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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*** Promise Update ***
Wednesday, August 6, 1997

Greetings activists!

At 2:00 PM CLT&G / "A Promise to Keep: 5%" will file three versions of its Income Tax Rollback and Equalization initiative with the state attorney general’s office for his approval. Then we will hold a new conference. In attendance will be members of CLT&G, Governor Paul Cellucci, and state Treasurer Joe Malone.

The following news release is being faxed or delivered to some 300 media outlets, print and broadcast, in Massachusetts.

Chip Ford & Barbara Anderson
Co-Directors, CLT&G
Co-Chairmen, A Promise to Keep: 5%

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NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
August 6, 1997

For further information contact:
Barbara Anderson or Chip Ford
(617) 248-0022


A PROMISE TO KEEP: 5%
AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR FAIRNESS, SIMPLICITY, AND SHARING THE SURPLUS

As we strive to teach our children, keeping promises, fairness, simplicity and sharing are all good things to do.

The newspaper clips on the other side of this release [a collage of 1989 news reports are provided on back of the actual news release, but not here] clearly show that the 1989 income tax hike was sold to most legislators and certainly to the public as a temporary tax. The emergency is over, the crisis deficit bonds will be completely paid off this year, and the state is carrying a huge surplus from Fiscal Year 1997 and expecting another for FY’98.

The "rainy day fund" will soon contain over one hundred million tax dollars that were once promised to the taxpayers. Between the surplus revenue and the extra money in the fund, there will be more than enough to cover an *immediate* restoration of the 5 percent income tax rate.

However, we will not go as far as the state can afford, lest we be accused by demagogues of the 3 D’s: disaster, devastation, and destruction. Instead, our very reasonable petition gently eases the income tax rate back down over three years, beginning in the tax year following the 1998 ballot. Another version reduces taxes by another $87 million a year to finally equalize the wage & salary and the savings dividend & interest rates.

The state has sixteen months to prepare for the beginning of the gradual phase-down. As Henry David Thoreau might ask, "what possesses us that we are behaving so well?"

The answer is, we want to get the job done. We want to begin the next millennium with that rainbow of kept promises reflecting the sunshine of shared surpluses. We do not want loud and angry debate to mar the beauty of the landscape. We want peace and harmony, joy and goodwill to reign on Beacon Hill.

Governor Paul Cellucci and Treasurer Joe Malone have the courage and the brains to support our petition. Now if the legislative leadership will only get a heart . . . But we know that unless CLT&G petitioners set out on that yellow brick road with this petition, we will never be able to click our heels and go back to 5 percent, or equalize the unfair rate on savings dividend & interest income that is the highest in the nation at 12 percent.

And so the good citizens of the commonwealth will now take the first step on the journey to keeping promises, fairness, simplicity and sharing.

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