The Telegram & Gazette has got that right!
Fortunately, we've got the solution: CLT's voluntary tax check-off.
Without adopting it -- without at least giving it a chance -- how can the Beacon Hill pols even
think about imposing more taxes on anybody?
Apparently "the Progressives" (aka Socialists) don't need or want tax relief, demonstrated by the CPPAX
request [below] that all the lefties send them their tax rebates, and also by the
national Democrat Party's similar request on their website that fellow travelers send them their tax rebate.
Hey, we really don't care what they do with their tax relief -- it's their money! -- but why does the extreme
left-wing expect that a cent of it should be contributed to their organizations and causes when they fought
tooth and nail to prevent the relief -- while CLT virtually (and a couple years back almost literally!) killed
itself to achieve it.
I mean, hey, I thought their beloved government couldn't afford a tax cut, both nationally or statewide --
that the poor and downtrodden would cruelly suffer as a result of our "selfishness"? How can they in good
conscience now use this opportunity we provided in an attempt to enrich themselves?
Surely they will come to their collective "compassionate" senses and support our voluntary tax check-off
... if for no other reason than doing it "for the children."
In the name of compassion, CLT is striving to help bring them along, save them from themselves.
CLT's $10,000 radio ad buy will begin airing Monday morning and run all day on WRKO AM-680 and
WTKK FM-96.9 in an attempt to reawaken their compassion and dampen their greed. [The text
is on our website now; the audio will also be available there
beginning tomorrow evening].
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|
Chip Ford |
Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without yet another proposal from lawmakers for new or increased
taxes, most touted as enhancements to the public's welfare.
Legislators have proposed, for example, another boost in the
state cigarette tax, ostensibly for smokers' own good, and a new 5 percent tax on beer, wine and liquor sales, purportedly
for alcoholism treatment.
The pace quickened this week. While House Speaker Thomas M.
Finneran floated the idea of raising the sales tax by 2 percent, state representatives debated a bill that would raise
the tax selectively on new car sales.
The House bill would create a sliding-scale sales tax for
new vehicles, based on gasoline consumption, in the name of promoting environmentally correct car purchases. Owners of some
vehicles -- including the SUVs and minivans that constitute half of all new car sales -- could pay sales tax of up to 10
percent.
Doubtlessly, the sliding sales tax would bring in piles of
money. But it is debatable whether many families would opt to squeeze into a fuel-stingy subcompact sedan rather than pay a
punitive sales tax on a minivan.
Similarly, the proposed across-the-board increase in the
state sales tax, from 5 percent to 7 percent, was presented as a way to redistribute the burden of school costs from property
owners to all state residents.
But shifting the burden of school costs from the property
tax to a regressive sales tax is hardly a victory for tax equity. Its true appeal at the Statehouse seems to be the
revenue it would bring in.
Lawmakers seeking to make up for the effects of the rollback
of the state income tax rate and the slowdown in economic growth are, unfortunately, less interested in restraining
spending than in finding new ways to dip into taxpayers' pocketbooks.
In voting the tax rollback last fall, voters sent a message
that annual hikes in state spending at double or triple the rate of inflation had to stop. The proper legislative response
to the vote should be restraint on the spending side of the ledger, not a reversion to the Taxachusetts mentality.
Source: State House News Service
[ Begin CPPAX message ]
RESIST THE BUSH AGENDA - DONATE YOUR TAX CUT
Thursday, June 7, 2001
CPPAX (Citizens for Participation in Political Action)
To: Progressives
From: Betsy Smith, CPPAX Executive Director, Eric Weltman, CPPAX Organizing
Director, and Sandra Hackman, CPPAX Co-Chair
This afternoon, President Bush will sign his $1.3 trillion tax
cut. The tax cut will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, while hurting the nation's ability to invest in education,
health care, and other social priorities.
A portion of this tax cut -- the so-called "quick rebates" --
will be mailed to taxpayers in the next couple of months. The three of us will be donating any rebates we receive to
organizations resisting the extreme right-wing Bush agenda. And we challenge our friends,
colleagues, and fellow progressives to do the same.
Below are some of our favorite organizations and their
addresses. Of course, CPPAX is included, but we list some others as well.
CPPAX (Citizens for Participation in Political Action)
Boston, MA
Mass NARAL
Boston, MA
Massachusetts Peace Action
Cambridge, MA
United for a Fair Economy
Boston, MA
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Cambridge, MA
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
Washington, DC
[ End CPPAX message ]