The CELLUCCI COMMITTEE and The SWIFT COMMITTEE
55 Union Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 1998

Contact: Andy Antrobus
(617) 742-1998

CELLUCCI, SWIFT: KEEP THE PROMISE

CLTG's Anderson, Former Legislators Call for Return to Lower Tax Rate

     Governor Paul Cellucci and Lt. Governor candidate Jane Swift today said they were the only ticket who would "keep the promise" made by state legislators during the fiscal crisis of the late 1980s to return the state income tax rate back to 5 percent.

     Joined by tax-cut activist Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government (CLTG) and legislators who fought the 1989 and 1990 tax hike shenanigans, Cellucci and Swift drew yet another sharp contrast between their vision for the future of Massachusetts and Scott Harshbarger's.

     "Scott Harshbarger has ridiculed the tax cuts Bill Weld and I brought to this state, and now he's proposed at least $1 billion in new spending, making any tax cut impossible if he were to become governor," said Cellucci. "I have cut taxes 28 times and maintained fiscal discipline in Massachusetts, and I will be a governor who will keep the promise to return the state income tax rate back to 5 percent."

     "Scott Harshbarger has already outlined his big plans to spend Massachusetts back into fiscal chaos, and Warren Tolman is walking in lockstep," said Swift. "These two won't be able to cut taxes; they'll have to raise taxes to pay for all these new proposals.

     Barbara Anderson expressed her fear that if the Cellucci-Swift ticket doesn't win in November, the taxpayers will never see a 5 percent rate again. "The tax increase was sold with this promise that it would be temporary," she said. "Massachusetts needs a governor who will fight to keep the state's word on the income tax rate and opposes any new taxes.

     In 1989, the Legislature enacted a tax hike to cover the big spending ways of the last Dukakis administration. The tax rate increase was supposed to be temporary, moving the rate from 5.0 to 5.375 and then to 5.75 percent. In August of 1990, months before Weld and Cellucci took office, the Legislature again voted to raise the rate for one year to 6.25 percent. Amid rumblings to leave the tax rate at 6.25 permanently, Weld and Cellucci threatened the Legislature with a veto and forced the rate back down to its current 5.95 level.

     Along with CLTG's Anderson, former Senate Republican Leader David Locke, former Representative Jack Flood, former House Republican Leaders Peter Forman and Steve Pierce joined Cellucci and Swift to say that they remember the promise to return the rate to 5.0 percent when the fiscal crisis was over.

     "I was there and I fought these tax hikes side by side with Paul Cellucci," said former Senate Republican David H. Locke. "Because he and Bill Weld got into the governor's office and fixed our fiscal ship, Massachusetts has never been better off fiscally or economically. It is time to cut this tax, keep this promise, and Paul Cellucci is the only person running for Governor who can do it.

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