CLT Update
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Carla Howell to launch petition
drive
to abolish state income tax
"If Massachusetts voters get a chance to abolish the income tax, there will be a din the likes of
which this state has never known....
"Ready or not, the mother of all ballot fights is about to begin."
Jeff Jacoby
Abolishing income tax is feasible
The Boston Globe
Jul. 31, 2001
It looks like CLT is about to lose the title of "tax-cut terrorists" assigned to us by our perennial opponents,
TEAM (Tax Everything And More), the Mass. Teachers Association, and the rest of the Gimme Lobby.
We'll now just have to settle for "tax-relief moderates."
Today Carla Howell and other Libertarians will file a proposed initiative petition to abolish the state
income tax, completely!
The Gimme Lobby -- upset over our little rollback last year from 5.85 to 5 percent phased in over three
years -- is about to go eye-bulging apoplectic.
Considering that they're about to file two petitions of their own -- one to raise the minimum wage from the
currently highest in the nation at $6.75, to $7.00 then index it to inflation; the other to provide paid family
leave by forcing employers to contribute $20 per-year per-employee into another bigger-government slush
fund that'll never be big enough -- they are going to have their hands full.
This will be real fun to watch!
 |
|
Chip Ford |
PS. Anyone interested in helping to collect signatures or working
on this initiative can contact its sponsors and volunteer through Carla
Howell's website.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Abolishing income tax is feasible
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Staff
Today, taking the first step toward what could be the most
momentous ballot fight in Massachusetts history, a group of small-government activists led by two-time Libertarian Party
candidate Carla Howell will file an initiative petition to abolish the state's personal income tax. If the attorney
general approves the language and if the petitioners collect the necessary signatures, the measure will be on the state
ballot in 2002.
Fasten your seat belts. We may be in for a wild ride.
If Massachusetts voters get a chance to abolish the income
tax, there will be a din the likes of which this state has never known. Every special interest that sups at the public
trough will howl with fury, warning that an end to the income tax will mean an end to civilization as we know it. The schools
will shut down, they will moan. The sick will die. The courts will collapse. Bridges will buckle, the unemployed will go
hungry, and every city and town will sink into fiscal chaos. They will say, in short, that the loss of its
income tax will leave Massachusetts starved and disgraced. How can Carla Howell
possibly defend that?
Howell is the articulate Libertarian who challenged Ted
Kennedy in the US Senate race last year and drew 12 percent of the vote, nearly tying the Republican candidate, who got 13
percent. It was a notable achievement for a third-party candidate, especially one whose philosophy of minimal
government flies in the face of everything that liberal Taxachusetts is supposed to favor.
Still, 12 percent is only 12 percent. Massachusetts voters
may have cut their taxes last November and voted Republican in the last three gubernatorial elections, but it isn't exactly
obvious that they want to shrink state government radically. Howell and others who advocate an end to the income tax will be
fighting an uphill battle. Voters will be skeptical. Opponents will be well-funded. Republican politicians no
less than Democratic ones will rush to defend the status quo. The media will trumpet the horrors awaiting
Massachusetts if the income tax goes by the boards. It won't be an easy sell.
Even for those of us who consider taxation little better
than legalized theft, there is no denying that wiping out the income tax would take its toll on state government. In 2000,
the income tax generated more than $9 billion for the treasury -- 57 percent of the state's total tax revenue of $15.7
billion. It funded almost 41 percent of the state's $22 billion operating budget. Critics will demand to know how Massachusetts
could survive without it. Will Howell have an answer?
Of course she will.
For a start, she can point out that seven states already
manage without an income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. Two others, New
Hampshire and Tennessee, tax only dividends and interest. Beacon Hill may be addicted to income tax revenues, but
addictions aren't healthy. And as countless ex-smokers, ex-gamblers, and ex-drinkers can testify, it is a blessing to
overcome them.
No doubt Howell will make the point that state government
spends so much money because it has it, not because it needs it. The dollars gush in, so many in recent years that the state
literally hasn't been able to spend them fast enough: Even with a budget racing far ahead of inflation, Beacon Hill kept
winding up with nine- and 10-figure surpluses. And that doesn't count the billions stashed away, unused, in various rainy
day and insurance funds. Or the state's $7 billion share of the tobacco settlement.
Deleting the income tax from the state's fiscal calculations
would not roll us back to the 19th century. It would roll us back to 1991. Do the math: Subtract $9 billion of income tax
revenues from this year's $22 billion budget and you are left with $13 billion. That was roughly the size of the state's
budget (in unadjusted dollars) when Michael Dukakis left office. Many things have been said of Dukakis, but no one
ever accused him of cutting government to the bone. At $13 billion, state government was big, powerful,
intrusive, and top-heavy. Restored to $13 billion, it would still be far from Spartan.
But it will certainly be smaller. And that, say Howell and
her fellow petitioners -- who are organized as the Committee for Small Government -- is the point.
"Making state government small will make people's lives
better and happier," she told me yesterday. "$9 billion less for the state means $9 billion more for voters to spend on
their priorities: their kids' education, their churches, their retirement. It means $9 billion more for the Massachusetts
economy -- and that means new businesses, new opportunities, new jobs."
Ready or not, the mother of all ballot fights is about to
begin. Better buckle up.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
The following information is from Libertarian
Carla Howell's
website.
What is the Small Government Act to End the Income Tax?
The Small Government Act to End the Income Tax is a ballot question that will be put before the voters in
November 2002 -- assuming we collect enough signatures to get on the ballot. If
it passes, it will repeal all Massachusetts state taxes on wages, passive income (interest and dividends) and capital
gains.
When we pass the Small Government Act to End the Income Tax:
Your family will save an average of over $2,000 in taxes every year. Money you'll be able to keep to
spend on your family, your retirement, for your favorite church or charity -- in your
own community.
You will no longer pay the 5+% income tax on wages.
If you're retired and living on annuity income, you will no longer pay 5+% tax on interest or dividends that
you need to make ends meet.
If you earn stock options that you never even cashed in and that lost market value, you will no longer pay
up to 12% capital gains on income you never even saw.
Best of all, there will be $9 billion less that the state government can waste, misspend, hand out in
pork-barrel projects, or use for Big Government Programs that fail and that
make things worse.
Does ending the income tax go far enough?
Massachusetts state budget for fiscal year 2001 .... $23 billion
Income taxes collected in 2000 .... $9 billion
Money left after we end the income tax .... $14 billion
Massachusetts state budget for FY (fiscal year) 1991* .... $10 billion
How much more $ the state will still tax us after we end the income tax in 2003
than it taxed us in 1991 .... $4 billion
* FY 1991 was the last budget signed into law by Big Government Governor Michael Dukakis. Before
Big Government Republican Governors took over.
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