Every tax is a pay cut.  Every tax cut is a pay raise.
Citizens for Limited Taxation

A call for fiscal responsibility Sunday, November 9, 2003
Neil Ferris (Southborough) Metrowest Daily News
With all due respect to the editors of the MetroWest Daily News, the choice is not limited to which taxes should be increased: income taxes or property taxes.  The other choice is to step up to the fiscal reality that our communities are spending well beyond their ability to raise new funds.

Regardless of how we got to this position, the state of Massachusetts economy is poor, our high technology has been in a protracted depression for two and a half years, thousands of qualified people have been laid off and a recovery is not around the corner.

Towns such as Southborough, where I have resided for more than 25 years, have to protect core services (police, fire, schools) and start the painful and politically unpopular act of cutting into all other operational and capital budgets until such time a full economic recover is underway.

The answer is not to raise more income taxes at a state level or property taxes at the local level.  Almost every high technology company I know and advise has or is cutting their operating budgets to the bone, canceling travel, laying off time-tested and loyal employees, reducing benefits and anything else they can do to survive.  Anything short of these actions are a disservice to these employee-owned companies and their remaining employees.  They do not have the luxury to just raise their prices (aka taxes) to their customers and hope the economy becomes better.

There is not another Massachusetts Miracle just around the corner.  There is no capability for many, many young, elderly, fixed-income and disabled families, to just write another check.

Responsible governance requires serious fiscal reality.  The well of good will from the taxpayers is just about over.

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