, the Taxpayers Foundation is a business lobby that often opposes broad-based tax relief.) Howell's proposal is "absolutely unreasonable," Widmer snorted. "Essentially she's trying to repeal the 20th century."
Undeterred, tax-repeal supporters collected 100,000 voter signatures on initiative petitions, well above the number required to move the measure forward. So Governor Deval Patrick is cranking up the rhetoric. He told the Associated Press last week that undoing the income tax is "just a dumb idea" that would utterly devastate Massachusetts.
Massachusetts gets it on the ballot (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/12/30/a_resolution_abolish _the_income_tax?mode =PF)
An updated Article (http://www.taxfoundation.or g/blog/printer/23359.html)
=============
I knew I wasn't the only Repub around!
Our neighbors to the north, New Hampshire, have no state income tax and have some of the best roads AND schools in the Northeast.This measure would require the state to trim some of THEIR expenses, but they will turn it all on to the cities and towns as retribution, that's the way they are.
(Edited to add updated Article)