Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
"The Commonwealth Activist Network"
18 Tremont Street #608 * Boston, MA 02108
Phone:(617) 248-0022 * E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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*** CLT&G Update ***
Wednesday, March 25, 1998

Greetings activists and supporters;

Here’s an update on our defense of the initiative-referendum process, under aggressive attack by monied special interests who find it more cost-effective to crush citizens’ proposals through a flurry of frivolous technicalities than to campaign for the hearts and minds of voters.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, March 25, 1998

Activist blasts bid to block ballot

Anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson, who has waged many a big ballot campaign, lashed out yesterday at the groups trying to block a ballot question on the state’s electric deregulation law.

Anderson called the challenge "simple harassment of the petition process."

Activists collected enough signatures to get a question placed on the November ballot that would repeal the state’s new electric deregulation law.

Businesses filed a challenge, criticizing, among other things, the use of "highlighter" marker on some of the petitions and the Campaign for Fair Electric Rates’ placing its return address on the petitions.

Anderson’s own campaign to get a tax-cutting question before voters is in jeopardy because of a challenge from the union-backed Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts and a state teachers’ union.

Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts and Boston Edison are trying to block deregulation repeal, through the Ballot Law Commission and the courts. The deregulation law took effect March 1.

"We’re very concerned . . . because of the damage it would do to the deregulation law and the law’s benefits," said Robert Ruddock, an AIM vice president. "So we’re taking it very seriously."
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On a personal note, I’ve finally had enough of Big Government’s insatiable money grab, targeting a currently un-PC group and getting away with it under the supposedly unassailable banner of doing it "for the children."

Maybe you’re not a smoker and this outrageously bold tax grab doesn’t affect you, so today you can yawn. But ask yourself, if this attack on an apparently defenseless minority of taxpayers succeeds, who will be next, which minority taxpayer group?

Taxes now are so high that decision-makers don’t dare a broad-based tax increase without inviting revolt—but their never-ending appetite for more revenue and more control, more expansive and intrusive government, continues unabated. More is never enough for those who live to control, but they’ve had to find new strategies to satisfy their cravings.

Divide and conquer works only if we permit it. Massachusetts voters have consistently rejected a graduated state income tax because they’ve recognize their strength in numbers. It would become far too easy to go after one rate, picking off a weaker minority with little clout with the majority one at time, until everyone has been plucked clean.

The Boston Herald
Wednesday, March 25, 1998
Letters to the Editor
Tobacco tax purpose not just for kids

Big Government is salivating over the potential windfall from a $1.10 - $1.50 tax increase on tobacco ("Study: Major tax hike will drastically cut teen smoking," March 24). Assertions that another tax "for the children" is only to prevent kids from taking up the nasty habit ring hollow. Government has found a new, vulnerable and, most important, available source of vast new revenue to keep expanding its reach.

If Vice-President Al Gore and the anti-tobacco lobby want to convince us that their motivation is pure they can prove it: Include a revenue-neutral tax credit for adult smokers. Every dollar an adult pays in tobacco taxes should be offset dollar for dollar, deducted directly from a smoker’s income tax.

Children do not file tax returns, and adults would be relieved of tax oppression thinly disguised as child protection.

Chip Ford
Peabody

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You can e-mail CLT&G at --> cltg@cltg.org
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