A PROMISE TO KEEP: 5%
A Ballot Committee of
Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
PO Box 408 * Peabody, MA 01960
Phone:(617) 248-0022 /(508) 538-3900 E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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ONLY * 30 * DAYS LEFT !!!
Before the Wednesday, November 19th Petition Drive Deadline
with the City/Town Clerks
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*** Promise Update ***
Monday, October 20, 1997

Greetings activists!
Only 30 days remain before the deadline for turning in our signatures with city and town clerks. Thirty days, and we’re still far short of the 80,000 raw signatures we need to wind up with the required 64,928 certified. If you haven’t filled a sheet or two by now, please, please get out this week and fill them. If you’ve been hard at it these past weeks, please try to redouble your efforts in the short time we have left.

We *must* not fail in this effort if we want to see the promise kept and the "temporary" income tax hike dropped back down to its former 5 percent, as promised. As you can see by the following editorial, it’s entirely up to us now.

Chip Ford—

The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, October 19, 1997

Lead Editorial: Roll back temporary tax

THE ISSUE:
Some Massachusetts politicians want to roll back a "temporary" tax increase passed almost ten years ago.

OUR VIEW:
If the politicians were on the level, the tax would have been rolled back years ago.

Once upon a time, the Massachusetts income tax rate was 5 percent. For every $10,000 you made, the state took $500.

Then, through bad management and poor planning, the state got itself in a bind.

The economy had taken a dip. Money was not coming in as fast as the state was spending it.

Rather than cut spending, the politicians put the gun to taxpayers’ heads and took more money.

They raised the tax rate. It is temporary, they said.

That was almost ten years ago. The rate has not been 5 percent since 1988.

It now stands at 5.95 percent. For every $10,000 you make, the state gets $595.

Now the economy is on the upswing again and money is pouring in.

Some Massachusetts politicians talk magnanimously of restoring the 5 percent tax rate.

Other politicians say cutting taxes is a dangerous idea.

Both sides talk as if they were preparing to defuse a bomb.

We have to go slow here, they say. If we roll back the rate, we have to do it over several years to avoid disaster.

It is amazing this is even an issue.

But the world of Massachusetts politics is a very strange place.

[*>] Income taxes were also raised temporarily during another "crisis", in 1975.

That temporary increase lasted until 1986. [<*]

Let’s see now:

"Permanent" 5 percent rate in effect for three of the last 23 years.

"Temporary" higher rate in effect for 20 years.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty told Alice in "Through the Looking Glass," it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."

Voters should remember that the next time the politicians talk of a temporary tax hike. And there is bound to be a next time.

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[*> <*] Remember too, that it took a CLT petition drive to put that surtax repeal question on the 1986 statewide ballot, where again we and the voters "kept the promise" for the Legislature. That’s the only way it works, folks!

Let’s not fail this time with too few signatures: Time to get out there and hustle!

30 days remain . . . and counting down . . .

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You can e-mail A Promise to Keep: 5% at -->cltg@cltg.org
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