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Will Question 1 eliminate the income tax all in one year?
No. If voted in, Question 1 will reduce the income tax rate
to 2.65% on January 1, 2009 and then eliminate the rest of
it on January 1, 2010. This will give state officials time
to adjust the budget.
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Why would someone want to support our high income tax rate?
Supporters of the Massachusetts income tax are net consumers
of your tax dollars, i.e. they receive more in payments,
goods and services from the government than they pay in taxes.
They and their families personally benefit from the higher
taxes and their lives would be diminshed if our tax burden
were reduced.
Much of their linguistic avalanche is directed towards
discussing the great benefits of government spending but
they all fail to acknowledge their shared conflict of
interest.
A dollar you earn will be spent wisely by you; whereas that
same dollar, taken from you and spent by a government agency,
will often be squandered or used to enrich public sector
employees beyond what they could have earned in the
private sector.
Total 2009 income taxes = $12,739,000,000.
Total income tax payers = 3,400,000.
Average income tax paid = $,3,746.
The income tax represents less than 27% of state revenues.
The state will have more than $38 billion left to work with.
Nearly ninety (90%) percent of all state employees are
members of public sector unions. The only purpose of a
union is to get better pay and benefits of its members.
This is a $12.7 billion dollar bailout of the taxpayers.
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Won't a lot of people get hurt by cuts in government.
Public sector unions who profit from high taxes will have
have to give up their exorbitant employee salaries and
benefits, double dipping pensions and the many other ways
that state employees are doing the bidding of special
interests on the backs of hard-working taxpayers.
Millions of taxpayers will be helped with an annual savings
of $3,700 to spend as they see fit, such as heating their
homes, paying their mortgage to prevent foreclosure and
be able to stay in Massachusetts. Too many have been forced
to leave for economic reasons.
Please examine this site that documents state employment.
http://www.abetterframingham.org/mass-state-employment.html
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Cutting taxes would be irresponsible
Actually, NOT cutting taxes would be irresponsible,
especially when the economy isn't doing well. Across the
board tax cuts always do more to help more people than
anything else the government could or does do. Cutting
taxes would provide economic stimulus and enlarge the
private sector by shrinking the public sector. This in
turn would generate more taxes. (this phenomenom is
referred to as Reaganomics).
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There is a government revenue shortfall
There is always a revenue shortfall if you spend more
than you make.
This will always be true. Do you always spend more than
you make? The Commonwealth of Massachusetts always does.
It also borrows more every year. Our debt level and debt
service payment is monotomically increasing.
Examine the state income and expenditures at
http://www.abetterframingham.org/state-finances.html
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Government employees are underpaid.
They used to be many years ago but not any more. Thanks
to the large and powerful public sector unions (90% of
state employees are in a union), they have fought for and
received very nice pay and exceptional benefits that exceed
the private sector. Benefits include a pension with
cost of living increases and health insurance through their
retirement years that is mostly paid for by the taxpayers.
Check out the salaries of Massachusetts state employees at
http://www.bostonherald.com/projects/payroll/massachusetts/2007_earnings.DESC//
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Will the passage of Question 1 raise my property taxes?
No. Question 1 will not raise property taxes.
Elimination of the state income tax may reduce
funds your town or school district will get from the
state. Some towns may attempt an override to compensate.
Vote against any override attempts. It's your money.
Don't allow theft by majority vote to occur.
A property tax override will require a vote from your Board
of Selectman to place the override vote on the ballot. The
vote would then be 45-60 days later. If approved, your town
meeting would then have to approve the new expenditures.
If we vote Yes on Question 1, we will vote NO on an override.
Even if an override was successful to compensate the town
for lost income from the state, each taxpayer gets back
an average of $3,700 annually to pay for it.
For instance, Framingham would lose over $30 million in
funding from the state but its 34,000 taxpayers would get back
over $100 million. Even if a $30 million override was
successful, Framingham taxpayers would still be $70
million ahead each and every year.
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Won't a lot of police and firefighters lose their jobs?
There are no funds distributed from the state that pay
police or firefighters. Local police only get monies for the
Quinn bill (police education).
Police and firefighters are paid fully by local property
taxes and will not be affected by the elimination of the
state income tax..
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Won't the state lose $12 billion dollars?
The state government will lose $12 billion dollars that
they spend as they see fit. The state's taxpayers will
gain $12 billion dollars to spend as they see fit. It
was your money to begin with.
The state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it
from some other man, and this latter must be a man who
has produced it and saved it. This latter is the
Forgotten Man.
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Won't this aggrevate our crumbling infrastructure?
In 2009, the state budget was $32 billion
(without the quasis)
but the state only spent $120 million on state
highways. This is less than
one quarter of one percent of the budget.
Crumbling infrastructure occurs due to negligence over the
years.
The state legislature recently voted to borrow
three billion dollars for infrastructure improvements
because they could not find available funds. The table
below shows the problem.
| Top twenty
2009 budget
line items
|
| Expense Code
| Description
| Amount
|
| 7061-0008
| Chapter 70 school aid
| $ 3.725 billion
|
| 4000-0500
| Health and Human Services
| $ 3.117 billion
|
| 4000-0600
| Elderly Affairs
| $ 2.164 billion
|
| 0699-0015
| Debt Service: interest
| $ 1.815 billion
|
| 4000-0700
| Elder Affairs: medical assistance
| $ 1.535 billion
|
| 0000-0003
| Pension Transfer [off budget]
| $ 1.465 billion
|
| 1108-5200
| Group Insurance payment
| $ 782 million
|
| 0000-0002
| MBTA Transfer [off budget]
| $ 768 million
|
| 0000-0001
| SBAB Transfer [off budget]
| $ 702 million
|
| 5920-2000
| Mental Retardation: residential services
| $ 569 million
|
| 8900-0001
| State Corrections: operations
| $ 531 million
|
| 7100-0200
| UMass: operations
| $ 493 million
|
| 0611-5500
| Treasurer and Receiver: to cities/towns
| $ 380 million
|
| 5046-0000
| Mental Health: adult mental health
| $ 321 million
|
| 4800-0038
| Social services: foster care services
| $ 314 million
|
| 4000-1405
| Elderly Affairs: chronically unemployed
| $ 305 million
|
| 4403-2000
| Transitional assistance
| $ 303 million
|
| 4000-0640
| Elder Affairs: nursing facility Medicaid
| $ 289 million
|
| 7043-7001
| Special education grants
| $ 269 million
|
| 8100-0000
| State Police: operations
| $ 257 million
|
| Total top twenty
| $20.104 billion
|
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Are we really still known as "Taxachusetts"?
Examine the
Tax Foundation's Tax Freedom Table
and decide for yourself. Tax Freedom Day is April 28.
This is the day you start to work for yourself.
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If Question 1 fails this year, can't it be brought back
to a vote next year?
The Massachusetts Constitution only allows a particular
ballot question to be brought up once every six years.
Within six years, the state will have raised another
$80 billion in state income taxes.
hjw2001@gmail.com
