Moving right along into 2006. Happy New Year.
Happy Gregorian calendar New Year. Happy Chinese New Year Jan. 29. Happy
Rosh Hashana Sept. 23. Greetings to my Celtic friends Nov. 1. And those
who reasonably think the new year should begin in the spring instead of
the dead of winter: Happy New Year when the swallows come back to
Capistrano.
Things change so fast in our era; I have no idea what 2006 will bring.
And why worry? Bird flu could wipe us all out by May Day. Since it is my
nature to be optimistic, here are my happy, in some cases fantasy,
predictions.
I'm going to assume that holiday sensitivity hit critical mass when the
Medway parent was told to change the red and green elves' hats to a
color combination that did not violate the separation of church and
state, while, at the same time, non-Christian Chinese merchants were
told by the Boston police to shut their stores on Christmas day because
it's a government-required holiday.
So I predict that in 2006, we'll be offended less by, and laugh more at,
absurd contradictions. And as we realize that much of this nonsense
comes from the public school system, we'll stop voting for higher
property taxes to support it, instead demanding vouchers to allow more
parental choice.
Parents who want their kids to celebrate religious holidays in the
classroom will choose religious schools, while others will choose
schools whose administrators think elves wear green and white hats. Some
parents will prefer schools whose administrators do not believe in elves
at all, not to mention creative design. Others will want evolution
folded into the sex education curriculum, so everyone learns to mate
with progress in mind.
We will continue to celebrate the anniversary of Proposition 2½, which
passed 25 years ago last November but actually went into effect July 1,
1981. The auto excise cut went into effect on Jan. 1, so raise a glass
on any New Year's Eve to tax limitation. I predict that the legislators
who so often express their concern about rapidly increasing property
taxes will support pending legislation to allow only one override
election a year, and let voters in every community have a local
referendum process with which to lower the tax on their homes.
Gov. Mitt Romney will try once again to roll back the income tax to 5
percent. I predict that the Legislature, looking at a giant state
surplus, will at last do what the voters mandated five years ago. Or,
alternatively, the politicians and advocacy groups that have always
opposed Prop. 2½ will insist that we need that income tax money for
property tax relief.
The result will be that taxpayers will continue to pay both the 5.3
percent rate and higher property taxes, until the state spends itself
into another fiscal crisis, when both taxes will be hiked some more.
I hopefully predict that, as baby boomers begin to reach retirement age,
they will begin to empathize with the senior citizens who can't afford
higher property taxes and stop supporting overrides for annual teacher
pay raises at the expense of people on fixed incomes.
Mitt Romney will not be running for re-election in 2006. I would have
predicted this last December if I thought anyone needed to be told the
obvious. Massachusetts voters rejected his request for assistance with
his Beacon Hill agenda when they re-elected all the Democrat incumbents,
then insisted that he accomplish the agenda anyhow, somehow. If I were
he I'd have started packing a year ago.
Of course he will keep his promise to finish his term. This gives us a
chance to get to know Kerry Healey, and to learn a few more lessons
about why Massachusetts, as a political entity, doesn't work. Then, in
November, voters will again elect a Republican governor and will also
elect her some support. Or — alternative prediction — even more
productive citizens will also be leaving, albeit not to run for
president.
Not to worry, as our spaces will be occupied by even more illegal
immigrants. But citizens who recently rediscovered, from the battle for
Melanie's bill and repeal of the retroactive capital gains tax, that
they can make a difference, may continue to make their opinions heard on
immigration and other issues. Legislators may once again imagine
themselves replaced by challengers who consistently respect their
constituents.
There will be health-care reform early in the year, and it might
actually have some good ideas in it thanks to the activism of the
health-care community. I predict that it will not contain a tax on
employers because we still have a governor who is pledged to veto new
taxes. The reform package will not, however, be dramatic enough to
actually solve the coming health care crisis, which is eclipsed by the
coming pension crisis, neither of which will be solved with higher
taxes. Therefore I indulge today in fantasy predictions of change.
Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. Her syndicated columns appear weekly in the Salem
News, Newburyport Times, Gloucester Times, (Lawrence) Eagle-Tribune, and Lowell Sun; bi-weekly in the Tinytown Gazette; and occasionally in the Providence
Journal and other newspapers.