Dear Citizen for Limited Taxation:
The "temporary" income tax hike
turned ten years old in July.
If we do nothing, it will outlive us
all.
If we begin today, we can place its
repeal on the year 2000 ballot, and begin the next century with a promise kept.
As you know, when the state income tax
rate was increased from 5 to 5.75 percent in 1989, Beacon Hill politicians promised that
the rate hike would be temporary. Today the income tax rate is 5.95 percent.
In 1989, the Commonwealth was in fiscal
crisis. Medicaid bills had not been paid. The tax rate was "temporarily"
increased to cover bonds that were needed to pay the Medicaid bills. These bonds were paid
off long ago.
The recent $8.3 billion tobacco
settlement is intended to reimburse the state for that money we spent on those old
Medicaid costs, but not a cent of that settlement is coming back to us taxpayers.
Since the "temporary" tax hike,
state spending has almost doubled -- from $12 billion in 1989 to over $21 billion in the
coming year.
Today, there is well over a billion
dollars in the state "rainy day" fund. Politicians are busy looking for new ways
to spend both the tobacco money and the extra $1.4 billion that they get each year from
the "temporary" tax rate increase.
On a feeding frenzy now, some Beacon Hill
pols are looking for new ways to tax us. The so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
recommends higher Registry fees, even though a recent expos‚ in the Lawrence
Eagle-Tribune noted that the Registry of Motor Vehicles now takes in hundreds of millions
more than it costs to run the agency.
Legislators are promoting a new tax on
our telephones to pay for the new E-911 service. We thought that calling the police
was part of the public safety that is supposed to be the government's first priority. Now
they want to tax our phones to fund the call?!
Both the House and Senate have already
voted to increase the capital gains tax, and are planning to override Governor Cellucci's
veto of any tax increase.
Someday soon, the income tax rate will
increase again to fund this bigger and bigger government -- unless we repeal the
"temporary" tax hike now and put an end to the state's spending binge.
We cannot do it without you, and
we would not ask you to do it alone.
Two years ago, CLT tried to take on the
Legislature and the greedy spending lobbies with its petition to rollback the
"temporary" rate. The Massachusetts Teachers Union and its puppet the Tax Equity
Allianceof Massachusetts (TEAM) spent over a million dollars to stop us. We lost our
petition by 26 signatures. We would not put our volunteer activists through an uneven
battle like that again.
This year things are different.
Because the number of signatures required
for an initiative petition is computed as 3 percent of the number of votes for governor in
the last election, the number this year is 10,000 fewer than we needed two years ago.
And this year we have an ally who is
totally committed to placing the "temporary" tax rollback on the year 2000
ballot.
Governor Cellucci filed a bill to roll
back the income tax rate to 5 percent, and the Legislature rejected it, 113-32 in the
House and 30-9 in the Senate. The House offered a token rate cut to 5.75 percent which was
rejected by the Senate. As we write this letter, they are in negotiation over whether or
not to toss that tiny bone to the taxpayers.
The Governor knows, as we do, that the
only way to keep the promise to restore the rate to 5 percent is to do it ourselves.
He has directed his campaign committee to do a petition drive, using the same rollback
plan that was our petition in 1997.
They have asked for our help and
support, and we are asking you.
As determined as they are, they can't
stand alone against all the tax-more, spend-more forces in Massachusetts, any more than we
could. But together we can get the signatures, withstand any signature challenge, and
go to the ballot in 2000.
Together we can win.
The tax cut, phased in over three years,
will let us taxpayers keep over a billion dollars of our own money. Along with cutting the
"earned income" tax rate from 5.95 to 5 percent, it will also reduce the
so-called "unearned income" rate to the same 5 percent.
Most importantly, it will keep the
promise that taxpayers were made ten years ago. The politicians who lied to us when they
told us the tax hike would be temporary will learn that we are not so easily fooled. The
politicians who insist there was no promise will be reminded that indeed there was. And
the politicians who are having a grand time squandering all the state surpluses and more
will have to stop.
There is no other way.
If we want the income tax rate back to 5
percent, we must do it ourselves.
The last time we dove into a petition
drive two bad things happened to us along the way.
The first was dangerous over-confidence
on the part of some of our volunteers. "Hey, CLT always pulls it off," they
figured, "so I don't have to knock myself out this time." Or they worked on
other petitions instead. We didn't collect enough signatures to ward off a signature
challenge. It was all for nothing.
The second bad thing was that we didn't
raise enough funds to finance the petition drive itself -- and -- then support the
$100,000 expense for the today-inevitable signature challenge and court appeals.
Insufficient funds just about buried CLT last spring, almost put us permanently out of
business.
To participate in this drive will
require CLT to raise at least 50,000 signatures and $50,000. If we get that commitment
from you and other members, we can take an effective role in the initial phase of getting
the signatures.
If you and enough other members agree
that the only way we'll ever see The Promise kept and the income tax rate cut ...
If you and enough members are committed
to restoring the rate to 5 percent ...
If you and enough members respond with a
generous contribution and a commitment to collecting the
necessary signatures -- or are unable to collect signatures but send along an even
more generous contribution ...
If you provide us with the resources
to commit and complete months of CLT staff effort as an investment in reducing your tax
burden year after year for decades to come ... then we can and will commit CLT
again to keep the promise and cutting your taxes.
/s/ Barbara Anderson
/s/ Chip
Ford
P.S. We must hear from you immediately so we can let our potential ally know if CLT can
and will help. The petition must be filed in early-August. Please send us your reply today.