If the citizens of the Free State really want to play around with our state’s Constitution, give up on that sissy early voting and video slot machines crap and instead give us the power of initiative petition to place items on the ballot. Here’s an intriguing idea from, of all places, Massachusetts – courtesy of the Campaign for Liberty (Ron Paul’s reasonably recent creation). The writers are Carla Howell and Michael Cloud:
We are co-sponsors of Ballot Question 1, the legally-binding ballot measure that will END the Massachusetts state income tax.
Maybe you’ve read articles about our ballot initiative in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, National Review, Reason, CATO Institute, the National Taxpayers Union, or at LewRockwell.com. Or seen us on CNN or Fox News.
Do we really have a reasonable chance to win? Or is this just another fantasy?
Four different polls show us dead even. One poll shows support for ENDing the income tax at 45% — with 45% against. 9% undecided. Two other polls show 45% For and 45% Against – with 10% undecided. One strange poll showed 37% For and 37% Against – with 26% undecided.
This is the second time we’ve put this END the income tax initiative on the ballot. Last time, with a few hundred volunteers – and a total advertising budget of $89,000 – we got 45.3% of the vote. 885,683 votes.
50/50 odds of repealing the state income tax. And a chance of setting in motion a series of state-by-state repeals of income taxes.
Why will Massachusetts voters vote YES – and END the income tax? What are the benefits to them?
- Our Ballot Initiative will give back over $3,700 each to 3,400,000 Massachusetts workers and taxpayers. $3,700 average. Each worker. Not just once. Every year.
- It will take $12.6 Billion out of the hands of Massachusetts Big Government – and put it back into the hands of the men and women who earned it. Not just once. Every year.
- In productive, private hands this $12.6 Billion a year will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Massachusetts.
- This will force the state legislature to streamline and cut the waste out of the Massachusetts state spending.
- This will force the state legislature to get rid of the failed, flawed government programs that don’t work – and often make things worse.
- It’ll make the state legislature accountable to Massachusetts workers and taxpayers – instead of the government employees, lobbyists, and special interests who profit from high government spending.
- With less government and no income tax, Massachusetts will become a magnet to private, productive businesses and individuals. More good jobs and more good workers.
- And with 3,400,000 Massachusetts taxpayers getting back an average of $3,700 each in their take home paychecks, this just might radically reduce home foreclosures.
Wouldn’t these huge, immediate, direct benefits get you to the polls on November 4th?
But there’s a huge 900 lb gorilla standing between us and victory.
Who? The Teachers Unions.
Massachusetts Teachers Association, S.E.I.U. (the government employees union), AFL-CIO (who get plush government construction pay), and the other unions who get tax-funded jobs.
Union dues have already bankrolled $2,090,100 of the NO on 1 War Chest. That’s 99.93% of the anti tax-cut funding!
In addition, these unions and their allies also reported $443,437 in in-kind donations.
In addition, these unions have mobilized an estimated $1,200,000 worth of paid and unpaid union activists to stop us from ending the income tax.
Plus, with the Massachusetts Teachers Association driving this effort, the unions and their political allies are generating widespread news coverage of Ballot Question 1.
Over 53 newspaper articles and opinion pieces in just the last 10 days!
The unions are very effective. 100% of the newspaper editorials oppose our Ballot Question 1. Over 96% of opinion columns are against us. Over 83% of the newspaper articles are indisputedly against us. The remaining articles usually lean 50% to 70% against Ending the income tax.
Despite our opponents’ $2,090,100 in union dues dwarfing our fundraising, despite their several thousand paid and unpaid union activists being over 100 times the number of our volunteers, and despite their overwhelming advantage in Newspaper and TV support –
WE ARE STILL DEAD EVEN IN THE POLLS.
Some polls show us and our opponents each at 45% — with 10% undecided. One poll shows us and our opponents each at 37% — with 26% undecided.
With everything they’ve thrown at us, we’re still tied.
With less than three weeks left, we can beat them.
We and our team are doing media interviews, debating our opponents, appearing on talk shows – and we’re reaching more and more of the 3,400,000 Massachusetts workers and taxpayers.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association and their allies have already begun as much as $5,000,000 in Negative Ads and Fear Ads in these last 2 or 3 weeks.
From there, they go on to make a pitch for contributions. But it’s amazing the utter catastrophe that the unions and Big Government predict when people have the opportunity to actually put an end to the income tax.
I’m certain some would read this and say that $3,700 in pocket isn’t that great as a tradeoff for all the services one may lose if the state had to make such cuts. However, my counter to that is that such a move would indeed force the commonwealth of Massachusetts to make some budget sacrifices and get rid of programs which have outlived their usefulness, are duplicative, or just plain exist to line the pockets of favored constituencies. (An example in Maryland is Program Open Space.) Unfortunately, we don’t have the power to place such a measure on the ballot because only the General Assembly can – Lord knows they wouldn’t pass this in a billion years, or at least as long as the Democrats ran the show there.
Obviously this is a drastic measure, one which takes the government there from whatever percentage of income they exact as a toll for working in the state to zero. Naturally those who benefit from the largesse are spending a pretty sizeable chunk of it to sink this measure once again. And reread the passage about the editorial boards and newspaper articles regarding Ballot Question 1. It’s breathtaking the lockstep they’re in – without one dissenting voice among all of them – when the question becomes how much of your money should you keep.
Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that the polls show the issue is as close as it is when you consider that Massachusetts is the largest state with one party representing it in Congress and Barack Obama enjoys a 24 to 28 point lead in the polls there. (They’re similar to Maryland although we’ve not had a statewide poll in over a month, the last one had Obama up 23.) Obviously it’s not just the GOP who’s frustrated in Massachusetts, Democrats have to be making the polls closer because they make up a hefty proportion of the voting body.
What this shows to me is that there’s not a complete consensus in even the most liberal of states that big government is good for their citizens. Most likely 2008 won’t be the year for this, but our nation is approaching a day of reckoning when people simply revolt over the burden they’re being placed under, particularly those producers who pay more and more to place a ever-growing percentage of people on the government payroll.
Despite the fact Barack Obama couches his tax cut as going to 95% of the people in America, the reality is that about 1/3 of them will simply get an additional government check because they weren’t paying taxes to begin with. In a way, it’s genius because all he’d have to do is just say Republicans will take that check away and instantly most of them unthinkingly will vote Democrat. (Naturally they try the approach with Social Security, and it still works to some extent.)
We’ve reached the point in our nation where people just expect there to be deductions for taxes taken from their check and don’t even bat an eyelash. Perhaps the voters in Massachusetts can be leaders in bringing about the change we REALLY need and reclaiming what is rightfully theirs – that is, if the measure ever gets through the courts without a permanent injunction to prevent its adoption. You can make book that if Ballot Question 1 passes on November 4th, on the morning of November 5th the opponents will go judge-shopping to find a friendly jurist to block it.
But first things first, let’s see if Massachusetts voters are people or sheeple.
