CLT NEWS RELEASE
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Beware . . . Tax Trap Perhaps Ahead, Again
For Immediate Release
Contact: Barbara Anderson
So, the Tax Fairness Commission has recommended what we knew it would recommend,
a Graduated Income Tax for Massachusetts.
Ah, how the liberal special interest groups have hated that provision in our
commonwealth’s historic Constitution which requires a flat income tax rate on
all levels of income. How they have longed for, drooled over, begged for, a tax
system they could manipulate into unlimited revenues forever (or until economic
collapse).
Citizens for Limited Taxation was founded in 1974 to fight the graduated income
tax, a proposed constitutional amendment that was heading for the 1976 ballot.
We defeated it 68-24%.
Our founder, Edward F. King, had worked, without an organization, to defeat an
earlier version of the grad tax on the 1972 ballot, 58-28%. Another version
had lost in 1968, 55-23%. In 1962, by 65-13%.
CLT got the Nay ballot vote back to its original 65% in 1994. The Yea vote was
still 28% that year.
That makes 5 count them five attempts to rig the Massachusetts
Constitution in favor of easy income tax hiking. Like all constitutional
amendments, they must be approved by voters on a statewide ballot. All were
easily defeated, losing in most of the working-class communities of the
Commonwealth. They win in some liberal enclaves where the Yea voters can afford
to pay higher taxes to prove their “compassion” toward waste, inefficiency,
mismanagement, patronage and abuse of normal taxpayers’ good nature, all of
which are as evident as ever in Massachusetts government.
A graduated income tax is a tool to divide and conquer taxpayers, hiking taxes
one bracket at a time. By targeting a single bracket, enough critical mass will
never be reached for effective tax resistance. And, without legislative
cooperation, a constitutional amendment is forever.
The first attempts were placed on the ballot by the Legislature. In 1994,
apparently noting that the definition of insanity is doing the same losing thing
over and over, the Legislature wouldn’t put the issue on the ballot: an
organization named TEAM (Tax Equity Alliance Of Massachusetts), headed by Jim
Braude (now more gainfully employed at NECN) used public employee union
involvement to get signatures for an initiative amendment.
The “No” campaign used as its logo the above “Tax Trap” graphic. I think we
still have some yard signs and bumper stickers around here somewhere . . .
# # #
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪ PO
Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
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