CITIZENS
for
Limited Taxation & Government
Post Office Box 408 Peabody, Massachusetts
01960 (617) 248-0022
E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org Web-page: http://cltg.org
CLT&G
Update
Thursday, October 8, 1998
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Thursday, October 8, 1998
Contact: Barbara Anderson (617) 248-0022
Chip
Ford (978) 538-3900
Only Harshbarger
Refuses "No New Taxes" Pledge
Democrat L. Scott Harshbarger is the only candidate for governor who has refused to take
the CLT&G "No New Taxes" pledge.
Both Republican candidate Governor Paul
Cellucci and Libertarian candidate Dean Cook have signed the pledge and promised taxpayers
that "if elected, I will oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes."
On September 22, CLT&G sent an
invitation to take the CLT&G "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" to Attorney
General L. Scott Harshbarger's campaign by certified mail. Two days later, to make sure he
received it, we hand-delivered another copy of it to his campaign office. We also received
the certified mail receipt in the mail.
Two weeks have passed. Neither the
candidate nor his campaign has responded to our invitation.
However, Attorney General Harshbarger
has made public statements about the pledge when asked, making it clear that he won't
promise not to increase the burden of taxation on Massachusetts working people. In fact,
in an overly-intellectual response to a question at the South Shore Chamber breakfast on
October 6, he said the pledge is "stupid."
In his debate with Gov. Cellucci on
Monday, Harshbarger implied that taxpayers are a "special interest" group. If we
are, we're the special interest group that pays for all the things other special interest
groups want, and as such deserve to know how much more of our money Mr. Harshbarger
intends to take if he's elected governor.
His assertion that he has never voted
for a tax increase is of little assurance, since Harshbarger has never been elected to a
position where he could vote for or against any tax increase.
In lieu of a record, we need a pledge.
Without one, we must assume that, if he's elected, taxpayers will be looking at
overspending followed by fiscal crisis followed by tax increases, again.
-30-
Return
to CLT&G Updates page
|