Posted on 12/02/2007 10:55:40 AM PST by Leisler
What a wonderful idea - letting the people of Massachusetts vote next year on whether to abolish the state’s 5.3 percent income tax.
The question is going to be on the ballot, that’s almost certain.
And what a blow abolishing the income tax would deal to the hackerama. It would have the effect of cutting the bloated state budget from the $28 billion it will be next fiscal year back to $17 billion, which it was in 1995.
Eleven billion less in their pockets, $11 billion more in ours.
You say it can’t be done? Well, in 2002, when the same question was on the ballot, the underfunded working people still managed to get 45 percent of the vote.
Here’s what’s in it for you. If you have a real job making $50,000 a year and the state income tax is abolished, you have just given yourself a pay raise of $2,650 a year. About $50 extra a week.
Can’t be done? Well, they get along without an income tax in New Hampshire, Texas and Florida, none of which is exactly the economic basket case that we are.
And come to think of it, shouldn’t New Hampshire residents who pay income taxes in Massachusetts be allowed to vote in this referendum? Seems only fair, considering that the same moonbats who loathe the idea of cutting taxes want to allow non-citizens who pay no taxes to vote in local elections. All that our fellow citizens from the Granite State are asking for is the same rights as illegal aliens on welfare.
You say the hackerama will never let it get to the ballot? That their corrupt judges and craven legislators will again deny the people their right to vote, just as they prevented gay marriage from going on the 2008 ballot this year?
The difference is, ending the travesty of gay marriage would have required a constitutional amendment, which allowed the best legislature money can buy to . . . sell its services to the you-know-whos. Doing away with the income tax merely requires a new law, which means that our for-sale solons won’t be able get their mitts on the question before we do.
This campaign was engineered by a group called the Committee for Small Government, led by a couple of former Libertarian candidates for statewide office. They went out and got many more than the 66,000 signatures they needed. Next spring, they’ll need to get another 11,000 or so more, and then it’s on the fall ballot.
Needless to say, organized labor (not to be confused with work) is in a dither. If $11 billion is excised from the state budget, the pinky-ring boys can kiss paid cop details goodbye. Ditto their astounding pensions, their almost-free health care and the endless 14 percent raises for senile, drunken judges.
First the hacks will go to the State Ballot Law Commission, claiming that the signatures were obtained fraudulently, from idiots who thought they were signing on behalf of marijuana (George Soros’ ballot question) or greyhounds (next year the animal-rights whackos will finally put George Carney out of business).
After that fails, the hacks will mount a paid scare campaign on TV and radio - “the sky is falling!” as Carla Howell put it. What about the children?
It will be an expensive fight. Union dues will have to go up, and of course that means the hack brotherhoods will be seeking more money in their next round of contract negotiations, due to the increase in “the cost of living.” Fixed costs, as the pols always explain, when they cave in to the unions.
Let’s say it passes, and the tax is history as of July 1, 2009. In late 2008, the lame-duck legislature would move to repeal this mortal threat to the hackerama.
If New Hampshire is lucky, all the Massachusetts people living there to avoid taxes will move back to their still socialist by soon-to-be-underfunded homeland.
“by” ==> “but”
FreeRepublic should have a mulligan capability. I can understand why they might now want people going back and revising history, but the ability to go back and change one word — with, say, a two-minute time limit — would be nice.
Feel free to eliminate the income tax. You will find property and sales taxes will go up to compensate.
The State Supreme Court will never allow it.
Wait and see.
Somehow Florida manages to get along without and income tax, and with just a 6.5% sales tax. How do they do it?
The hacks will just lay-off copes, firemen and ambulance drivers. But we should do it just on the old GP.
with massive rental fees on private property...also known as a property tax...and it is driving many many people away...
Tourists.
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