THE ISSUE
The state has decided how to spend
$600 million in tax money it overcollected.
OUR VIEW
The money should have been returned to
those who earned it.
In figuring out how much to tax the
hard-working people of Massachusetts last year (not to mention the
people of New Hampshire whose hard work happens to take place in
Massachusetts) the geniuses who run the state missed the mark.
They sort of collected too much from
the taxpayers.
Just a little ... you know, about $600
million.
A passing familiarity with simple
math, basic shopkeeping practices and The Ten Commandments suggests that
the $600 million would be winging its way back to those taxpayers as we
write.
But guess again.
This is Massachusetts, where lawmakers
view a $600 million overcharge against the state residents as
adrenaline-pumping serendipity. It is a massive overdose of something
our politicians just can't resist: Pork.
Our lawmakers rushed to it like sharks
rush to blood in the water.
They have been wildly figuring out how
to spend it.
So wrapped up in this feeding frenzy
have they been that the state budget that was supposed to start guiding
Massachusetts on July 1 has been cast aside, replaced by interim, 30-day
documents.
Finally the deed is done, the money is
spent.
Our Merrimack Valley delegation is
boasting that $8.9 million of the loot will be spent in our back yards.
While they may have hit the mark on
raking in the pork, they missed the point.
The surplus money wasn't theirs to
spend. It was their simple duty to send it back to us, the taxpayers who
earned it.
It was, after all, an accident that it
was collected in the first place. It wasn't needed to run the
government.
Our state lawmakers are by no means
alone in their misunderstanding of this simple concept. Republicans in
Washington have passed a budget which returns federal surplus tax
revenues to the taxpayers through a tax cut. But President Clinton
doesn't get it, either: He plans to veto the measure.
All this money -- state and federal --
belongs back in our pockets. If there are needs in the Merrimack Valley
and elsewhere, they should be part of a proper budget process, not an
end-of-year free-for-all. Politicians are wrong to assume they are free
to spend such surpluses.
If you hand the corner grocery clerk a
$10 bill for a $1.89 jug of milk, you get $8.11 in change. But in the
Government Corner Variety the clerk keeps the change, maybe offers you a
candy bar, and tells you what a great job he's doing.
It's just plain wrong.