FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chip Ford, Executive Director
Reportedly legislative leaders are contemplating hoisting the
middle-finger Beacon Hill salute to voters and taxpayers once again.
According to the State House News Service: "’Sure, it's an option,’
Mariano told reporters when asked if lawmakers would consider undoing
the 1986 voter law. ‘Everything's on the table. We could
undo the law, we could change it, we could postpone.’"
They
could also leave it alone as mandated by 54% of voters, their
constituents. That would be the correct option “on the table” in a
truly representative government – the only honorable course.
“That
Speaker Mariano would even consider such an affront to democracy,
to election results, and to voters themselves – that he even dares speak
it aloud – demonstrates the degree of sheer political arrogance that
permeates ‘The Great and General Court’ of the Commonwealth,” said Chip
Ford, Executive Director of Citizens for Limited Taxation which
co-sponsored the successful 1986 ballot question along with the Mass.
High Tech Council.
There
are but two days remaining in the Legislature’s formal session before
“full-time” legislators will leave for the remainder of the year so they
can hit the campaign trail to seek reelection or election to higher
office at taxpayers’ expense. The timing couldn’t be worse for
legislators.
If
their final vote before bailing out is to repeal the voters’
long-established tax-cap as soon as it is triggered, to deny taxpayers
the voter-mandated rebate of billions of their dollars in excessive
over-taxation, it may prove for many legislators to be snatching defeat
from the jaws of victory – which would be the just consequence.
Let legislators explain such a cavalier betrayal to voters in their
districts while asking for their votes. The timing couldn’t be
better for taxpayers and voters.
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