Dear Governor Cellucci,
Thank you for being a good friend of the taxpayers during your years in office. As a state representative and state senator, you consistently had one of the highest ratings with Citizens for Limited Taxation, 100 percent in some years. Your support for Proposition 2½ was invaluable.
As a trend-setting co-governor, you helped Governor Weld save the commonwealth from fiscal meltdown and turned our economy around. With your "no new taxes" pledge, you put an end to the Beacon Hill game: operating-budget overspending, fudged revenues and unpaid Medicaid bills, followed by "emergency" tax hikes. Instead, we had tax cuts throughout your administration.
Then you became, to the best of our knowledge, the first governor ever to lead an initiative petition drive to cut taxes. When the phased-down rate reaches 5 percent in 2003, we will think of you with gratitude. It was fun working with you.
Your support for charter schools and MCAS accountability will also give the children of the commonwealth reason to be grateful for years to come.
We have not always agreed with you on every issue, wishing that there had been tighter oversight of the Big Dig: but your administration was just an ongoing part of the problem that began with our congressional delegation's insistence that President Reagan's veto be overridden despite his concerns about the true costs of the project.
Our biggest regret is that you did not have a chance to leave office with a comparison to the royal governor, Sir William Phips, who put an end to the Salem witch persecutions. If the parole board had acted in a timely manner on the commutation of Gerald Amirault's sentence, you could have carried the same legacy as his: a champion of justice in the face of prosecutorial hysteria. It would have been something to feel very warm about on those cold Canadian nights.
Thanks again for your pro-taxpayer efforts. We wish you well in your new career, and look forward with confidence to the administration of Governor Jane Swift.
Sincerely,
Barbara Anderson, Chip Ford and Chip Faulkner