SUCCESS!!!
Greetings activists and supporters ... and thank you one and
all!
When we finally succeed, we certainly do it with a bang! CLT
and the governor's Tax Rollback Committee turned in 29,435 certified signatures to Secretary of State William Galvin
yesterday -- more than THREE TIMES the 9,517 required!
Thanks so much to each and every one of you who had a hand
in this incredible conclusion to four long years of determined battle, who helped us collect those 200,000-plus signatures
over the three drives!
Thanks to Paul Melkonian and his team at the governor's Tax
Rollback Committee, for their commitment, long hours, and hard work.
Thanks to Carla Howell and her U.S. Senate campaign's
volunteers, who worked Nantasket Beach one weekend and pulled in hundreds of signatures, and to Steve Olson who discovered
the beach's potential and organized the event.
And to Ian Bayne, Bill Rivers, and the Jack E. Robinson U.S.
Senate campaign for its help in the closing weeks.
Thanks to Len & Regina Mead and Marsha Ciccolo of the Newton
Taxpayers Association; Roger & Sarah Blood and Allen Moulton of the Brookline taxpayers group; John & Sandra MacMillan of the
Billerica Republican Town Committee, and Sheila Richardson of the Dracut Town Committee.
Special thanks to the usual CLT backbone, Plymouth County
coordinators Norm and Joan Paley, who also assisted with the final count at the Marriott on Monday; Mark Ferguson of Holden;
George Withington and Sarah Adams of Newton; Middleton's one-man petition drive, Tony
Duskey; Jerzy Jachimczyk of Southbridge - and to CLT's own Chip Faulkner, who collected
over 800 signatures himself while also coordinating our drive!
With more than 900 CLT volunteers who pledged a specific
number of signatures at the outset of this endeavor, there's no way I can thank each of you personally here: I'm sure I'm not
even close to naming you all. But Barbara's and my heartfelt thanks go out to each of you who've battled alongside us in the
trenches over all the years, who've refused to give up despite the powers that be and the obstacles they've
consistently thrown in our way!
Together, we persevered, we persisted and finally ... we
succeeded!
You may recall that after we lost by 26 signatures to the
teachers union challenge back in 1998, Barbara and I took a vacation to Hawaii ... and while there, I sent Jimmy St. George
a great postcard. (you've got to see it if you haven't already
to understand what follows!)
Knowing he'd be there when we turned in our petitions
yesterday, attempting to rain on our parade with his Gimme Lobby spin, I wore one of my Hawaiian shirts picked up while
there. When he slithered onto the scene, I confronted him and announced that I'd specifically worn this shirt in his honor,
to remind him of my 1998 postcard. He remembered. Then, in the native Hawaiian custom as depicted on the
postcard, I stuck out my tongue as a sign of warrior contempt for his enemy!
 |
|
Chip Ford |
State House News Service
Wednesday, July 5, 2000
SURPLUS UPDATE: Administration and finance officials confirm
strong tax receipts mean an unexpected surplus of more than $200 million and possibly as much as $230 million. Cellucci is
considering a variety of options for the sudden surplus, including paying down debt, spending it on one-time capital
projects or emergency needs, or depositing it into the state's rainy day fund. Administration officials say the stabilization
fund is approaching a balance that would trigger an automatic tax cut. The administration will likely file a
new bill outlining its plans for the surplus; several Cellucci-sponsored
spending bills are still hanging around.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, July 6, 2000
Cellucci: Tax cut going before voters on November ballot
by Karen E. Crummy
Gov. Paul Cellucci announced yesterday his $1.2 billion tax
cut initiative will appear on the November ballot after it received three times the required voter signatures needed to
pass muster.
"This is the way to keep Massachusetts heading in the right
direction and to make sure we're competitive with the new globalization of the economy," Cellucci said.
The initiative rolls back the state income tax rate from
5.85 percent to 5 percent by 2003 and would return $600 to the average family of four while curtailing overspending by the
Legislature, he said.
An increase in state revenues has left the state with a
budget surplus, causing a battle between Republicans and Democrats over the excess money.
House Ways and Means Chairman Paul R. Haley (D-Weymouth)
said most of the surplus should be used to reduce the per capita debt instead of "dramatic" tax reductions.
"We should pay for the improvements and investments we've
made in the last few years now instead of burdening the next generation with them," Haley said.
Jim St. George, executive director of Campaign for Massachusetts's Future, echoed Haley's concerns and
said the governor's tax cut might pull funding from state schools and health care.
The ballot initiative is also expected to face strenuous
opposition from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which has said the initiative would threaten state aid to education.
Stephen Gorrie, president of the association, did not return
calls from the Herald.
Proponents of the tax cut believe the action is long overdue.
In 1989, the Legislature raised the income tax as a "temporary" measure to deal with the state's recession.
"The Legislature not keeping its word to the people is the
number one point in all this," said Barbara Anderson, director of Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government, who worked
with the governor on the tax cut.
Other initiatives filed yesterday and being reviewed for
certification by the Secretary of State's office include a law to develop a comprehensive health care coverage system, an
initiative to encourage charitable giving by creating a tax deduction for those who give to charities, and a measure that
would direct drug forfeiture money toward drug treatment.
Certified for the November ballot are an initiative to allow
a tax credit for highway, tunnel and bridge tolls, and an initiative to ban greyhound dog racing.
With the Legislature's addition of at least two proposed
constitutional amendments -- one of which would bar prisoners from voting -- the total number of initiatives now stands at
eight, one of the most crowded ballots in the state's history.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, July 6, 2000
Taxpayers' chance to reclaim money
A Boston Herald editorial
Gov. Paul Cellucci and veteran anti-tax activist Barbara
Anderson have filed three times as many signatures as needed to
get the income tax rate rollback on the November ballot. This is how to cut taxes. All that
remains is to do it.
News that the fiscal year just finished produced a surplus
of about $700 million instead of the planned-for $500 million could keep the issue in the spotlight for the rest of the
legislative session.
There's a chance that $200 million could be given back to
the taxpayers through an adjustment in the personal exemption, though don't bet your vacation bonus on it. Judging by past
experience, the Legislature may want to devote it to capital projects around the state -- roads, bridges, parks, buildings
and so forth -- as was done last year, or to pay down more state debt than planned, or to beef up yet another social
program.
Taxpayers have to take back their money permanently, and the
ballot initiative is the way to do it. Polls show three-quarters of voters are prepared to do just that.
Cellucci's cut would return the income tax rate to 5 percent, where it was before the "temporary" increase
in 1990, from the current 5.85 percent. It would cost about $1.1 billion
a year when fully in effect in three years. The size of the surplus, and the rate of growth of state revenues, shows that
this is a practical goal.
But hasn't the Legislature cut taxes enough? The very
existence of growing surpluses answers that question in the negative.
Legislatures by nature respond to interest groups. Sen.
Claghorn's support of mandatory hang-nail coverage by health insurers makes hang-nail sufferers tell Claghorn over and over
what a godsend to humanity he is, to the point where the senator begins to believe it.
There is a constant upward bias in spending. Just open any
recent budget document -- the Senate's version of the next budget, Page 15: "We increase the eligibility for the Emergency
Rent Arrearage program from 100 percent to 130 percent of the federal poverty level." Why? Well, last year the state
increased the eligibility for family shelters to 130 percent of the federal poverty level and, "This is the logical next step"
to keep families out of shelters.
No doubt this money will not be wasted, but there's always a
logical next step. This is why, from the depth of the recession in 1992, the budget has grown at twice the rate of inflation,
and more than twice the rate of growth in real personal income.
This is what makes us give only two cheers for the House
version of the budget, which would continue the current molasses-slow schedule of rate cuts after the 2002 fiscal year,
when the rate is supposed to reach 5.75 percent. The House wants a 0.1 percentage point rate cut for every 2.5 percentage
points of growth in real personal income in Massachusetts. In all likelihood, it would take about 10 years to bring the rate
back to 5 percent.
There are too many "logical next steps" in the coming decade
to have any confidence at all that the Legislature wouldn't grab the increased revenues and leave the taxpayer looking like
Charley Brown after Lucy snatched the football away. Assuming it makes the ballot, as it should, the governor's tax cut will
avoid such an embarrassment. It deserves your vote.
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