There is a link to the article at the bottom:
Boston Tax Party
August 5, 2008
Massachusetts is about the last place one would expect a tax revolt, but that’s what’s brewing in Beantown. The state board of elections recently certified that citizen activists have gathered the 125,000 signatures required to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to eliminate the state income tax.The Small Government Act would repeal the 5.3% income and wage tax, as well as the state capital gains tax, which reaches as high as 12%. The ballot initiative would replace the $12.5 billion in taxes with . . . nothing. “One of the points here,” explains Carla Howell of the Committee for Small Government that is driving the referendum, “is to force the state legislators to start cutting the bloated state budget.” The political shock of having no income tax would force the pols on Beacon Hill to make the difficult spending choices they now refuse to make.
The referendum may seem the longest of long shots in a state represented by some of Congress’s biggest spenders. But the same initiative was on the ballot in 2002, and though the political establishment roared with laughter through Election Day, the measure got 45% of the vote. This time pro-tax forces such as the Massachusetts Teachers Association are planning to spend millions of dollars warning of Armageddon.
They have cause to be worried. A Fabrizio poll for Citizens for Limited Taxation discovered that the average Massachusetts voter believes that 41 cents of every state tax dollar are wasted. Coincidentally, that’s the share of the state budget funded by the income tax. One big drain is a pension program that doles out billions each year to double-dipping pensioners and state workers retiring at taxpayer expense in their late 40s or 50s.
Nine U.S. states have no income tax, including such economic climbers as Florida, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas. These states are doing fine funding schools, hospitals and police without the income levy. Over the past decade 330,000 Massachusetts residents have packed U-Haul trailers and left — more than have even fled Michigan — and many have gone to no-income-tax New Hampshire.
“The idea here is to stop being on the defensive in fighting against big government and to start taking the political offensive,” says Ms. Howell. She says the tax repeal would give every Massachusetts worker a 5% after-tax pay raise, or about $3,000 extra income per family. That’s attractive when Census data show that, after inflation, state budgets nationwide are up 18% since 2005 while paychecks have remained flat.
The forces of the tax-and-spend status quo will descend on this initiative like British troops after the original Boston tea party, but somebody has to make an effort to stop the relentless growth of government.
http://online.wsj.com/article/…
If this ballot initiative passes, will it become law?
Glad to see they care so much about us. I guess this means the state won’t be bailing out the MBTA, or the Pike, after all- I guess it’s either increase user fees, or perhaps we can borrow some money from the Chinese. Or maybe it’ll all work out fine- I don’t know- but something tells me that Carla Howell doesn’t really know either.
yes, if it passes it will become law, unless the legislature repeals or alters it. Which they can do.
Legislature, via its speaker, has indicated a willingness to override the Voter should the referendum pass.
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p>So should you disagree with some of the government spending and decisions, what better way to send a message than to vote Yes.
maybe you could try to actually fix some of those mistakes. Everybody disagrees with some of the government’s spending and decisions. People who care about it work at changing them. The only message you send by voting yes is that you don’t care enough to do the work it will take to fix the problems.
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p>If your kid is a bad baseball player, do you go out and play catch with him or do you take his glove away and scream “Toughen up!” at him until he gets better?
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p>Who do you figure accumulated the signatures and contributed money to get the question on the ballot?
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p>That would be people who perceive the government got a spending problem and worked to address the problem. Solution is to vote YES on question 1.
I just watched her video for the first time. If I vote for her proposal, will I get to wear khakis and polo shirts and spend my days drinking wine in the Bahamas with my new rich, beautiful, idiotically grinning white-toothed model friends?
That said, the song itself is kind of catchy.