Massachusetts, Kick the Tax Habit

Another essay from the vault – written for the occasion of the 2004 Massachusetts ballot vote to abolish the income tax. Only lost badly because carpetbaggers from out of state poured (teacher) union money into advertising against it. Too bad.

The great cultural critic H. L. Mencken once said “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” How true. One can picture candidates as auctioneers, taking bids from special interests and their voting consituents on the property and wealth of their fellow citizens.

I know that these days, with the income tax a fixture of political life, it may seem extreme to think of it in terms of confiscated property, but that’s exactly what it is. The only thing voluntary about Massachusetts’ income tax these days is the novel mechanism, that debuted on last year’s return, of giving taxpayers the option of paying the higher (and formerly statutory) 5.8% rate, rather than the current 5.3% rate. Not surprisingly, native son John Kerry exposed a bit of his liberal hypocrisy by calling for higher federal income taxes on the campaign stump, while quietly opting for the lower rate on his own state return.

Consider the fight this year over Governor Romney’s efforts to complete the voter-mandated roll back of the state income tax from 5.85% to 5%. This is something state legislators, led by late House Speaker and Chief Oligarch Tom Finneran, have willfully refused to do despite direct orders from the voters in a 2000 referendum.

Romney has been busy campaigning for a raft of new Republican candidates for statewide office. Democratic lawmakers, by their obstructionist, anti-democratic refusal to obey voters’ wishes on the tax cut may have unwittingly handed their opponents a potent weapon that will come back to wound them this tuesday. Though a Republican sweep is unlikely, there are several vulnerable Democratic encumbents. Even a few upsets would send a strong message to Beacon Hill.

Despite our unfortunate reputation as the ‘Commonwealth of Tax-achusetts’, our state does have a traditional resistance to big government and its attendant inefficiency and corruption. We are the birthplace of that great middle-class tax revolt,commonly known as the American Revolution. We are the descendants of Daniel Shays and his farmer’s revolt against high property tax. We are the citizens who in 2002 nearly voted away the state income tax entirely.

But to listen to the elites at the Boston Globe Editorial Board, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, and other tax-friendly organizations, we the poeple don’t know what’s good for us. We don’t fully appreciate the failing schools and ineptly managed public works (e.g. the Big Dig) that our taxes so amply fund. We don’t understand why big union payouts for town employees require some of the steepest property tax increases in decades. And most importantly, we are selfish and inhumane if we dare challenge the state’s monopoly on education by calling for more school choice and accountability.

Its a proven fact that taxpayers will always vote for smaller government. It happened in here in 2000, in Tennesse in 2001, in Alabama in 2003, and it will continue to happen throughout the country until lawmakers get the message: ‘Stop auctioning off our stolen goods”.