Small Victories Today, Larger Ones to Come When Income Tax is Repealed
by Chip Ford, July 11th, 2008 at 06:21am
Welcome to the new Citizens for Limited Taxation blog. We hope you’ll visit here often and leave your comments from time to time.
CLT members receive regular updates via e-mail keeping them informed of what’s going on at the State House, what government in general is doing to them or planning to do. A day or two after members receive their copies, the Update gets posted on the CLT website, www.cltg.org, where the public is invited to read it and past Updates.
The most recent Update, sent to members on July 9, is available there now: “Small victories today, larger ones to come when income tax is repealed.”
The Committee for Small Government led by Carla Howell collected more than enough signatures to put the question of repealing the state income tax on the November ballot. Yesterday Secretary of State William Galvin assigned it ballot question #1.
This will be a great opportunity for taxpayers of the Commonwealth to at last tell the Bacon Hill pols what we think of their tax-borrow-and-spend agenda, and hopefully to end their reign of unaccountable profligacy squandering our hard-earned money.
In 2000, CLT and Gov. Cellucci put a question on the ballot to simply roll back the “temporary” income tax increase of 1989 to its traditional 5 percent. It was passed overwhelmingly (59-41 percent) by the voters; opposed by the very same cabal of public trough special interests that are now swarming to defeat Carla Howell’s Question One.
Two years later, in 2002 the Legislature — our alleged “representatives” — trampled that democratic outcome under their boots, gave the middle-finger Beacon Hill salute to the voters, and “froze” the citizens’ income tax rollback at 5.3 percent where it still stands today. The Dukakis “temporary” income tax hike of 1989 is now 19 years old.
The Legislature substituted a convoluted formula by which their “freeze” would be thawed by a minuscule fraction of a percentage point, bringing the income tax back down to five percent over a decade or more if perfect conditions were met every year. They called this their “trigger.” That trigger point was met last year with a revenue surplus. Where’s even that minuscule reduction? Another broken promise, but the suckers who keep electing them should be used to the boot to their backsides by now.
If the majority of State House pols can’t be trusted to respect the outcome of a fair election and their constituents’ mandate — or even their own alternative “trigger” scheme — then it’s time to take all our money paid through the income tax off the table and out of their hands — after all, every cent they have to spend comes from us.
Your chance arrives on Nov. 4. Vote YES on Question One. Remind them who they work for. Tell them who’s in charge. And let them know we’re fed up with bloated and far too expensive state government and with politicians who have no respect for taxpaying citizens and voters.
And while you’re at it on election day, vote against any tax-borrow-and-spend incumbent who fits that category of blatant disrespect for his or her employers, us.
Chip Ford –
Director of Operations
Citizens for Limited Taxation
Entry Filed under: Updates
7 Comments Add your own
1. Lonnie Brennan | July 14th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Chip,
Great comments. Time to step on the air hose and choke off the supply of pork spending from these out of touch pols. Hey, perhaps they’ll have to shut down Deval Patrick’s Washington office!! I wonder how much the fellow spent on curtains down there???!
2. Shawn | July 14th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Ok guys, you know I’ve supported you since the beginning of time, but I’m getting excoriated out here trying to defend this.
Its obvious to me that the legislature will just overturn it the next day (the Finneran process).
It does make a great statement about how angry people are with the state.. but will anyone listen?
Over at the department of Ed, they just created a new Deputy Director position for $150,000; and our man Deval created a Cabinet level position for about the same… what are we going to get out of that? More education programs.. more spending.. more jobs on the public dole.
Can we pass Question 1? Together we Can!
WIll it make a difference? I’m just not sure.
3. Howard Smith | July 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
There is no doubt that Beacon Hill will try to find a way to ignore the results of the vote to repeal the income tax. Whether the question passes of not, Deville and Sal will tell us how important revenue from the state income tax is to everyone and that our votes are critical to help them govern!!
Baloney!!
I think the question will pass and I bet we will have to go to court to get Beacon Hill to agree to follow the vote. I expect to give some of my income tax money to support getting a lawyer and bringing a class action lawsuit against our
Beacon Hill Crooks!
4. Guy Bonfiglio | July 14th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
IM really excited about the income tax repeal and im looking forward to voting for it. Also l think that all incumbants should be booted out. We have to take our state and vote back.
5. Chip Ford | July 14th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Simply passing Question 1 will not make the difference this state critically needs to make, but it’s a start.
At some point the voters must reach critical mass and start refreshing the stagnant and unresponsive Legislature with new blood, new legislators who recognize they don’t have a lifetime lock on their seats. The more the current cabal keeps stiicking its fingers in their constituents’ eyes, giving them the Beacon Hill middle-finger salute, the sooner that critical mass will be reached.
Some call voting for Question 1, repeal of the income tax, “sending a message,” but it’s not. It is the people creating a law — just as the Legislature does allegedly in our names.
If voters want to “send a message” they need to toss at least some of the incumbents out of office, replace them with new faces — show that legislative seats are not a birthright. If that happens and Question 1 passes, you can imagine the shockwaves that will reverberate through the State House the day after the election!
Now *THAT* is sending a message! Vote YES to create a new law by the people that repeals the income tax, cuts off the unlimited money supply — then SEND A MESSAGE: Vote for anyone else on the ballot who is challenging an incumbent.
6. Michael Slemmer | July 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 am
Go Team Repeal!! I sympathize w/ Shawn’s angst, but if this passes — regardless of what the useless salons on Bacon Hill do afterwards — the shockwaves in this most-socialist-of-states will be titanic. We will have not only re-drawn the line in the sand, we’ll have a whole new beach. Where do I make a contribution?
7. Howard Smith | September 24th, 2008 at 5:42 am
I heard comments attributed to Sal DiMasi that if the repeal passes, they would simply ignore it.
I am wondering if there are plans in place for legal action to move this ahead???
It seems to me that part of the campaign to get out the vote should be a clear message that we will bring legal action if there is any wavering on Beacon Hill to follow the results!
What do you think?
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