THE ISSUE
Some Massachusetts politicians want to roll back a "temporary" tax increase passed almost ten years
ago.
OUR VIEW
If the politicians were on the level, the tax would have been rolled back years ago.
Once upon a time, the Massachusetts income tax rate was 5 percent. For every $10,000 you made, the
state took $500.
Then, through bad management and poor planning, the state got itself in a bind.
The economy had taken a dip. Money was not coming in as fast as the state was spending it.
Rather than cut spending, the politicians put the gun to taxpayers’ heads and took more money.
They raised the tax rate. It is temporary, they said.
That was almost ten years ago. The rate has not been 5 percent since 1988.
It now stands at 5.95 percent. For every $10,000 you make, the state gets $595.
Now the economy is on the upswing again and money is pouring in.
Some Massachusetts politicians talk magnanimously of restoring the 5 percent tax rate.
Other politicians say cutting taxes is a dangerous idea.
Both sides talk as if they were preparing to defuse a bomb.
We have to go slow here, they say. If we roll back the rate, we have to do it over several years to avoid
disaster.
It is amazing this is even an issue.
But the world of Massachusetts politics is a very strange place.
Income taxes were also raised temporarily during another "crisis", in 1975.
That temporary increase lasted until 1986.
Let’s see now:
"Permanent" 5 percent rate in effect for three of the last 23 years.
"Temporary" higher rate in effect for 20 years.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty told Alice in "Through the Looking Glass," it means just what I
choose it to mean, neither more nor less."
Voters should remember that the next time the politicians talk of a temporary tax hike. And there is
bound to be a next time.