CLT News Release
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
"Beware of Progs bearing gifts"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chip Ford, Executive Director
Targeting "millionaires" for a tax hike is bad enough; it’s terrible
public policy and an economic blunder.
Citizens for Limited Taxation has called the so-called "Tax Fairness
Amendment" the very antithesis of fairness by imposing a
different tax rate on some but not all.
CLT has warned since this constitutional amendment was first proposed
four years ago that the "millionaires" gimmick is just a Trojan Horse; a
deception to get inside the gate before prying it wide open for entry of
a graduated income tax on all taxpayers.
Yesterday we learned that a group of the more progressive among the
liberal Legislature has filed an amendment that ripped off the bandaid
and exposed the true intent of this proposed constitutional amendment.
Amendment #2, sponsored by Reps. Peisch, Ferrante, and Sen. Finegold,
strips away any pretense of this sixth attempt, and boldly calls again
for imposition of a long-rejected graduated income tax.
It
is scheduled for a vote during tomorrow’s Constitutional Convention.
Five times over the decades a graduated income tax constitutional
amendment was put on the Massachusetts statewide ballot for voters to
decide, and five times without exception it was soundly defeated (1962,
83%-17%; 1968, 70%-30%; 1972, 67%-33%; 1976, 73%-27% and; 1994,
70%-30%).
"To paraphrase Virgil's Aeneid, ‘Beware of Progs bearing gifts,’” said
Chip Ford, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, which
led the successful opposition to the last proposed Grad Tax
constitutional amendment on the 1994 ballot. It was defeated then by
70%-30%.
Ford added: "Why can't liberal advocates of a hugely-unpopular
graduated income tax accept the voters' persistently overwhelming 'No'
for the electorate's final decision? How can the tax-and-spend
progressives think a sixth time will turn out differently, that
they've worn down voters this time, have radically changed the minds of
such a consistently vast majority of voters?"
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Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪ PO
Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
