Gov. Paul Cellucci took his campaign for a tax rollback to
the state's technology community yesterday, plugging his plan in a closed-door meeting of the Massachusetts High Technology
Council.
"(Tech companies) are all looking for workers because the
economy's going so well and unemployment is so low," Cellucci said after yesterday's meeting of the council's board of
directors. "To the extent that we're the fifth-highest taxed state in the country, that makes it
more difficult for them."
The high technology council backs the governor's tax cut
plan because it feels lower taxes will improve the state's business climate, said Chris Anderson, the council's vice
president.
"We view Massachusetts as a product that competes with other
states," he said. "And our tax burden in Massachusetts right now is the fifth-highest in the country."
The technology council's membership list includes dozens of
the state's top technology and financial companies, including Boston Scientific Corp., EMC Corp., Analog Devices Inc and
FMR Corp., the holding company that controls Fidelity Investments.
Cellucci's tax cut proposal will be put to voters on election day in the form of ballot Question 4.
It would reduce the personal income tax to 5 percent.
Critics have accused Cellucci of pandering to voters'
pocketbooks on the tax cut issue, and some experts have questioned the wisdom of boosting the economy with a tax cut
when it's already running hot. Cellucci will debate Senate President Thomas Birmingham over the tax cut
on Oct. 30 in a forum sponsored by the Herald and WCVB-TV.