More than half the states in the Union have progressive income tax. A progressive income tax is based on the ability to pay. Families struggling to buy food to feed their families are hit harder by a flat income tax than a family making $500,000 a year – a larger percent of the former family’s income is dedicated to essentials such as shelter (mortgage or rent), food, commuting, basic clothing. Therefore, a 5.3% tax rate for them takes up money they need, whereas 5.3% of $500,000 takes money off the top – that richer family can forgo a few nonessentials in order to pay it.
So, why not give a nice, bound-to-be-popular income tax cut…to anyone making less than, say, $100,000? Give them a reduced rate of 4%, maybe even 3.5%. People making $100K-$200K could get taxed at 5.5%. Then people making more than $200,000 get taxed at, say, 7%. New Jersey’s top tax rate on incomes over $500,000 is 9%, and no, there was no “rich flight” out of that state.
It’s proven to all but some stubborn trickle-downers and libertarians that prosperity still flourishes when top tax rates are much higher than they are now. Some of our best years as a nation were under much higher top tax rates. When you put the tax burden proportionately on people who can least afford it, upward mobility suffers, and so do revenues that can accomplish the level playing field (like quality education and affordable higher ed). You just don’t have enough money to do that job when you’re squeezing blood from a stone.
At some point, yes, some ridiculously high taxes even on rich people does probably slow down growth and reinvestment. But it is completely evident to anyone with half a brain cell that we are no where near that point in our current taxing regime. The so-called Laffer curve (the basis for that disproven trickle-down economic theory) never bothers to tell you where we are sitting on that curve. Well, we’re at pretty historic lows for the different tax brackets, particularly the top brackets. I don’t think anyone can really claim that less is more at these tax levels, nor at levels significantly higher than where we are now.
But if we did this right, we’d be giving a tax cut to those who really need it (like Obama is proposing on the national level) and still could come out ahead on revenues, so we can fix our ailing infrastructure, invest in higher ed, keep our universal health care (with fixes of course), stop the bleeding in our public schools, and have great program to combat hunger and poverty.
If my husband and I were making so much money that I stopped worrying where my next mortgage payment was going to come from, I’d gladly pay a higher tax. Call it giving back to a system which would have given me a lot of breaks I wouldn’t have otherwise had (like affordable higher education).
Now, I know the legislature is a bunch of cowards on tax issues. Sorry, but they are. They would never in a million years take up a bill (or, if I recall, a necessary Constitutional Convention) that would do this. So, I propose that we get aggressive in fighting the anti-taxers in our midst who keep putting initiatives that would destroy the revenues for the state like this last round. I say we put a progressive tax on the ballot. Tell voters that if they make less than that upper end of the lowest tax bracket, they will get a lovely tax cut. There are more of us middle class folks than there is rich people. I think it would pass, especially given that it is obvious from the margin of defeat on Question 1 that people understand that we cannot expect a level playing field and services for ourselves and our families, if we do not share in the burden of paying for it.
and put on the Massachusetts ballot was 1994. It lost resoundingly, with barely 30% of voters supporting it.
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p>This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try again, but it’s important to carefully study why it failed so spectacularly last time.
was a 100 years ago, politically. Clinton’s hair was just turning gray!
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p>Just a few years ago, Carla Howell almost defeated the income tax. People know better now.
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p>I’d try to get a progressive income taxed by this measure: give a definitive means to drastically cut the income tax, which is the real tax that disproportionately more and more families can no longer afford.
drastic cut to the property tax, not income tax.
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p>I’d couple that with income tax cuts for the middle class and working class, too.
The momentum is there right now!
From August, right after the end of the legislative session:
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and it’s a good post now.
let’s put it on the ballot ourselves!
either via initiative or legislative proposal, without the Gov’s strong backing. That was the point of my original post. He’s got to be willing to push for it to give the legislators who favor it cover — and remember, we cannot change the Constitution without at least some degree of legislative cooperation (25% for the initiative, 50%+1 for the legislative route).
Why not a progressive tax that is exactly proportionate to what a person makes with a min and max? It’s much fairer. That way someone who makes $105K/year isn’t taxed substantially more than someone who makes $95K/year and vise versa.
Brackets don’t work that way. The first $95k of someone making $105k is taxed exactly the same as someone who makes just $95k. If the bracket is $100k, then the $105k person only pays higher taxes on $5k.
I guess what is the argument for brackets rather than a proportionate rate? Is one fairer or better than the other and why?
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p>Rough example: Someone who makes $150,000.
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p>Under the bracket plan they would get taxed $6000.
[3.5% on $100,000 = $3500 + 5.5% on $50,000 = $2,500]
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p>Under the proportionate plan they would get taxed $8745.
[Making $50K the minimum at 3.5% and $200K the maximum at 7%, the proportionate rate for $150K would be 5.83% = $8745]
… proportional pain.
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p>Taxing the first $2.5K of $50K isn’t the same amount of pain as taxing the first $250K of $5000K. It really is as simple as that.
the point of a progressive tax? Why should someone who makes $99,000 a year be taxed at the same rate as a student who makes $15,000 in a year? This plan is merely a flat tax in 3 tiers, which is better than what we have now, but it isn’t truly progressive.
You didn’t actually “get” what he meant by a proportional tax.
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p>What he means is, your tax rate on your whole income goes up in proportion to your income.
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p>Under his scheme, as he suggests, you put a lower bound of 3.5% for anybody under $50K and an upper bound of 7% for anybody making over $200K. Between those numbers, it’s a sliding scale. If you make $125K (halfway between $50K and $200K), you get taxed at an overall rate of 5.25% (halfway between 3.5% and 7%). Your total tax due would be 5.75% x $125K, or $6562.50.
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p>It’s an interesting idea. And effectively the same as having 150,000 tax brackets. Or maybe that’s 15,000,000 tax brackets.
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p>For example, at $125,000 you’d owe $6,562.50 and at $125,000.01 you’d owe $6,562.500817, which is an 8.17% marginal tax rate on that extra penny.
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p>Now, I’m not sure the top and bottom numbers (either dollar amounts or percentages) he gives as an example are necessarily where we’d want them to be, but as a general concept it’s an interesting one and one I could get behind.
but yes, that’s exactly what I meant. It seems fairer to me and it would bring in more money to the state, all other things being equal, versus a 3-tiered tax system. Or it could help people more than the 3-tiered system by lowering the bottom rate, but still bringing in the same total end result.
… reasonable in concept. I guess the question is ‘does a straight line proportional increase in rate’ create any specific solutions or problems as opposed to other systems…. brackets, non-straight line progression, flat, etc.?
Do you actually understand how tax brackets work?
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p>Someone who makes $105k isn’t going to pay substantially more than someone who makes $95k. Everybody pays the same amount of taxes on their income at each level. For example, the lowest federal tax bracket is 10% on income up to $8025. The next one is 15% on income up to $32550. If your taxable income is $8025, you pay $802.50 in taxes. If you earn $8125 you pay $817.50, just $15 more (actually these numbers would both be rounded by the government to whatever the tax tables say). The tax bracket does not suddenly increase your taxes on the rest of your income (which would make the taxes on $8125 be $1218.75).
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p>So unless the tax rate on income between $95k and $105k is really high, the difference in taxes will not be very large.
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p>There is no such thing as a progressive tax that is exactly proportional to someone’s taxable income. That is a flat tax.
Why am I under the impression that a progressive tax structure would require a change in our state constitution?
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p>Isn’t this much harder than putting the wording on a ballot?
This would have to be passed by two consecutive legislatures, and then put on the ballot. The rules are different depending on whether the amendment starts within the legislature (majority vote required each time), or via an initiative (1/4 required each time).
This would be like the antigay ConCon if started by ballot init.
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p>However, if THEY can use and abuse this process to contribute to hate, WE should use it to make our system MORE fair!
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p>This is raw class warfare to say the least. Them versus us. Redistributive mob against them that gots the money.
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p>You can’t keep taxing “the rich” to redistribute it to lower income earners. “The rich” eventually move away to other states or rearrange their affairs to minimize their tax bite. Eventually the tax burden is expanded to reach every lower levels of income in order to generate the receipts.
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p>In the meantime, it chokes off economic activity … when you tax something, you get less of it. Raise taxes, your get less labor, hours worked, productivity, and job creation.
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p>If you want to maximize tax receipts, try lowering tax rates for all, including — deep breaths now — eliminating the corporate income tax, taxes which are simply passed on to consumers and customers in the form of higher prices.
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p>Why not make MA the 21st century Mecca for economic activity, create hundred of thousands of jobs, and increase incomes across the board?
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p>This has historically always worked better than increasing marginal tax rates in the hopes of increasing revenues. In Eastern Europe, flat tax countries exhibited higher rates of growth. Low-tax Ireland enjoyed 2x the growth rate in jobs and income of “Old Europe” because of their lower tax rates, to the ire of EU poohbahs who could only whine about tax “harmonization,” i.e., raising Ireland’s taxes.
Don’t want to bring up this red state/blue state thing, but our commonwealth is really just a couple of counties put together compared to the rest of the US. I’m sure that southern NH and RI would love for us to go after the wealthy, to put it mildly. Ever consider why Greenwich CT became the hedge fund capital of the world instead of Manhattan? We’re not talking about going after people who have to move massive factories to make their wealth.
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p>Should also consider the following: although we supposedly have a “flat” tax, I also notice that we don’t have mortgage deductions (or for that matter charitable deductions!) in our state tax form. For that matter, we actually have a deduction for rent, but not for home ownership.
Class warfare has been practiced in this country for as long as it has been a country. A flat tax is class warfare just as much as a progressive tax is. The only difference is who is being attacked.
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p>In Eastern Europe, growth rates have been higher because they are starting from a lower point. Tax rates are not the only difference.
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p>I would like some empirical evidence to back up your claim that income taxes reduce the amount of work that people do. Do you know anyone that turned down a raise because taxes were too high? Do you know of anyone that didn’t bother to get a job because taxes were too high? If people really cared that much about income taxes, most hedge fund managers would live in states without income taxes. All the trading is done by computers, so they can live anywhere equally well. But somehow New Hampshire and Florida have completely failed at taking over the hedge fund industry.
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p>I’m fine with people who hate taxes moving to other states. They can all move to New Hampshire, which already has lower taxes than we do. There are plenty of people that like Massachusetts, are perfectly capable of starting and running businesses, and are willing to pay their fair share of taxes. The people who don’t want to pay taxes can move to other parts of the country that can’t afford to pay for good schools and infrastructure, and they can try to manage without any government support. Good riddance to them.
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p>The class warfare that Reagan started has severely weakened the middle class. We are just now beginning to see the effects of that. This recession is going to be long and hard, and it won’t end until income is distributed more evenly. If raising taxes on the wealthy causes them to cut their incomes, that benefits everyone. If it doesn’t, then it allows tax cuts for the middle class, which still benefits everyone.
… if we actually attack.
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p>… Or if they defend thoughtlessly…
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p>But I remember businesses responding extraordinarily well to Clintons tax increases in 1993 (which were passed by only one vote in each of the house and the senate, with no republicans joining… and in fact, my ears still ring from the ceaseless republican screaming that the end of days were being summoned.)
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p>It’s warfare if we say “stick it to the rich.” It’s not warfare if we say “everybody pays their fair share.” Warren Buffet WANTS to pay his fair share… Rich people are not immune to the arguments that everybody ought to pay their fair share.
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p>And, personally, I feel that anybody who’d be so cavalier as to pick up and move outta state, merely for tax purposes, isn’t necessarily someone who considers themselves a member of the commonwealth. Good riddance to them, I say… Let ’em go. Consider it a market mechanism to winnow the mercenary from the loyal.
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But wealthy MA residents who spend a decent amount of time at their vacation home in NH or snowbirds that go down to FL for a few months every winter would be more inclined to ask their tax advisers about how much time they have to spend in the no tax state to stop paying MA taxes. And if its a matter of spending a few extra weeks in sunny FL each spring or moving their “near and dear” items to the NH home then its a no brainer. Even if it involves downsizing their MA home then its easy enough since the kids are grown and they were just thinking about how they don’t want to put forth the effort it takes to take care of that big home anymore. They don’t cavalierly pick up their lives, they just change their plans a little at the margins. It happens quite frequently now, and it would likely happen even more frequently under a progressive MA income tax.
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p>I don’t really disagree with the idea of a moderately progressive personal income tax in MA. But the problem is that the wealthy people who are the targets of such a tax are also the ones most able to avoid paying it.
at their NH mansions; as soon as they cross the border to make it in Mass, though, they get taxed as though they lived here. Go to Rte.3 in Tyngsborough some rush hour and count NH license plates. All those people are paying Mass income tax. That’s what we’re talking about – income tax. You should now start arguing that a progressive tax will drive businesses to NH. It’ll be an empty argument too, but at least you’ll sound a little more relevant.
but they certainly are not taxed “as if they live here.” I was thinking chiefly of wealthy retirees whose income consists of pension, interest, dividends, and capital gains. None of those are taxable in MA if the individual changes his or her domicile. Wealthy individuals also have significant investment income that is taxable in the state of their domicile, not their state of employment. And if they already have some presence, like a vacation home, in a low or no tax state then a progressive income tax increases the incentive to shift their domicile to that state. Does this sound relevant enough for you?
Because if they already have a house in NH or FLA, they’re almost certainly already living there for tax purposes.
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p>Also, please explain how those commuters are “certainly not taxed as if they live here.” Do they pay a different income tax rate from what MA residents pay?
does not mean that they are domiciled there for tax purposes. Domicile is a facts and circumstances inquiry that looks for the center of a person’s social and economic life. It’s not simply a matter of declaring that your condo in NH is your tax home rather than your mansion in MA. There are plenty of instances now where individuals seek out the advice of tax advisors to determine how to abandon their MA domicile. People would be more motivated to seek out tax advice or change their behavior if MA were to adopt a higher tax rate on high income individuals.
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p>And, as I explained above, an individual that lives in another state but works in MA only pays tax on MA source income, i.e. their. wages. MA cannot constitutionally impose a tax on the investment income of a non-resident, non-domiciliary just because they work in MA. Since the wealthier people who would pay the top tax rate under a progressive tax system are also the people more likely to have investment income, those are the people who would have the greatest incentive to change their MA domicile to prevent MA from imposing it’s top rate on that investment income.
New Hampshire does not tax wages and capital gains, but it does impose a 5% tax on interest and dividends, after exemptions.
but 5 percent of interest and dividends will be considerably less than 5.3 percent of adjusted gross income in most cases. And the higher the top MA tax rate gets, the more incentive to become a NH or FL resident. Even if the person still works in MA, he or she will save (top MA tax rate – 5 percent) x ( interest + dividends) + (top MA tax rate) x ( capital gains). 50,000 of (interest + dividends), 50,000 of capital gains, and a top MA tax rate of 7 percent means a yearly state tax savings of $4,500. And assuming they are subject to the AMT that lower state tax paid will have no effect on their federal return. This is just one crude example, but I think it’s foolish to assume that no one would take advantage of the opportunity. And the savings only increase if the person finds a comparable paying job in NH or if the person ireceives pension, annuity, real estate, or alimony income on top of the investment income. And consider the number of MA residents that own a second home in NH or FL (or that are considering buying one). There are 4,500 reasons each year to start spending more time there.
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p>Again, this is not proof that a progressive income tax is a bad policy per se. But it’s something that should not be glibly dismissed when considering whether to put in the effort required to amend the state constitution to allow a progressive income tax.
I can think of 700 billion arguments that class warfare is already underway. With whom are you siding?
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p>Your argument here is misleading. First off, countries in Eastern Europe did in fact enjoy high rates of growth, but not because of its flat tax. They did so because they were opening up new markets in sectors previously controlled by the government. That’s why you see high growth rates in China and other newly open economies.
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p>You have to compare apples to apples. For example, Sweden has much higher top marginal rates (something around 60% or 65%) and yet has experienced a real growth rate sometimes just below and sometimes above the United States. In fact, there’s little evidence that changes in the top marginal rates of income taxation make much difference in GDP growth.
Sweden is a country. Massachusetts is a state. High taxed individuals would be less likely to move from their nation to another, than would someone who could simply move to a nearby state. I see people hunt for the lowest gas prices, drive extra miles to save extra dollars, shop over the border to save on sales taxes. Why then would they not also be impacted by their tax burden in their choice of residence? Especially those who can afford the option.
You are so wrong. They do not move to other states. Look at the studies from New Jersey.
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p>Next canard please!
Putnam Avenue is now the hedge fund capital of the world. These operations aren’t really tied to physical plant (they just need office space and some computers – no big widget factories making their product) so they are mobile as all get out. In the financial world, pretty easy to pick up and go.
source
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people absolutely do change their domicile now to avoid paying MA income tax. That would almost certainly increase if MA instituted a progressive income tax system. It’s not a fatal flaw to the system since revenue could still increase even with people abandoning MA domicile, but to deny it exists hurts your credibility.
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p>And without doing extensive research on the NJ top rate, I would guess that a substantial number of the NJ residents who make over $500k do so by commuting into NYC or Philly. Working in both those cities would subject the individual to both a state and municipal income tax which would create a credit against NJ income tax. I would guess that they can only get away with a 9 percent top tax rate because the combined state and municipal rate that NYC workers pay is 10.498 (6.85 state and 3.648 city) and Philly workers pay is 6.7942 (3.07 state and 3.7242 city). Basically, the credit on their wages offsets most or all of the NJ top rate. And I would also surmise that NJ has the same problem as MA, wealthy retirees changing their domicile to no or low tax states.
and any economist will tell you that.
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p>
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p>When the cost of an input increases, the demand-er pays for a fraction of that increase, and the supplier pays for the corresponding fraction. That fraction is determined by the slope of the demand curve.
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p>For sloped supply curves, if the demand curve is vertical [heart medicine], the demand-er pays 100% of the increase. If the demand curve is horizontal [a $1 bill], the supplier pays 100% of the increase. Nearly all demand curves are sloped however, resulting in less quantity produced/sold, and sold at a price above the initial price but below the initial price + the tax burden.
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p>For corporate taxes, the consumers pay some through higher prices, and the owners pay some through reduced profits. To suggest otherwise suggests that (a) the industry is incredibly unusual, (b) fundamental microeconomic theory is just plain wrong, or (c) you don’t know fundamental microeconomic theory.
… proponents of the Laffer curve is that they can never explain what position on the curve represents where we are. It’s always proposed that we are always on the point where further taxes will grow revenues. (Setting aside the non-true-believers who’s real goals are to ‘starve the beast’ by depriving it of revenue, not growing it. These people, of course, find the true-believers awfully convenient) While there is no doubt that the can exist a situation where taxing less could increase revenues because of tax’s effects on overall growth, the inverse is certainly also true… there can exist a situation where any tax revenue ‘growth’ from increased production made possible because of tax cuts might not ‘cover’ the amount of the tax cuts in the first place.
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p>… I don’t want to see Massachusetts turn into California… California is awash in propositions every cycle: which initiatives are too much the pet project of some gazillionaire loon, or the private obsession of a neuveau riche entrepeneur whose ass is still clenched too tight from the wedgies given to him in high school. There’s a whole bucketload of idiots out there with too much money and not enough discipline, and, to be brutally honest, it’s turned California into a steaming heap of chaos and fail. Colorado doesn’t look to be too far behind in the chaos and fail either… Invariably, half the initiatives are responses to prior initiatives some rich goober didn’t like. In the same way you’re proposing to ‘answer’ Question 1, some wealthy SOB will turn around the following cycle and fund the opposite. From then on, it’s just open warfare… and the legislature becomes increasingly irrelevant and none to pleased about it…
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p>This is no way to run a commonwealth.
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p>I’m unalterably opposed to ballot initiatives. Yes, even to the ones I think are good. The mere fact that two such simple-minded people like Carla Howell and Michael Cloud got to pose their loopy ideas to theentire state (after having been soundly rejected in person several times by the entire state) seems to me quite insane. The fact that Prop 8 in Cali was even considered, much less passed, as well as the myriad other, mostly knee-jerk inanities across the country is a tragedy. That they were proffered tells me that, besides being too simple-minded by half, most of the initiatives, petitions and propositions are there to scratch our darker, more cynical, itches…
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p>I’m also increasingly displeased with our creaky constitution. It’s not working for us anymore. I think it’s time that hoary old grizzly was retired. We need to rethink the whole kit and caboodle.
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p>
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p>Well isnt that splendid. Newsflash: No matter how much money you make, you can always imagine suddenly having alot more and not “needing” it. Whoever makes more than you has more than they need, right?
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p>Probably there are people who make alot less than you who can’t imagine needing all that you have. Mortgage indeed, what, a homeowner!? What about the homeless!
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p>Its garbage to judge what other people need, or can afford, and its even worse to assume that you can go take money from people who make more than you.
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p>Anyone can donate their extra money to taxes as they see fit.
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p>Anyway, put in a progressive tax, and business and individuals will leave, leaving you in a worse situation than you started with.
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Your arguments lost so big on Tuesday, and this is all you got? Really?
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p>Hey, if Warren Buffet can say “raise my taxes, I’ll be just fine” so can anyone making a cool half million, or whatever. People are just not as stupid about taxes as they were 20 years ago, your scare tactics don’t work. Or why else would that income tax ban have failed so miserably by such a huge margin? Hmmm?
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p>On your last sentence, you are wrong, wrong wrong.
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p>I am a small business, I can tell you I have no intention of leaving. If I had the problem of jumping up a tax bracket or two because I was doing that well, trust me, I’d be glad to have that problem.
between someone who makes $250K per year and someone who makes 250 MILLION PER QUARTER, obviously, but I do.
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p>If you are in small business and you vote for democrats, then you are literally the first person I’ve met who does so. I can only imagine your business is not all that successful, or you’d be getting raped along with every other small business owner.
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p>I am in small business too, and I can tell you that I would consider leaving, despite the fact that I love where I live.
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p>
… small business people who vote for democrats don’t exist.
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p>Right.
the ones I know are all successful.
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p>
… successful small business people don’t exist?
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p>Perhaps its more likely that you don’t know many small business people who vote for Democrats not because they tend not to but because you hang with the crowd you hang with.
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p>That is the problem with anecdotes,… you can’t concluded much from them.
I know more democrats than republicans.
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p>Anecdotes are anecdotes, sure, but altogether one’s personal experience in the world is going to inform alot more judgement than e.g. what some political propganda or other says the world is really like.
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p>And hey, at least anecdotes are not one of the 3 types of lies.
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… they are statistics. Statistics with an unacceptably low sample size.
due to their largely progressive taxation scheme?
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p>(but that’s different, right…)
… and with it, enacted good policy, my income and earning potential rose. Do it again please.
The regressive tax is the property tax. It has little or no relationship to ability to pay, nor is it necessarily an indicator of wealth. My retired fixed income neighbors pay the same tax my wealthier family pays. And, with two kids in the school system, we consume a lot more of the town budget than they do.
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p>The property tax is reverse wealth distribution: we tax homeowning empty nesters to provide services to (generally) better off full nesters. In town after down we have the annual override battles, which are invariably lose-lose battles.
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p>I would rather (I someone needs to take a look at the math here) find a way to replace our dependence on the property tax by empowering towns and cities with more local option taxes. Many other states (including our tax hating southern friends) have local option taxes: sales taxes, room / meal taxes, even local income taxes.
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p>I would also like to reduce the need for local aid. I don’t think it’s “progressive” or “liberal” to make even wealthier towns dependent on state aid. If we want grassroots people powered politics, we need to push government back down to the grassroots – our cities and towns.
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p>Shifting more of the tax burden to local communities, and giving them more options to address their tax needs, allows the commonwealth to “customize” tax policies. Sales and gas taxes kill businesses in border towns, especially along the tax free New Hampshire border. Income rich development poor towns are driving our senior citizens, and other empty nesters, and the poor because of high property taxes.
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But my reason would be to see it fail. The results of question 1 are completely subjective. Supporters of question 1 can point to 900,000 people who voted for the complete elimination of Income taxes as proof of a ground swell of people who think we have too much taxes. Opponents will point to 2,000,000 people who were happy with our tax system. But my take is if we could find 900,000 who wanted to completely remove the income tax do you really think those 2 million will want a class warfare vote. You can say it won’t be “warfare” but when you threaten to take somebody’s money, it’s war.
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p>What supporters of issues like this don’t realize is many people don’t like these ideas even if it doesn’t effect them. Many times when people debated the Obama tax increase, they would say “it’s only going to effect you if you make more than $250K so don’t worry”. But what they failed to realize is “we don’t like the principle, even if it isn’t effecting us directly”. It’s like saying, “why do you care about gender discrimination, you’re a guy”.
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p>There are many links to stories about people leaving MA. Even the Presidential results in NH were explained as so many liberal MA residents moving north. If you think that is good for the MA economy, ask the Gov who is very concerned with people and companies leaving MA.
is that the Earned Income Tax Credit already does a lot for poor people with children, such that several working mothers I know pay practically zero in state income taxes already- I imagine that this is not all that uncommon. Correct me if I’m wrong- and this is certainly not a deal-breaker anyway, just a “marketing issue”.
is the Legislature, and people’s lack of esteem for it.
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p>Unless you are suggesting a referendum to write a progressive income tax rate into the constitution itself!
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p>Otherwise you are talking about a constitutional amendment that would, whatever your ultimate goals, give the Legislature more power about how it taxes.
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p>In rejecting Question 1, the voters have said, We’re mad, but we aren’t crazy.
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p>Put “give more power to the Legislature” on the ballot, and you will see “we’re not crazy, but we’re still mad.”