The efforts to slay the tax dragon in Massachusetts have advanced past the last of the expensive hurdles. According to Carla Howell and Michael Cloud:
We collected over 22,117 raw signatures from around the state, sufficiently distributed to meet the state’s requirement that no more than 25% of them may come from any one county. We should end up with plenty to meet the 11,099 certified signature requirement – with a kevlar cushion to slow the challenges from the teachers’ union.
We’re jumping through the last legal hoops necessary to get on the ballot.
We already told you about the legal hoops we had to jump through last fall to get the first 76,000+ certified signatures.
We turned in these additional 22,117 signatures to 319 different town clerks June 18th.
Now we’re waiting for the town clerks to certify those signatures so we can turn them into the Secretary of State by July 2nd. That wouldn’t be very hard – except the town clerks don’t have to give us back our petitions until just two days before July 2nd.
Massachusetts signature drives are hard as hell. Ask the Republican U.S. Senate candidate who just failed to make the 2008 ballot.
We’re almost done. Finally.
it appears they have our enemies quaking in their boots this time around. According to
The North Attleboro Sun Chronicle:
In the meantime, legislators said the ballot initiative has an excellent chance of passing, considering a similar proposal got 45 percent of the vote in 2002.
Poirier said voters feel there is nothing they can do to lower gasoline or food costs and may see wiping out the income tax as the only step they can take to save themselves money.
This is the November contest I look forward to with glee. The passage is likely enough and the libertarian impact great enough that not even MSM will be able to ignore it. If we win this one, it will only be the first of a cascade with which we will sweep the nation.
So if you are in Massachusetts or nearby, get out there and help Carla and Michael fight the teachers union front organization and the AFL-CIO and other hard-line socialist organizations who will be out defending their God, the State.
Good luck to them!
Ditto.
I can’t believe this might actually happen.
I can’t either.
And if it does, I will not applaud it.
There is nothing of authentic value to be gained in submitting moral principles to a vote.
Ever.
Billy, what is wrong with trying to get like minded people on board? It doesn’t mean one has to stop evading taxes during or after:-|
That’s certainly true, but neither is there anything to be lost in this case. Regardless of how this vote goes, government will continue behaving as though it had limitless right to plunder people’s earnings. Given that, I see nothing wrong with people gaming the system to shrink the state’s take. It may be a zero-sum game morally, but materially it is not at all.
Good news about the names.
However, unlike yourself, I believe the repeal State Income Tax move has very little chance of passing.
The United States has moved very much to the left since 2002. Most (not all – but the divine right of the 51% applies) of the population now (thanks partly to the media – but they are working with minds well prepared for their propaganda by the “education system” which got its first start in Mass of course) is in the mood for more government spending (on health, education and ……) and higher taxes on income (as long as they presented as “on the rich”).
In fact many of the voters seem incapable of rational thought at all – they just stand with glassy eyes, chanting “hope”, “change”, “yes we can” and “now is our time”.
You were born in the United States and have lived all your life there – but you seem to have no idea of the collectivist wave that is about to overwhelm the country.
Perhaps you are too close to things to see them.
Let us hope that you are right and I am wrong.
Fires generally burn out first in the place they started. Just as the fight for liberty burned strongest in Mass, it burned out there first. Is it possible that desire for a nanny state has also consumed its fuel there first?
What a great spot it would be for a second rebellion to begin.
Nice thought, Midwesterner, but highly unlikely. This is the same state that keeps sending Ted Kennedy (Ted Kennedy!) back to the Senate, decade after decade. The same people who enthusiastically embraced Mitt Romney’s idiotic “universal” health care fiasco. The human effluvia from Boston is now infecting the otherwise sensible state of New Hampshire (where the locals are pretty libertarian, but Massuchusetts residents who have moved across the state line for cheaper housing and lower taxes are bringing their big-government ideas with them; where is immigration control when you need it?). It’s not called “Taxachusetts” for nothing, and if the gross level of taxation has reached a “tipping point” which produced this reaction it doesn’t mean that a majority of the citizens want a wholesale reduction in their government, just a little trimming at the margins. These are not the same people who threw tea into Boston Harbor 200 years ago; they’re not even their intellectual descendants.
Laird,
Note I said “consumed its fuel”, not ‘lost its will to consume’. This is a tax payer’s revolt, not a tax spender’s revolt. The UK could have kept the Colonies if they hadn’t been so intractable. If this tax revolt passes it will probably set the norm much lower than the taxpayers might have settled for had not the tax consumers been so gluttonous. Don’t forget Proposition 2-1/2. Why do you think the teachers’ and other government employee unions are in such a frothing panic?
Maybe Taxachusetts will become the next tax haven. 🙂
Never underestimate the ability of taxpayers to fail to vote themselves a tax decrease.
I’m a teacher and I couldn’t disagree more with the teacher’s union on this issue. Then again, I also have a permit to carry concealed in 2 states, vote republican, and would vote libertarian if it wouldn’t split the Republican ticket and hand the election to a democrat, so i guess I disagree with the union on a lot of things. Anyway, I don’t think that doing away with the income tax is a bad idea. The argument that our roads and bridges will fall apart is bs…first of all they already are, secondly, what the hell am I paying excise tax, sales tax, meals tax, property tax, and tolls on the highway for? Our schools won’t fall apart, but they may have to cut the fat. Which I know can be painful, but seriously, not that painful. Kids in my town are already paying to ride the bus and play sports. What’s that money going to? Look out for Teachers Union propaganda to be flooding the airwaves this summer and fall. The argument that MA is making is that almost 40% of the MA budget will be wiped away just like that. 40%? Holy crap…where does MA get the right to get 40% of it’s budget from the personal income tax.
MA Governor “Cadillac” Deval Patrick just signed a bill, passed by the best legislature that money can buy, to give away $1 billion to life-sciences companies. That’s about $170 per MA resident, atop the damage recently wrought by Romneycare. They never tell us how much money the “investment” will earn us, and they never get the total costs right. Fascism doesn’t come cheap, no matter which socialist Bipartisan is screwing you.
The last time around, the polls conducted IIRC by UMass, showed the ballot question at under 30%, and it ended up getting 45%. (The polls now are closer to 50% than 30%.) The low figure of support helped keep the question from getting any real public exposure. Neither does the Byzantine budget itself get any, which is probably why the legislatrones keep engaging in feeding frenzies to spend an extra few hundred million dollars each year on pork.
Whether the question passes in the fall will hinge, IMHO, on whether voters who have given up will at least try to take their best chance by far at beginning to free themselves.
If it passes, the next step would be to ban government workers unions and to eliminate the State contributions to Federal mandated programs. Let Congress pony up the balance for medicaid, welfare and special needs education.
The first state to tell the feds thanks but no thanks would start a massive roll back of the welfare state. If the feds threaten to withhold tax receipts collected from that state in the form of spending in the state, the State can always require that all tax payers in that state fork over their federal tax obligation to the state’s department of revenue as a custodian of the funds for further credit to the federal government. Short of putting the State under martial law enforced at gun point by the Army (no chance whatsoever of that happening) the federal government is pretty much stuffed.
In the meantime New York State is now considering capping property taxes. If Massachusetts abolishes the state income tax the rest of the Northeast will probably do so as well. Even if Obama wins his victory just might be less important that what is happening in Massachusetts.
And let’s not forget that outside factors, like the Supreme Court making a decision on firearms in Washington DC, might influence it considerably. If the SCOTUS upholds the ban, this might persuade more people to rebel against central control, and join the anti-tax brigade.
I think it is the opposite, nick g. People push the hardest when they think the stuck car is actually beginning to move.
Don’t worry, even if it passes, the MA legislature will ignore it. They’ve done it before (the income tax rollback down to 5% was legislatively only reduced to 5.3% from something like 5.85%, IIRC).
The real problem here is that this is simply legislation rather than a constitutional amendment, and can be functionally ignored by the state legislature with no problems.
A similar situation occurred several years ago with the reduction of the state income tax to 5.0%. The legislature voted to stop the reduction at 5.3% “temporarily”, where it has been for years.
90%+ of the legislature is Democrats in safe seats. If this passes, a new law reestablishing the state income tax will pass before the ink dries.
Wow,
You people are seriously deluded, and are obviously not from Massachusetts.
In Massachusetts, many years ago, we reduced our income tax from 5.5 percent to 5.0 percent, through exactly the same mechanism … a signature referendum.
So, why, you would ask, do I pay 5.3 percent. Because the Legislature refuses to reduce the rate to 5.0 percent.
So, citizens sued. And won. The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the tax rate should be 5.0 percent.
So, what did the legislature do? Nothing. They left it at 5.3 percent.
So, someone sued. And won.
The Supreme Court said that the Legislature was violating the law by not reducing the tax rate to 5.0 percent. Yet, and here’s the kicker:
The court did nothing about it.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled that our current tax law is in violation of the state constitution, but claimed that it does not have the power to force the legislature to reduce the tax rate.
So, we pay 5.3%, instead of 5.0%.
The Court is in on it, you see. The Court is packed with Democrats. If the voters decide to eliminate the income tax, the state will still order businesses to withhold, and businesses will do it, because if they don’t, the state can shut them down.
Someone will sue. They may even win.
Won’t matter.
In Massachusetts, you see, our judges are corrupt.
I’m a MA resident, and a libertarian / anarcho-capitalist, so I obviously strongly support this referendum. I’ve supported Carla and her campaigns in the past with my checkbook, but things are a bit tighter this time around (unlike government, my businesses SmartFlix and HeavyInk can’t just automatically adjust their revenues to keep up with spending, but must actually PRIORITIZE spending, and concentrate on those things that deliver value to customers!).
“Taxachusetts” is not really accurate these days. Compared to California, NY, NJ, Connecticut, or many other states with similar economic characteristics, MA is pretty middle of the road. Everybody I know who lives in Cow Hampshire says they make up for the lack of income tax on the property side. IIRC the state courts recently ruled their school funding system unconstitutional (anyone see a pattern?) so you don’t even get the benefit of enhanced local control.
FWIW Massachusetts has quirky libertarian tendencies on some things. Mass. has the loosest enforcement of traffic laws I’ve ever seen in such a densely-populated state and MADD annually grades us as one of the worst states in the country for DWI enforcement along with Montana and Alaska. One good thing that comes from your legislature being full of drunks.
What I worry about as a resident is the debt that every state agency keeps racking up. The public transit system is paying around $250m/year in interest alone now and is still expanding the system. That doesn’t include pumping water or replacing ceiling tiles in the Big Dig either.
I live in Mass. I’ve collected signatures and donated to get this on the ballot. The 2000 tax reduction from 5.5% to 5.0% was non-binding, IIRC. In 2002, the ballot initiative was binding and received 45% of the vote. It also had zero support and zero advertising, with even Gov. Romney against it.
The legislature may ignore the voters. I expect to see sales tax, gas tax, etc. go up if it passes. It will be a question of whether or not voters are willing to put foot to ass.
As for Taxachusetts, were this to pass, MA could have the lowest total state tax rate of all states, except Alaska which receives the oil dividend.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/335.html
If you can help, please do. (Link) This vote will have 50-state and federal repercussions.
I must say I’m shocked at how many fellow MA residents apparantly frequent this site.
Should be interesting anyway. This time around there is media coverage so it’s already a different animal than the last attempt. Even that free rag the Metro ran and article or two about it so far.
I must say I’m shocked at how many fellow MA residents apparantly frequent this site.
Should be interesting anyway. This time around there is media coverage so it’s already a different animal than the last attempt. Even that free rag the Metro ran and article or two about it so far.
It’s pretty obvious that some of the commenters know little about Massachusetts, and I agree with the comment that said that the state will just ignore the referendum if it passes, as it almost certainly will, if it actually makes it to the ballot. However, its principal value is symbolic, and it will encourage others elsewhere to take up the cause. Massachusetts is actually a hotbed of libertarianism, and has been for the almost 50 years that I’ve lived there.
Based on similar initiatives in California, if it looks like it will pass, the legislature will pass a “phony” bill which will be some type of compromise, like a fractional decrease in the income tax. This type of strategy is effective in concert with the undoubtedly massive expenditures from the public employee unions to make out that the tax reduction will result in the end of civilization as we know it.
Note from a former California Prop 13 tax fighter, DON’T FALL FOR IT! Attack! Attack! Attack!
Although Mass. has no functioning Republican party, the ballot initiatives always surprise me in how conservative the results are. Since that earlier attempt, I moved to Washington State, which has no income tax, and everything is just fine here and I would never consider moving back.
What WA does have is an excise tax when you sell your house. That allows cities and the state to have money to usually provide enough infrastructure to accommodate growth. (They complain about the roads here, but evidently those complainers have never been back East.) Much of Mass. town politics is taken up by strategies in how to keep families with kids out of your town, because those families consume more in spending than they produce in taxes.
Yet another comment from someone who knows nothing about Massachusetts.
Nonsense. That might be what the political class wants, but they don’t dominate town meetings. In fact, politicians generally hate town meetings, because they don’t want their lifestyles to be constrained by peons. On the whole, town meetings revolve around issues that are important to the residents of a town, like proper schooling and proper water and electricity. The politicians don’t stand to gain anything from this. They’d much rather be talking about phantom “issues”, like global warming or the situation in the Mideast. It goes without saying that you don’t have town meetings in places like Washington.
I’m worried that libertarians have gone off the deep end. I’m more than slightly perturbed that anyone anywhere could imagine that it is the purpose of individual families to keep other families with children out of their town, for any “reason” whatsoever. I’ve seen many libertarians go off the deep end over Iraq, as if it weren’t the essence of a free society to protect itself against attack from outsiders, particularly the sort of outsiders you’ll find in Al Qaeda. How can anyone who considers himself libertarian take the side of fascist troglodytes?
How come it keeps electing Ted then?
If you had the choice of having Ted wandering loose in your state, or being safely corralled away in Washington, where would you put him?
Pose a hard question, Alisa!
Now that you put it this way Nick…:-) But the question was serious. I have never been to MA, and I just don’t get the Ted phenomenon.
K – sorry to hear about the fate of the effort protect private property from being stolen in California.
As you know – the voters fell for voting for phony protection, not real protection.
Massguy.
Quite so – if a Supreme Court is not elected (and freely elected – no only X person can stand rigging) then it is likely to fall into the hands of establishment types.
Of course even free election is no sure defense – but it is better than nothing.
As for MA – go on the “freedom trail” in Boston and they take you to see a government school (the basic institution of collectivist brainwashing – just as H. Mann at least half intended them to be, and which the Bellamy brothers certainly intended them to be).
As for Governor Patrick:
Same wing of the Democrats as Senator Obama (although with a less extreme background than Senator Obama).
But all this is hardly worth discussing:
The United States (and with it the rest of our civilization) is doomed.
The leftists may be the actual killers – but the purist libertarians (and quite a lot of conservatives) are helping them by omission.
For the record:
Some States did reject some elements of the Welfare State – for example Indiana rejected some minor programs, and Arizina rejected Medicare itself.
Eventually Arizona joined the parade (under that pig that the media loved so much – Governor Bruce Babbit or whatever his name was).
That is the way things work – rejecting Federal government tax money (for all these programs are at least part Federally funded) does not mean that other States reject it.
And eventually some State Governor comes along who will accept the scheme – normally whilst telling lies about how his version of it will be wildly different and wonderful.
But that does not mean that a stand is not praise worthy.
For example, the stand of the city of Philadelphia against so many New Deal programs in the 1930’s (in spite of all the terrible conditions created by the Administrations of first President Hoover and then President Roosevelt preventing recovery from the 1929 credit money bubble bust) was highly praise worthy – it proved that these programs were not “vital” at all, even for a city that had been in economic decline even in the 1920’s.
Actions should not be measured by their consequences – victory is absurdly unlikely in this world.
But that does not mean that one should not make a stand – for such a stand has moral merit in-its-self.
Love your Blog! How can I get on your distribution list?
L Braden
Ever heard of 40B? It was Boston’s way of getting back at the burbs for forcing busing on them. It short-circuits many of the tricks the towns use to make it hard to build houses. The mere threat of a 40B plan is enough to make town boards be more cooperative.
It was funny watching liberals react when they saw how many kids a development would bring into their schools.
I really hope this passes – and I think it will. The recent trend of actually having reasonable quality conservative talk radio WTKK, and the fact that the most recent ratings show Jay Severin’s 3-7 show beat all other FM stations regardless of format, are all very hopeful indicators.
Also, I think it’s funny to think that MA may lean LESS liberal on the Pres. ballot since we’ve seen exactly what happens when hippies strive desperately to elect a black guy to assuage their false white guilt… CADDILAC DEVAL!!!