Have Massachusetts residents ever met a tax cut they didn't like?
We find out on Nov. 7.
For the third time in 20 years, voters will get a chance in the fall elections to slash their own
taxes and put a few hundred dollars a year back into their pockets.
Ballot Question 4 would chop about 14 percent off the average family's income tax bill. It
would keep a promise lawmakers made more than a decade ago when they hiked taxes to deal
with an unexpected economic recession.
And, depending on who you believe, it would either cripple the state's ability to deal with a
recession or ensure fiscal stability for decades to come.
"If we want to keep this economy strong, we ought to cut this income tax rate back to 5
percent, because it would do more than anything to secure the economic base of our state,"
said Gov. Paul Cellucci, the initiative's biggest champion.
Democratic opponents like House Speaker Thomas Finneran, Senate President Thomas
Birmingham and state Treasurer Shannon O'Brien said the cut would vaporize the state's
financial safety net, and mean big budget cuts if and when the economy slows.
O'Brien this week called Question 4 "a mammoth tax cut that is going to drive up our debt by
billions."
"In 1990, our state debt was $6.6 billion. Now it is $12.4 billion. This fiscal year alone, $3
billion more of debt will be issued," she said. "If we don't take this opportunity now while times
are good to really get our skyrocketing credit card problem under control, we won't be able to
do it when the economy cools down."
Birmingham has called the cut reckless and the theory that it will actually spur revenue growth,
"Rumplestiltskinomics."
The fiery rhetoric over the cut is set against a backdrop of unprecedented prosperity in the
state. Massachusetts is riding high on record employment levels, high salaries, low crime and
thriving computer and biotechnology industries.
Yet, for all its success, the state still carries some of the same baggage that earned it the
nickname "Taxachusetts" during the 1980s.
It still has among the highest taxes in the nation. It is saddled with one of the biggest state debts.
Construction projects like the Big Dig have pushed state spending to record levels. Spiraling
costs in health care have led to huge, unexpected increases in the state's Medicaid budget.
Democrats warn that a cut now would mean the state might have to cut programs later to keep
its financial commitments.
Republicans say it will keep the Legislature from spending even more.
"In recent years the Legislature is starting to go back to the late 1980s. All the money is coming
in and they are just spending it," Cellucci said in a meeting this week with reporters and editors
at the MetroWest Daily News.
The debate over Question 4 is one that has been swamped by numbers. Here are some of the
very few the two sides agree on:
The cut would lower the personal income tax rate from its current level of 5.85 percent to 5
percent by 2003, cutting about a third of that .85 percent drop each year. A
Democrat-authored law now on the books would drop the rate to 5.75 percent next year.
By most estimates, the tax cut would mean a loss of about $1.2 billion a year in state revenue.
It would eat up most, if not all, of the state's current budget surpluses, which are on pace to hit
$1 billion in the current fiscal year.
There, the agreement ends.
Democrats claim the surpluses are not real to begin with. The state's $780 million operating
surplus this year, they note, quickly evaporated when the state had to find ways to pay for
billions in cost overruns on the Big Dig.
They also claim the state's taxes are not as high as some statistics show. When it comes to
taxes as a percentage of total income, Massachusetts actually ranks 32nd, not 5th, according
to US Census Bureau data.
The average Massachusetts wage earner pays about $148 of every $1,000 they earn on taxes,
while the national average is $155 of every $1,000.
Republicans claim the other side's figures are bogus, especially their projections that the state
will have to take on debt to pay for the cut.
A booming economy will keep cash flowing into state coffers, they say. Over the long run, that
would actually mean that lawmakers would have more money on hand to fund construction
projects and social service programs.
Cellucci has also pressed the argument that, in an era of global competition, it is important to
get rid of Massachusetts' distinction as a high-tax state, once and for all.
"We want to put a stake through the heart of the old label `Taxachusetts,' "Cellucci said. "This
would take us out of the top 10."
Cellucci has led the charge for the cut, helping to raise cash from business groups and
conservatives who say the state needs to do more to shed its high-tax image. Opposing it have
been some of the same well-financed liberal groups that fought Proposition 2 1/2 in the 1980s.
Teachers unions, among the biggest cut opponents, are set to spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars to ensure its defeat.
Politically, the fight has also turned into a showdown between the Republican governor and a
host of Democratic opponents who are thinking about running against him for governor in
2002.
Last week Cellucci went on television to debate former Democratic National Committee
Chairman Steve Grossman, who has already announced a run. This week the governor faced
off with O'Brien in a debate that can be seen on WBZ Channel 4 this morning. She is also
contemplating a run for Cellucci's job.
The governor has two more verbal showdowns planned with Birmingham and
Finneran. Only Finneran has indicated he is unlikely to run for governor.
Doubling the political intrigue is the parallel between the local tax cut debate, and the argument
over taxes raging between presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Bush's plan for a large federal tax cut mirrors the Cellucci plan here in Massachusetts. Gore's
preference for smaller cuts and tax credits targeted at specific groups resemble the programs
favored by state Democrats.
Like those on the national level, state Democrats argue that the Republican tax plans will give
the biggest financial boost to the wealthiest taxpayers.
That much is true. Any flat cut in income tax rates will proportionally benefit wealthy individuals
who pay more in taxes to start with.
Cellucci and Bush have both argued there is nothing wrong with giving the wealthy an equal
break.
Independent financial experts have provided some solace for voters on the fence.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a non-partisan government watchdog group, said
the tax rollback is doable, as long as voters do not also go for another ballot question that
would refund up to $800 million a year in tolls and excise taxes.
"Revenues continue to soar. A tax cut is definitely manageable, even more so than it was 6 to
12 months ago," said MTF director Michael Widmer.
"Though I don't think it is going to shield us from the next recession, having a competitive tax
structure is important for long-term growth. It helps us compete for jobs with other states. And,
though we have a much more competitive tax structure, this personal income tax is still very
much on the high side."
A cut to 5 percent would benefit the state's economy, he said. It would not lead to any large
scale-back in government spending.
However, the group also offered a bit of a warning on state spending and its growing debt. In
recent months MTF has sounded alarm bells over annual increases in the state budget that it
says are not sustainable. It has also urged lawmakers to stop borrowing money.
"Ideally we could come up with some middle position where there would be some tax cuts,
some retirement of debt," he said.
Beneath all of the economic projections is a moral argument in favor of the tax cut, and a
promise Democratic lawmakers made to state residents in 1988 when they hiked taxes and
slashed local aid to deal with a serious budget shortfall: The hike, they said, was temporary.
Only a few of those legislators remain in government today. Then-Gov. Michael Dukakis is
long gone.
"It was a promise, and all of their attempts to wiggle out of it don't work," said Barbara
Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "That, so far as I am concerned, is the main
reason people are motivated for the rollback. This is one broken promise too many, and
people are fed up."
Trust, for Anderson, lies at the heart of the dispute, more than arguments over whether the
economy is best served by cutting taxes or paying off debt.
She no longer believes that the Legislature will do anything about either problem, unless forced.
"It always surprises me that they have the nerve to come up and talk about unmet needs
whenever we get something on the ballot," she said. "Suddenly they have discovered debt? No
one worried about paying down the debt a year ago. And I don't believe they are serious now.
If this fails and they have another surplus, what they are going to do is have a big all-night party
and think up ways to spend it."
Arguments like that rang true with voters in the 1980s, when lawmakers seemed either unable
or unwilling to cut taxes on their own.
But after several years of other tax cuts, do voters really still care? And are tax cuts still the
issue they were?
Cellucci claims they are.
"Families need this money," he said. "If your fuel oil bill is going up $300 or $400 this winter,
you will need this money."
Voters have had the chance to slash their own taxes before. Their response to three tax-cutting
ballot questions has been mixed.
Proposition 2 1/2, a 1980 ballot question that slashed and capped local property taxes, passed
with 60 percent of the vote despite heated opposition from liberal groups, teachers unions and
municipal officials who said it would throw their budgets into chaos.
It did -- for about six years. But in the long run the controversial tax cut was credited with
helping professionalize city and town governments and end reckless spending patterns in some
communities.
Voters were poised to get rid of a small, Dukakis-authored "surtax" on the state income tax in
1986 when lawmakers killed it on their own. The suddenly moot question ended up passing
with 77 percent of the vote.
However, a third citizen-authored push to cut income taxes to 5 percent in 1990 failed by a
wide margin in the same election that pitted Boston University President John Silber against
Republican lawyer William Weld in the race for governor.
Voters, observers said at the time, wanted to wait out the recession to make any big changes in
state government.
Since then the Legislature has slowly cut the tax rate on their own, from a high of 6.25 percent
in 1990, to 5.95 last year, to 5.85 this year. Next year's scheduled rate of 5.75 would be the
state's lowest income tax since the mid 1980s, but still a good deal higher than the rate of 5
percent in effect before Proposition 2 1/2.
Still Taxachusetts?
How the Bay State stands up to the nation on taxes and debt?
State taxes collected annually per person
1. Connecticut $2,932
2. Delaware $2,695
3. Hawaii $2,671
4. Minnesota $2,614
5. Massachusetts $2,143
US average $1,835
Source: US Census Bureau
Tax-supported debt per person
1. Hawaii $3,054
2. Connecticut $3,052
3. Massachusetts $2,612
4. New York $2,029
5. New Jersey $1,804
US average $727
Source: Moody's Investment Services