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Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Jeff
Jacoby: "I Miss Barbara Anderson"
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Three years ago this week,
Barbara Anderson died of leukemia at 73. She had been
the longtime executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, and she first won acclaim
as the face, voice, and personality of the great tax-relief
campaign that enshrined
Proposition 2½ in Massachusetts law. She was also, along
with Chip Ford, her partner of 20 years, the force
that made possible the end of the state income surtax, beat
back a well-funded ballot initiative to impose a graduated
income tax, and never stopped defending the right of income
earners to keep and spend more of their own money.
I was friends with Barbara
Anderson for a long, long time, but that was no great claim
to fame: It was virtually impossible to know her and
not become her friend. She was
devoid of fakery and cant — so transparently frank, so
incapable of bigotry, and so effortlessly funny that even
people who agreed with her on nothing enjoyed her company. .
. .
She always insisted she was
merely a homeowner, but as commentator Ira Stoll
wrote in the New York Sun after she passed away,
Anderson’s life serves as “an emphatic reminder that some of
the most consequential lives are led by those who are never
elected to political office.” She was one of the most
influential women in Massachusetts history, and she achieved
that status without ever running for office, marrying a
politician, being appointed to a powerful post, having much
money — or forgetting how to be civil.
We are not likely to see Barbara Anderson’s like again.
How glad I am to have known her.
The Boston Globe
Monday, April 8, 2019
I Miss Barbara Anderson
By Jeff Jacoby
This week’s report features the grades
received from the Citizens for Limited Taxation...
CLT, founded in 1974, describes itself as
the group that “defended state taxpayers against a proposed
state graduated income tax, which it defeated on the 1976
statewide ballot, and again in 1994. CLT also limited
property and auto excise taxes with Proposition 2½ in 1980,
repealed the surtax and created a state tax cap in 1986 and
rolled back the “temporary” income tax hike on the 2000
ballot. For decades CLT has provided its annual ‘Rating of
Legislators’ to provide taxpayers with easy access to the
performance of their respective state representative and
senator regarding tax policy.”
“For 45 years CLT has been the bulwark for
taxpayers against unlimited taxation in a state that has an
insatiable spending problem,” said Chip Ford, executive
director. “Since its founding, CLT has saved Massachusetts
taxpayers billions of their hard-earned dollars.”
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Monday, April 8, 2019
Beacon Hill Roll Call: April 1-5, 2019
By Bob Katzen
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Actions that affect taxpayers have begun
popping fast and furiously on Beacon Hill this week.
Today the Joint (House and Senate) Committee Revenue
Committee is hearing testimony on the next graduated
income tax assault, the latest scheme to amend the state
constitution with the so-called "Fair Share Amendment."
I planned to send this update yesterday but got swamped
getting out CLT's opposition memo to the committee then
to the media, then responding to calls.
In the midst of all that activity
yesterday the House of Representatives released its
Fiscal Year 2020 budget, which I've been busy working to
decipher. More on that will follow tomorrow when
further details are available, but I wanted to catch up
and get this out before it becomes lost in the news.
Jeff Jacoby has invited you to subscribe
(free) to his regular "Arguable" newsletter if you're
interested. Just
click here to subscribe to it. Jeff is a
Boston Globe columnist –
it's token conservative –
and he also puts out his "Arguable" e-mail newsletter.
I've been a subscriber since its inception a year or two
ago. If you want to read the full version of below
"Arguable" newsletter
click here. In it Jeff has a great take on
newly-minted freshwoman (the P.C.-correct
appellation) Rep. Mindy Domb's
plan to amend the state constitution to make it
gender neutral.
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I miss
Barbara Anderson
Three years ago this week, Barbara
Anderson died of leukemia at 73. She had
been the longtime executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, and
she first won acclaim as the face,
voice, and personality of the great
tax-relief campaign that enshrined
Proposition 2½ in Massachusetts law.
She was also, along with Chip Ford, her
partner of 20 years, the force that made
possible the end of the state income
surtax, beat back a well-funded ballot
initiative to impose a graduated income
tax, and never stopped defending the
right of income earners to keep and
spend more of their own money.
I was friends with Barbara Anderson for
a long, long time, but that was no great
claim to fame: It was virtually
impossible to know her and
not become
her friend. She was devoid of fakery and
cant — so transparently frank, so
incapable of bigotry, and so
effortlessly funny that even people who
agreed with her on nothing enjoyed her
company.
Jim Braude, the big-government
ultraliberal who labored as earnestly to
raise taxes as Anderson did to cut them,
always said he liked Anderson personally
as much as he disagreed with her
politically. The two of them traveled
the state together in the 1980s and
early 1990s, taking opposite sides of
every tax-cut debate. They would arrive
and leave in the same car, happy to
battle each other on policy without
losing their ability to enjoy each
other’s company and conversation.
|
She never held public
office, wasn't married to a
politician, and didn't have
much money. But Barbara
Anderson was one of the most
influential women in
Massachusetts political
history.
Nevertheless, as
I wrote in a column when she
died, there were always
some
people who couldn't disagree
with Anderson's views without
being disagreeable:
Long after Proposition 2½,
CLT's foremost
tax-limitation triumph, had
come to be seen as the most
sweeping public policy
reform in recent
Massachusetts history, the
superintendent of schools in
Salem was still fuming that
“Barbara Anderson should be
tried for murder” because of
Prop 2½’s impact on
public-school finances. In a
notorious swipe during his
1989 State of the State
address, Governor Michael
Dukakis, fresh from his
defeat in the presidential
campaign,
bitterly denounced the
“gutless wonders of
Massachusetts politics” who
were thwarting his desire
for higher taxes.
(Anderson's swipes were
usually more elegant .
“The good that men do lives
after them,” she had told
the Globe during the Dukakis
campaign; “the evil that men
do goes on to the Democratic
convention as an example of
gubernatorial leadership.”)
By no means did Anderson and I
see eye-to-eye on every issue —
we were on opposite sides when
it came to religion,
immigration, and gay marriage,
to mention just three — but
never in the nearly 30 years I
knew her did we ever exchange
angry words. Journalists
profiling her typically
described Anderson as “fiery” or
“combative,” but in my
experience, I wrote, she was
invariably candid, affectionate,
and self-effacing:
In an atmosphere thick with
ego, she was never
egotistical. Politics is
full of deceit, but she was
never deceitful. And time
and again she surprised
critics inclined to believe
the worst of her by turning
out to be so much more
kindly and modest than the
right-wing ogress they had
imagined her to be.
In his 2007 book on
Massachusetts politics,
The Bluest State
, Jon Keller recounted how a
group of protesters, angrily
opposed to a tax-cut
proposal Anderson was
supporting, decided to march
on her home in Marblehead.
They were intent on
demonizing her “as a symbol
of the obliviousness of the
rich to the struggles of the
poor,” Keller wrote. After
all, how could a resident of
wealthy, tony Marblehead
possibly sympathize with the
struggles of the poor and
working class?
But when the protesters
reached Anderson's address,
they found not a swank,
waterfront mansion but “a
tiny five-room cottage in
need of paint and repair,
stuck on a small lot with a
view of the street and some
tangled underbrush.” Had she
been home to open the door,
they would have seen that
the inside of the house was
as humble as the outside. It
was also a fine reflection
of Anderson's quirky charm.
I am quite sure she is the
only taxpayer activist I
ever knew, or am ever likely
to know, with a decided
hippy-dippy New Age-y
streak. She was definitely
the only one who ever
invited me to visit the
store where she liked to buy
crystals, and who later
offered to cast my
horoscope.
After she died, her soulmate and
fellow warrior Chip Ford (who
recently
moved to Kentucky) wrote me
a note: “It’s sure going to be a
different world without Barbara
in the mix.”
It sure is.
CLT still operates as a
shoestring operation, but Beacon
Hill incumbents — including the
Republican governor — are
increasingly brazen about their
yen for higher taxes. With no
Anderson or Ford to credibly
wield the threat that any tax
hike will be challenged in a
ballot campaign, what champion
can beleaguered taxpayers look
to for protection? In a
political environment that grows
steadily more toxic, tribal, and
pitiless, what chance is there
for a happy warrior in the
Barbara Anderson mold to
influence public policy and keep
politicians honest?
She always insisted she was
merely a homeowner, but as
commentator Ira Stoll
wrote in the New York Sun
after she passed away,
Anderson’s life serves as “an
emphatic reminder that some of
the most consequential lives are
led by those who are never
elected to political office.”
She was one of the most
influential women in
Massachusetts history, and she
achieved that status without
ever running for office,
marrying a politician, being
appointed to a powerful post,
having much money — or
forgetting how to be civil.
We are not likely to see Barbara
Anderson’s like again.
How glad I am to have known her.
|
_____________________________________________
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for reading Arguable. If you liked this
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friend? To subscribe for free,
sign up here
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I
always welcome your feedback — cheers,
jeers, and otherwise. Let me hear from
you: My e-mail address is
jeff.jacoby@globe.com (or just reply
to this newsletter).
Look
for a new issue of Arguable in your
email inbox next Monday. Until then,
have a great week!
|
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Beacon Hill Roll
Call
Monday, April 8, 2019
Beacon Hill Roll Call: April 1-5, 2019
By Bob Katzen
There were no roll calls in the House or Senate
last week.
This week’s report features the grades received
from the Citizens for Limited Taxation,
Massachusetts Public Interest Group and Planned
Parenthood Advocacy Fund.
Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT)
CLT, founded in 1974, describes itself as the
group that “defended state taxpayers against a
proposed state graduated income tax, which it
defeated on the 1976 statewide ballot, and again
in 1994. CLT also limited property and auto
excise taxes with Proposition 2½ in 1980,
repealed the surtax and created a state tax cap
in 1986 and rolled back the “temporary” income
tax hike on the 2000 ballot. For decades CLT has
provided its annual ‘Rating of Legislators’ to
provide taxpayers with easy access to the
performance of their respective state
representative and senator regarding tax
policy.”
“For 45 years CLT has been the bulwark for
taxpayers against unlimited taxation in a state
that has an insatiable spending problem,” said
Chip Ford, executive director. “Since its
founding, CLT has saved Massachusetts taxpayers
billions of their hard-earned dollars.”
Key to scorecard: CLT used ten House votes and
five Senate votes when calculating the 2017
ratings of the state’s legislators. Issues
include the legislative pay hike, reducing the
sales tax and income tax to 5 percent, imposing
a graduated income tax, increasing the senior
property tax deduction to $2,000 and requiring a
social security number in order to get public
housing.
More details on the scorecard at
cltg.org.
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
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