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Opinion:
Top ten reasons to keep the
tax rollback rolling
By Barbara
Anderson
Citizens for Limited Taxation
March 27, 2002
The law passed by the voters in
November 2000 rolled back the income tax rate over
three years so it will return to a flat 5 percent
in 2003.
As we must apparently debate that income tax rollback
again, it's hard to know whether we're debating a
hike in next year's income tax rate to 5.3 percent
(sometimes referred to as "the freeze"),
5.6 percent (last year's rate), 5.85 percent (Tom
Birmingham's preferred rate) or 5.95 percent (the
Massachusetts Mayors Association's preferred rate).
For the sake of simplicity, not to mention respect
for the voters, we'll just oppose all rates higher
than 5 percent.
Herewith the top ten reasons to keep the rollback
rolling:
1) We can't trust politicians who tell us the higher
rate is "temporary" because what the Legislature
called a "temporary tax" when it was passed
is now 13 years old. It took an initiative petition
to make legislators keep the promise that the rate
would drop as soon as the 1989 fiscal
crisis was over. (See item 6).
2) The voters passed the rollback by a 59-41-percent
margin, with 91 percent of the commonwealth's cities
and towns voting yes. What part of "yes"
don't some legislators understand?
3) The state budget has doubled since the temporary
tax was enacted, partly because when the deficit bonds
it funded were paid off, the tax stayed and encouraged
roughly a billion dollars a year in higher spending.
Local aid increased dramatically; many communities,
while spending as if there were no tomorrow, also
accumulated "free cash" that they can use
to offset a local aid slowdown.
4) A tax hike is a pay cut. Taxpayers can spend their
share to stimulate the economy, save it for their
families and their future, or give it to a charity,
rather than trust the legislature to spend it wisely.
Because ...
5) Legislative priorities include allowing generous
pensions for forty-somethings, other patronage abuses,
impulsive new programs in response to crisis journalism,
corporate welfare, and their own pay raises and benefits.
The Legislature, in general, does not like it when
the voters tell it what to do, and will use any excuse
not to do it.
6) If the Legislature gets away with killing yet another
voter initiative, the initiative petition process
is dead. There is no reason to spend your weekends
getting signatures, and support a ballot
campaign, if politicians just insist that you didn't
know what you were doing when you voted, then repeal
your hard-won law.
7) The terrible budget cuts we hear about are cuts
in the accustomed rate of growth. For areas of real
need, there is a $1.5 billion rainy day fund and other
state savings accounts, made up of taxpayer dollars
that were held during the good years to cover essential
services in an economic downturn.
8) To address Medicaid increases, the new $8 billion
dollar "taxpayer reimbursement" from tobacco
companies can be used for any required increases in
health care spending. If state spending is not brought
under control this year, the state will not be able
to deal with a real fiscal crisis caused by increased
Medicaid costs or anything else, when it arrives.
9) This is the only chance
to get state spending under control before state revenues
pick up and the next big spending period begins, leading
to more tax hikes in the next recession.
10) Legislators should
pass the Citizens for Limited Taxation voluntary tax
before hiking taxes on all of us. Who knows how much
money could be raised by putting a line on the state
income tax form for Senator Birmingham, the mayors,
and other volunteers to pay the old, higher
rates themselves?
Every tax is a pay cut ... A tax cut is a pay raise.
Citizens for Limited
Taxation and Government | Post Office Box 408 | Peabody,
Massachusetts 01960 | (508) 384-0100 | www.cltg.org
| chip_ford@cltg.org
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