A tax cut is “unreasonable”

The Massachusetts Senate president wants the taxpayers to know who’s really in charge. And it’s not the taxpayers.

Sen. Therese Murray went before a Boston business community meeting this week to ask for their help to “educate” taxpayers on why it would be a bad idea to lower the state income tax rate in November, as a ballot question will ask them to do.

(Incidentally, it won’t “repeal” the tax, as the story claims, but lower it back to 5%, the rate it was before the state Legislature passed a “temporary” 18-month-long increase back in … 1989.)

Every time the topic of the Legislature keeping its promise comes up, we get the same song and dance. When economic times are tough, we’re told we just can’t afford it because revenues have dropped. But when times are good we’re told we can’t afford it because … times might get tough again. Murray is an expert at this soft shoe.

“We need the support of the business community to educate the public and make sure we don’t fall victim to a reckless vote in November,” she said yesterday morning at a packed breakfast meeting at the Hyatt Regency Boston hotel.

Ever notice how it’s a “reckless vote” whenever the voters might vote in a way that the liberals don’t like? Oh that messy democracy. Those silly voters think that they’re the ones in charge. But we know better, don’t we? Just ask the state Supreme Judicial Court and the attempt to have a “reckless vote” on the preservation of marriage.

As expected, the usual catalog of destruction is trotted out to scare voters.

The result, she said, would be widespread devastation.

“Revenues from our income tax represent $12 billion - that’s 60 percent of our total tax revenues and 40 percent of the entire state budget,” she said.

Without revenues from income taxes, school teachers and police officers would lose their jobs and road improvement projects would be stalled, she said.

Fearmongering

Photo is in the public domain. Wikimedia Commons.