CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
An Update of the Update
Citizens for Limited Taxation -
a once powerful antitax group now faced with dwindling support after
years of sluggish activity - may have to shut down if it doesn’t get a
new infusion of cash fast, according to its staff....
Barbara Anderson, longtime executive director, said funding has
been drying up because “the few . . . supporters we had are either dead,
retired or have left the state.”
The number of contributors has dropped over the years, she added, from
4,133 who ponied up $270,000 in 2007, to 3,518 who gave $245,000 last
year. So far this year, she added, some 2,904 contributors have forked
over $175,000.
Anderson heads up a four-person staff that was
paid a total of roughly $140,000 last year....
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Anti-taxation crusaders beg donors: Pony up
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Greetings activists and supporters:
The CLT Update to members on Sunday, "Save the date
-- and save CLT," had longer legs than expected. It was
subsequently posted on
RedMassGroup and
the
Newburyport GOP blog yesterday, then reported in today's Boston
Herald.
Herald reporter Hillary Chabot called Barbara
yesterday afternoon inquiring about it the Update. Barbara spent
considerable time answering the reporter's probing questions about CLT
finances and circumstances.
As reported, CLT's annual expense for salaries is
about $140,000 a year for its four staffers -- an average per-staffer
CLT salary of $35,000.
Compare that to just a single salary at the so-called
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, where its president, Michael J.
Widmer, received a salary of $375,000 in 2006, the
latest
record I've found. His salary alone is almost three times
greater than CLT's entire payroll -- over ten times
greater than CLT's average per-staffer pay.
Two of his assistants received $89,559 and $65,857
respectively; $155,416 combined, providing a payroll of $530,416 from
MTF's $1,058,590 income reported in 2006. [There's also:
Line 26 -- "Salaries and wages of employees not included on lines 25a,
b, and c": $252,133 -- and, Line 28 - "Employee benefits not
included on lines 25a - 27": $108,079.]
Geez, I wonder if MTF is hiring?
Chabot reported, “the few . . . supporters we had are
either dead, retired or have left the state.” The ellipsis left
out a rather important distinction. In full, Barbara said that the
few 'John Hancock' supporters we had . . ." We don't want
you to think YOU are "either dead, retired or have left the
state"!
We lost a major "John Hancock" member in August when
longtime CLT activist and generous contributor Dick Egan, founder of EMC
Corporation and former ambassador to Ireland, passed away. (See
Barbara's column, "Remembering
a friend: EMC's Dick Egan," Sep. 10.) The few larger
contributors CLT has had over the years -- businessmen who weren't
afraid of being associated with CLT -- have been gradually disappearing.
Many of them -- and many of our longtime supporters
in general -- have joined the steady exodus out of Taxachusetts,
diminishing CLT's support base, diluting our numbers.
Add to this an intransigent and calcified Legislature
that is accustomed to tossing its constituents the proverbial
Middle-Finger Beacon Hill Salute with impunity, even when voters demand
lower taxes at the polls. Though CLT did the hard work -- invested
incalculable time, energy, and treasure to put the income tax rollback
on the 2000 ballot and win the campaign overwhelmingly -- we and the
voters got the 1989 "temporary" income tax hike reduced from 5.85
percent to 5.3 percent before Bacon Hill arrogantly "froze" it in 2002,
again with the Big Lie of "temporarily."
Which is exactly why CLT will be reminding the public
of the damage done by tax-and-spend legislators when they run for
reelection in 2010; changing the Beacon Hill culture is CLT's current
mission. Until voters elect responsive, responsible,
representation -- legislators who will accede to and abide by the will
of the people who elect them and pay for everything they pocket or spend
-- change is not possible.
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Chip Ford |
For the record: Barbara's former husband
hasn't owned the house I rent since he sold it a couple of years ago to
my current landlord.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Anti-taxation crusaders beg donors: Pony up
By Hillary Chabot
Citizens for Limited Taxation - a once powerful antitax group now
faced with dwindling support after years of sluggish activity - may have
to shut down if it doesn’t get a new infusion of cash fast, according to
its staff.
Director Chip Ford sent an e-mail Sunday begging members to
attend the group’s annual fund-raising brunch, slated for Nov. 15.
“Save the date - and save CLT,” Ford wrote. “Over the (35) years of its
existence, CLT has been financially on the brink many times . . . but
right now we are hurting financially more than ever before.”
Barbara Anderson, longtime executive director, said funding has
been drying up because “the few . . . supporters we had are either dead,
retired or have left the state.”
The number of contributors has dropped over the years, she added, from
4,133 who ponied up $270,000 in 2007, to 3,518 who gave $245,000 last
year. So far this year, she added, some 2,904 contributors have forked
over $175,000.
Anderson heads up a four-person staff that was paid a total of roughly
$140,000 last year. Donations also pay for a monthly $552 rental fee for
a portion of a Marblehead property owned by Anderson’s ex-husband. Ford,
who lives in the property, pays most of the rent but members also use it
for office work.
The rest of the contributions fund ballot initiatives and other group
activities. A 2008 push to abolish the state’s income tax went down to a
resounding defeat, with 70 percent voting against it.
The group came to prominence in 1982, when it helped push through Prop 2˝,
the landmark law restricting communities from hiking property taxes more
than 2 percent annually.
Anderson herself became a Beacon Hill powerbroker, co-hosting a popular
radio show called “The Governors” alongside talkmeister Jerry Williams
and Herald columnist Howie Carr, and supporting Gov. Bill Weld and other
Republicans.
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