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, September 24, 1997

The (Quincy) Patriot Ledger
Tuesday, September 23, 1997

Big Dig could prevent tax cut
By Lauren Markoe
Patriot Ledger State House Bureau

BOSTON - Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci wants to give every Massachusetts family an income tax break worth hundreds of dollars a year. But House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Haley says the state may need the money to pay for the Big Dig instead.

Haley, a Weymouth Democrat, said it seems clear that lawmakers in Washington will make Massachusetts pay a greater share of the $11 billion cost of the Central Artery / Third Harbor Tunnel project in Boston.

Given that, he said, it makes little sense to approve Cellucci’s plan for $1 billion in income tax cuts over the next three years.

"How are you going to absorb that cut? That’s my question to the administration. It’s terrifying," said Haley, whose committee must approve any tax cut legislation. "The governor is somewhat irresponsible on this point, suggesting that there is that much room for a huge tax cut when he knows there’s not."

Cellucci has proposed cutting the basic tax rate in Massachusetts from 5.95 percent to 5 percent, and is looking at other ways to reduce the tax burden in a state once known as " Taxachusetts." But Haley said Cellucci’s eagerness is linked to the acting governor’s intention to run for governor in 1998. Cellucci’s income tax plan, which is also being pushed by Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government, would save the average family $600 a year.

"I don’t think we should be driven in this decision by politics and that’s what’s happening right now," Haley said in an interview yesterday.

Cellucci says the state’s strong economy make a billion dollar tax cut affordable. The surplus from the fiscal year that ended June 30 reached $795 million, according to one taxpayer watchdog group.

"Our economy is generating a surplus of revenue and if we don’t take it off the table it will be used not to pay for the Big Dig, it will be used make state government bigger, like they did in the 1980’s," said Cellucci, a Republican. "I don’t want to see that happen."

[ . . . ]

# # #

They’rrrrre back!

"Terrifying" Haley said. If it isn’t "throwing the elderly out into the gutter," or "starving the children," then the hysterical reaction at the prospect of keeping a promise and rolling back the income tax is "terrifying"—because (fill in the blank with the latest convenient "crisis")!

If he was even a little bit honest, Rep. Paul Haley would admit that what’s most terrifying to him and his colleagues is . . . losing all that free taxpayer’s money they’re getting used to playing with!

Chip Ford—

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