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 * 23 * DAYS LEFT !!!
Before the Wednesday, November 19th Petition Drive Deadline with the City/Town Clerks
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*** Promise Update ***
Monday, October 27, 1997

Greeting activists—and journalists!

Welcome aboard Michael Crowley, and if you’d like to be added to our Updates/Alerts! list, like some other journalists and columnists who’ve requested it, let me know and we’ll put you on too.

Mr. Crowley writes for The Boston Phoenix, and in an October 24 edition, now on the stands, wrote a column titled "Let’s not fall flat on our faces."

"It seems the populist fury of Massachusetts’s’ leading antitax group has been eclipsed for the moment by what a top activist calls *’impending panic,’*" Michael reports.

[ . . . ] "But the petition drive is in deep trouble, according to two e-mail updates recently zapped out to CLT&G supporters and obtained by the Phoenix.

"’Of all the petition drives I’ve coordinated . . . this tax rollback petition is the most at-risk of failing at this stage [of] any of them,’ fretted CLT&G codirector Chip Ford on October 13. . . .

"’Do you sense an impending panic in my prose?’ he wrote.

[ . . . ] "Three days later, Ford sent out another anxious e-mail—which, like the first, was not posted with other recent updates on the group’s Web site . . . ‘anyone else out there getting nervous too?’"

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Who says we can’t get any publicity on this issue!
No offense, Michael, but we intend to make you eat your words!

Chip Ford—

The Boston Herald
Monday, October 27, 1997
Editorial: Taxachusetts revisited

Sure the times are good. Unemployment’s low, inflation too and if the livin’ ain’t exactly easy, at least the pay checks of most Massachusetts residents are still coming in and with some luck last until the next ones come around.

But the real shame is that the bite state and local government is taking out of those paychecks is still an enormous one here. Yes, according to the latest report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, Taxachusetts is still alive and well.

The foundation issued its report late last week, comparing the tax burden here in Massachusetts to that of the rest of the nation. The conclusion?

Well, as Taxpayers Foundation President Michael J. Widmer put it, "Massachusetts’ relative tax burden has on balance shown modest improvement in recent years. Nevertheless, both our personal and corporate taxes remain among the highest in the nation."

On a per capita basis, Massachusetts ranked sixth in the nation in total tax burden. (Those who are looking for a somewhat cheerier picture might take solace in the fact that measured instead per $1,000 of state personal income—a way of adjusting for differences in wealth—Massachusetts ranks 26th in the nation.)

Corporate taxes and property taxes were well above the national average too. Even Proposition 2 ½ has not been able to hold the line on the latter as in the days immediately following its passage. Massachusetts still ranked 10th in the nation in per capita property tax burden.

But it is the personal income tax structure—that on salaries and especially that on income and dividends—that’s a real killer here.

When local income taxes—collected in a number of places such as New York and Maryland—were factored out, Massachusetts’ per capita income tax burden ranked No. 1 in the nation (No. 2 as measured by $1,000 of personal income).

So the next time someone says we simply *can’t afford* to cut the personal income to 5 percent—even in the wake of an $800 million state budget surplus—look ‘em straight in the eye and repeat these words:

We can’t afford NOT to.

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