First, for those of you who are collecting ideas of where to
cut in order to avoid a tax increase, a great column from Salem News contributor Joe Doyle.
Second, to share the fascinating item about Carla Howell's
rejection of our support. In all our years of initiative petitioning, it never occurred to us to tell voters to vote for
our ballot question only if you do it for the reasons we have decided are the politically correct ones. The Promise, the
Promise, not the money folks!
We would have just ignored this, except that the story will
be picked up by other newspapers in the next few months, and for those of you who might be amazed instead of amused by some
aspect of it, we wanted to make sure you understand our position on the income tax repeal.
Our plan had been to poll the entire CLT membership, which
we realize is quite diverse within the tax limitation paradigm: members who mostly just want Prop
2½ protected,
libertarians, staff members (i.e., me) who will always vote for any tax cut for people like us, knowing that a "No" vote sends
a message to Beacon Hill that we like taxes; moderates who were quite happy just to get the income tax rate down
to 5 percent. We were genuinely curious as to what the membership decision would be.
But then our moderate little tax rollback started rolling
away and we decided to wait to see if we can save it after the governor's veto when a two-thirds vote is required before doing
our membership poll - and that is still our plan. We haven't initiated any discussion of the repeal with anyone in the media - no news
release etc. - but the State House News Service called with the question right after
the House voted to hike the income tax rate. We told them we had planned to poll -- still will if we save our ballot
question -- but if not, every indication we've had from CLT supporters is that they will expect us to express our
outrage and fight back in any way we can.
I had initially called Carla with the offer to ask CLT
activists if they wanted to help with signatures, and I innocently celebrated that the anger of rollback voters, added
to her "small government is beautiful" motivated voters, would increase her vote. I was genuinely astonished by her response.
Then she told Chip not to talk to the press about her ballot question even if they called! I thought that this was
hilarious, but ... we decided it would be better if I wrote today's Update -- especially after he started quoting
characters from "Bambi"! Did you know it was Thumper's mother who said "If you can't say something
nice (about someone) don't say anything at all?" with "nice" apparently being the (Carla)
party line. Chip Faulkner had a thought too: All initiative petitions are a protests; that's the whole point.
This is going to be such an interesting campaign year! As I
said in my recent column, all you can do to survive Massachusetts politics, while fighting it of course, is to
laugh.
The Salem Evening News
Monday, June 03, 2002
Shaking the public trough should yield
more than enough to balance state budget
By Joe Doyle
I'm not writing this criticism of Massachusetts' pro-tax
legislative oligarchy because I want to. It's just that after reading House Speak Tom Finneran's ranting against the free
press and its coverage of the budget debate -- "You folks oft-times get in the way of progress" -- I felt
that some things desperately needed saying.
Finneran has also said, "We have a tendency to embrace
Medicaid without ... a full analysis... We might wish we had other choices... We don't."
I would like to note that the funding coming from the cuts
being made in Medicaid and other social services for the vulnerable and needy, actually could be taken from an entirely
different source.
First and foremost, the pro-tax oligarchy should be called
upon to recognize that the state government is not in place to be utilized, by its employees as a Fortune 500 company. The
system was originally envisioned as a bare-bones entity, fashioned to funnel money to the
services needed by citizens in common. Hence, the "commonwealth."
We need not raise taxes. We need to roll back taxes.
We need not raise government fees. We need to roll back
government fees, and eliminate tolls.
Funding, I feel, can and should come, though not exclusively, from the following sources:
Scuttling the "buggy-whip" Quinn Bill.
This overly generous compensation package, providing 100
percent free funding for higher education for police officers, including a percentage-based raise over their base salaries on
completion of said degree, was formulated decades ago when the municipal police were
underpaid. Now, they have paid details that double and triple their base incomes -- currently
very ample by anyone's standards -- along with ample benefits packages. Last year alone the
Quinn Bill cost us $120 million and the cost is still escalating.
So $120 million in savings could be applied to the budget
with the end of the Quinn Bill.
Reducing Massachusetts State Police overtime.
Since Sept. 11 this has gotten ridiculous and is costing us
some $100 million a year, bringing the average of state police officers' incomes, of which there are 2,300, to $143,000 a
year, plus benefits.
Do you feel any safer? I don't. This has been a big waste of
funding.
Under the tense, trying security conditions of today, the
State Police officers should shoulder more of our shared financial burden by volunteering their services. As the
government has stated, "We all have to do a little more."
Sell the new military attack helicopters recently purchased by
the State Police.
What? Massachusetts now needs its own Air Force? And these
expensive new toys are somehow more important to Massachusetts than its forensic crime laboratories, which are so
underfunded that the state can allow only one DNA analysis a month?
Sell the gunships, with all their sophisticated gadgetry,
back to the federal government, and we recoup, including ground crews, maintenance, and, the cost of the aircraft, roughly $30
million.
Tap the rainy day fund.
Research shows that we made $100 million in interest on the
$2.3 billion resting in that fund. I suggest we take the $100 million, and take another $800 million out of the fund itself,
which would leave us with $1.5 billion.
So far, with all the aforementioned measures, we have
amassed $1,050,0000 with no new taxes. This is almost up to the figure the pro-tax oligarchy has set for their tax-increase
programs. Yet, we have not even touched the sacred, golden, fatted calf.
Tap the state pension fund.
The state has a $20 billion account, reserved for the
pensions of retiring elected and appointed officials, which is almost the size of the proposed budget. And, although I
couldn't believe it when I heard it, they pay no taxes whatsoever on these pensions which are
relatively as ample as those provided by Fortune 500 companies. And they come with
benefits and are more secure.
Also, they're allowed to work full-time while they collect!
We have to, at a minimum, put a cap on this irresponsible
use of taxpayers' money. I suggest around $43,000, plus medical, per year.
Also, no more double or triple-dipping, and an age requirement
for access to it -- let's say, 65.
We have so many ex-government people in their 30s, 40s and
50s collecting these ample pensions, and still working full-time for even ampler salaries, while only 35 per cent of
private-sector employees have any pension at all. Many of these include work restrictions,
and many lack medical benefits. Plus, with Polaroid, Enron, etc., these pensions are not
looking so secure anymore.
It should be further pointed out that the use of these
funds, available without raising taxes, and including the elimination of tolls, would be mentally and emotionally
uplifting to the public, not to mention the economic stimulus that would be the end result.
How much longer are we going to allow the administrators to
be out of touch, displaying an arrogant attitude of entitlement? While we finance the government's trip in a luxury
liner, we make do with a leaky dinghy.
There are six million of us, and a mere several thousand of
them. How did things get so out of whack? We've got to quit financing the lifestyles of the rich and famous and make
serious cuts where serious cuts can be made.
We need some true, visionary, creative leadership that
actually cares about financial freedom and equality of opportunity for the public. Even if you don't like any of the
candidates, vote in the next election. Our only hope lies in our plurality.
Joseph F. Doyle, a freelance writer who lives in Salem, is an
occasional contributor to Viewpoint.
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State House News Service
Monday, June 3, 2002
Tax-limiting group leader:
Members will vote to eliminate income tax
By Michael P. Norton and Rick Collins
STATE HOUSE, Boston, June 3, 2002 ... The head of the state's
leading tax-limiting lobbying group says she and many other members of
Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government will vote in favor of a November ballot proposal that would
eliminate the state income tax.
Barbara Anderson, executive director of CLT, said many
members of the group will cast protest votes for the ballot plan because they are outraged by the Legislature's decision to
freeze the income tax rate as part of a larger plan to raise taxes by more than $1 billion.
Voters in 2000 approved a three-step income tax cut in 2000. The first two rate cuts have
been implemented. The Legislature is balking at the final cut.
"The Legislature made it clear they don't care what the
voters think," Anderson told the News Service. "The only possible response to being screwed is to fight back in any way
you can. Obviously we're going to vote to get rid of the whole thing. That's the only possible
political response. We're definitely in favor of repealing the income tax because that is
the only choice that is left available to us."
Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Carla Howell and the
Committee for Small Government say their income tax elimination proposal would give about $3,000 per year back to three
million Bay State workers. Its critics say the question's passage would
decimate state services and state government by removing $9 billion in revenues used to fuel a $22.8 billion
annual budget.
Informed of Anderson's pledge of support from 8,000 CLT
members, Howell said she doesn't want CLT's support unless it's based solely upon the question's merits. "A protest
vote is a confession of weakness. If you don't want to give back $3,000
each to 3,000,000 workers in Massachusetts - every year - by ending the income tax, you shouldn't vote for our
ballot initiative," she said.
The ballot question has very little, if any, support on
Beacon Hill, where the Legislature is raising taxes and Acting Gov. Swift is proposing additional rainy day fund withdrawals
to prevent new state spending cuts they say would destroy popular education, health care and
human services. Howell's bill (H 4841) was sent to the Taxation Committee in January and
has not received even the obligatory public hearing.
Rep. Paul Casey (D-Winchester), House chairman of the
Taxation Committee, assessed the impact of the question's passage. "You'd be wiping out Medicaid, you'd be wiping out any
movement on education and you'd be wiping out local aid," said Casey.
Rep. Michael Coppola, a Foxborough Republican who has signed
CLT's no new taxes pledge, is also against abolishing the income tax. "It goes too far," said Coppola, who sits
with Casey on the Taxation Committee. "We're talking about billions of dollars of income to
the state. I can't imagine what we'd have to do to make up for the loss of our income tax
revenue."
Asked about Coppola's opposition to the question, Anderson
said, "He's a state representative. His position doesn't have to be based upon the fury that our position is based.
It's not about the money, it's about their daring to repeal the initiative petition."
The ballot plan far exceeds the $1.2 billion income tax cut
approved by voters in 2000, when CLT and Gov. Paul Cellucci led a successful ballot campaign. But Anderson dismisses as
irrelevant the dire policy and spending ramifications predicted by opponents of the ballot
question. Even if the question did pass, the Legislature would never implement it, she
predicted.
Before taking a stance on initiative petitions, CLT usually
selects two members to write and circulate pro-and-con position papers on ballot proposals. But that deliberative process was
sidetracked by the need to respond quickly in the face of the legislative drive to raise taxes,
Anderson said.
Anderson said CLT will not formally lobby for the question.
"This is Carla Howell's petition, and it's their campaign," she said. "We're certainly not going to try and move in and take
over the issue."
Under the voter-approved rollback, which was pushed by CLT
and former Gov. Paul Cellucci, the income tax rate is scheduled to drop to 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2003. The House
earlier this month voted to freeze the rate at 5.3 percent, as part of its
$1.065 billion tax package. The package also increases the cigarette tax by 75 cents, delays implementation of
the voter-approved charitable giving deduction, taxes capital gains at the same rate as
income and cuts personal exemptions.
The Senate will likely formally endorse the House plan
Wednesday, when it releases its budget proposal.
Republican Acting Gov. Jane Swift opposes the ballot
question. She has also pledged to veto the tax hike, but concedes the Legislature appears to have the votes to override
it.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney also opposes
the income tax abolition question. "Mitt Romney is in favor of lower taxes but we're not na‹ve enough to believe in
absolutely no taxes at all, so he's opposed," said deputy campaign manager
Eric Fehrnstrom. "It would be nice to have excellent schools and not pay taxes but we don't think that's
possible."
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