Caught between declining revenues and a determinedly antitax governor, Massachusetts
liberals increasingly think passing a ballot question is the only way to raise the tax revenues
necessary to preserve programs they value.
To that end, a coalition including many members of last fall's alliance against Question 3 plans to propose a major tax increase next week and to kick off a campaign to bring that proposal to the 1992 ballot.
The strategy represents a role reversal for liberals, whose cozy relationship with the Dukakis administration during much of the 1980s gave them influence without ever requiring them to prove their clout with the public.
But with Citizens for Limited Taxation executive director Barbara Anderson -- who led the enraged outsider's opposition to Dukakis -- ensconced as a Weld ally, it is the liberals who have found themselves frozen out on budgetary questions.
Their decision to steal a page from Anderson's former playbook reflects the frustration bordering on futility liberals feel with Weld, who, though elected with considerable liberal support, has remained adamantly opposed to new taxes even as a recessionary economy has eroded the state's revenue base.
The newest evidence of Weld's unwavering opposition to taxes came last week when a pro-education group released a public opinion poll showing nearly two- thirds of state voters would support increasing the sales tax if the extra money was earmarked for education.
The group had hoped those results would at least give Weld pause to reconsider his no-new-taxes vow. Instead, Lt. Gov. Paul Cellucci dismissed the notion out of hand, saying Weld would veto any such measure.
Communications consultant Bob Schaeffer says the ballot strategy is an attempt to break out of the current budgetary bind, which has become little more than a debate about how to distribute cuts.
"The task is how to bust out of that box, which means increasing
revenues," Schaeffer said. "There are only two ways of doing that: The Legislature passes a law and the governor signs it, or the people pass a law."
The governor cannot veto legislation passed by referendum.
The package the coalition will propose, said to be worth roughly $1 billion in new revenues, will most likely include, among other things, raising the sales tax and the so-called "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco and delaying a scheduled reduction in the income-tax rate.
The coalition plans to announce its tax proposal the day after the House Ways and Means Committee unveils a new budget that is expected to include deep cuts in local aid and other social programs.
The group will call upon the Legislature to pass the tax package as an alternative to the cuts -- but make it clear that, if lawmakers do not raise taxes, the coalition intends to gather enough signatures to put the proposal on the November 1992 ballot.
"Everyone in our coalition would prefer that the Legislature fix the problem, but if the process breaks down, we have two choices," said Jim Braude, executive director of the Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts and one of the members of the coalition. "We can sit back and watch government be dismantled or we can use whatever means are at our disposal to prevent that. That means the ballot, and we are fully prepared to go that route if we have to."
As evidence that the organization will have the clout, Braude points to the tax proposal that a Tax Equity Alliance-led group succeeded in qualifying for the ballot last year. The alliance abandoned the proposal when the Legislature agreed to raise taxes.
Having a ballot proposal in the works will give liberals lobbying clout they now lack, and a viable recourse if the Legislature or the governor refuses to go along with their plans, Schaeffer said.
The outside strategy also appears to reflect a growing alienation from the legislative Democrats with whom the liberals have traditionally been allied, but who some liberals feel are using Weld's threat to veto any new taxes as justification for waving the white flag on the revenue front.
"We just think the Legislature is lagging behind the public on this," said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Massachusetts Human Service Coalition. "The poll that was just published showed a spectacular majority of people are willing to pay more taxes rather than see the quality of life destroyed in our state."
Braude, meanwhile, warns that liberals who stand by in time of budgetary crisis rather than taking up the cudgel for new taxes risk seeing their former allies return that indifference in the next campaign.
"The bulk of the person-power and finances for Democratic campaigns come
from these constituencies," Braude said of the labor, human services, environmental and education groups
in the coalition. "If the people we elected aren't with us, there is no reason for us to be with them in November."
Political analyst Lou DiNatale, a fellow at the University of Massachusetts' McCormack Institute, says that, because Weld has the Republican votes to sustain a veto in the Senate, winning a ballot question is probably the only way liberals will get significant new taxes.
"They have to go back to the people for political legitimacy," DiNatale said. "Only by winning a popular vote can they reestablish their own authenticity and deliver on that."
But some doubt the coalition will succeed if the tax question makes it to the ballot. One doubter is former Rep. Nick Paleologos, whose last act as a legislator was to push through an advisory referendum for 1992 asking whether voters want the Legislature to raise the sales tax by one percentage point and dedicate the new revenues to education.
That question, which focuses on one tax and one issue, is narrow and directed enough to stand a decent chance of winning, Paleologos says. It would not be binding, but it would be an indication of voter sentiment. Still, Paleologos believes it could nudge Weld
taxward.
"If that proposal gets ratified by the voters it will give the advocates a lot more ammunition and give the governor an excuse to come off his no-new- taxes pledge at least as it relates to education because the people have told him to come off it," he said.
But Paleologos thinks the coalition's idea of packaging a variety of tax increases in one question will give opponents too much to focus on.
"When you throw in everything but the kitchen sink, the debate is no longer over the issue you want to spend money on, it is over taxes," he said. ''And if the debate is over taxes, you lose."