A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. — Emerson
No hobgoblins here, folks — it ain’t Halloween yet.
Patrick’s campaign has done its homework, and bashes back at Reilly’s press release from earlier today with their own oppo research. It looks like Tom Reilly was agin’ the tax rollback before he was fer it. Back in ’05, frontrunner Reilly was picking fights with Mitt Romney, who proposed implementing the rollback. From a Woodlief column in the Herald 4/21/05:
“I’m not going to raise taxes,” Reilly said Tuesday. “I understand the importance of tax revenue. That’s why I’m opposed to the income tax rollback to a flat 5 percent (which Gov. Romney wants). We can’t afford it now. It would be devastating to our cities and towns. But people have seen increases in property taxes and state and local fees for years. I am very reluctant to add to their burdens. We have to be fiscally responsible, pay our bills. That’s why we can’t afford the rollback now. We need to grow our economy, expand business, build the tax base. Not raise taxes.”
And this from the Globe, 3/10/05 (quoted by the serious thinkers at Citizens for Limited Taxation — creators(?) of the maddeningly hilarious animation at the right):
“There are difficult financial challenges ahead of us so in the foreseeable future, in the next few years, and right now we cannot afford to be rolling back taxes.”
So let’s get this straight: Don’t raise the income tax, don’t roll it back, property taxes are high … sounds familiar … like whose position? Ah yes, Patrick’s. To Tom’s credit, he has been consistent on not raising taxes.
So, Tom’s changed his mind in the last year-plus, perhaps as a result of the state’s improving fiscal situation. I can’t blame someone for reacting to new facts and new situations. That’s what separates us from the animals the Republicans. But it seems a little stingy that he wouldn’t grant Patrick a mulligan on statements he made last calendar year, no? I mean, didn’t Reilly’s campaign just leave itself open for this, since Tom’s campaign called for Patrick to “tell the truth”?
(Substance break: Folks who are supposed to know say the rollback is a bad idea — even this year. We now return you to the political food fight.)
Tom Reilly stumbling once again, can’t say he didn’t walk into that one. If it’s not one thing with Reilly, it’s the other.
Tom Reilly didn’t issue this release for the BMG crowd, which is disproportionately pro-Patrick and anti-rollback.
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Unlike Charley, I’m not blown away by the Patrick Team’s opposition research, since it has been public knowledge that Tom Reilly concluded that the state should proceed with the rollback in December 2005 when revenues had improved.
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Bottom line: Reilly is for it and Patrick is against. For the majority of voters who support the rollback, that is the only element of this discussion that they will care about.
“Bottom line: Reilly is for it and Patrick is against. For the majority of voters who support the rollback, that is the only element of this discussion that they will care about.”
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Agreed. So why would Reilly’s campaign get into the whole “tell the truth/be consistent” business, when they could have anticipated there would be blowback?
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And why does Tom Reilly insist on acting as Chris Gabrieli’s fullback? Bizarre.
Ernie Boch, III likened Reilly to Chance the Gardener the protagonist of the film “Being There. The more I see of Reilly the more I think Ernie’s choice was apt. Reilly is looking more and more like a cipher in this race. When I see him on the television he looks queasy, almost on the verge of vomiting. I have no idea why I get that feeling but it comes through strong as hell. Reilly has signs up everywhere but I feel no momentum at all.
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I think that it will come down to Deval and Gabs. Deval will win if he moves to the center. I don’t mean drift toward the center, I mean the SS Patrick needs to turn hard right rudder. My thinking is that Deval Patrick has the left sewn up pretty tightly and that his followers are clearly more zealous than are Gabs’s. For instance, if he were to endorse the tax rollback his followers would rest assured that he didn’t really feel this way.
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As for whether the tax rollback is a bad thing or not I cannot say as I do not think myself qualified to render an an opinion. I guess if forced to I would say that while a 0.3 percent rollback would not reduce my state taxes by a significant amount, it would reduce the amount of revenue received by the state by many millions of dollars. I don’t know if it is prudent to do so at this time, but I think it is foolish to paint yourself in a corner one way or the other.
on the rollback sounds a lot like Patrick’s.
I love reading comments that suggest that Tom Reilly is somehow irrelevant. It’s as though supporters of his opponents believe that they can will Reilly’s improving poll numbers away if they just click their heels three times and repeat, “There’s no candidate like Deval/Chris. . .”
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I especially enjoy reading comments (not this one, Herakles) that ask where Reilly’s votes are going, when, according the CBS4/SurveyUSA polls, Reilly is gaining support. Therefore, the proper question should be, Where are Reilly’s increases coming from?
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I enjoy BMG as much as the next poster (and spend way too much time here), but I try not to lose track of the fact that BMG is the ultimate bubble. In fact, I think I will try to coin a new phrase and declare that BMG is Bubblicious!
Leaders should serve the people. In Massachusetts, the public is very clear: they want their state income tax at 5.0. It is incredibly cynical for politicians, and pundits, to belittle or ignore the 2000 vote. It strikes me as logically indistinguisable from the disgraceful position that the leaders of the legislature took against the Clean Elections referendum: times have changed, they didn’t really mean it, we know better. Specifics? The reduction in revenues that would result from a lower income tax can be balanced by a draw-down on the budget surplus supplemented, if necessary, by spending cuts. We can start by rescinding the $44,000 Ruane give-away, and move on from there to the $208,000 annual cash payout from the state to Billy Bulger. The full quotation is, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Reilly, no philospher or divine, is the bigger statesman for being willing to change his mind. Patrick and Gabrieli should do the same.
Let’s day the income tax isn’t rolled back for another 4 years, and we hit the 10 year anniversary of the prop with no tax rollback. Has the resolution expired? How about 20 years. After all, in 20 years, only about half of the people who voted for (or against) the proposition will still be Massachusetts residents above ground. Will it have expired then?
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I agree that it should have been implemented in 2001, because that was what the law suggested. Likewise, if it passed in Nov 2006 I’d agree that it should be passed in 2007. But, at what point does the referendum no longer have teeth because the wheels of change have rolled on?
must face the music with the Democrat voters at some point in the campaign. Do they want a Dukakis type liberal who has a strong record of supporting tax increase or a Reilly moderate who recognizes that State surpluses should be returned to the taxpayers.We shall soon find out.
that you can provide a link the actual Reilly press release? The link that you provide leads to Charley’s diary which is predominantly focused on what Deval Patrick should say in response. I don’t know if it’s possible, but it is hard to comment on editorialized versions of the dualing press releases. Thanks.
… and I couldn’t find it on the Reilly site. I looked, honest. Here it is, reprinted in full.
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As I say, it’s a one-way street with the Reilly campaign; we get their press releases, they don’t return our phone calls.