Committee for Small Government

Two Massachusetts citizens, Carla Howell and Michael Cloud, and a handful of volunteers are organizing a petition drive to eliminate the state’s tax on income, capital gains, interest and dividends.

It’s conceivable that this tiny organization, the Committee for Small Government, may be writing the obituary of the big spenders in the Massachusetts Democratic Party. If successful, the consequences of its efforts will reverberate across the nation.

It sounds impossible, but don’t bet against this pair. A similar ballot initiative received a positive response from 45% of the electorate in 2002. And keep in mind that it was a word-of-mouth, grassroots effort without an ad campaign.

The local media and other liberals in Ted Kennedy Land initially wrote off the first effort as a joke. All were shocked to discover that 45% of the Massachusetts’ electorate was sick and tired of the rampart corruption; tired of the political gravy train; tired of supporting the lazy and the loony, leftwing programs.

The liberals in Massachusetts are inherently myopic and not very astute. It’s a state with essentially a one party system. Caution can be thrown to the wind in this atmosphere because no one in government is around to say no.

So once the 2002 initiative was defeated, the loony left controlling the budgets went right back to their insane spending practices. From the top to the bottom of the state, spending on entitlements and massive abuses within the retirement programs for political hacks reached a new zenith.

The current Governor, Duval Patrick, needs another 500 million for more worthy entitlements.

Perspective is important. From 1990 to 2007 the state’s population only increased about 8%. Much of this growth was due to the smorgasbord of entitlements that continue to encourage illegal aliens to hang their hats in this sanctuary of diversity, multi-culturalism and sumptuous handouts.

In the same period, 1990 to 2007, the spending of the state government more than doubled. That’s criminal! It gets worse. Not to be outdone, the majority of towns and cities followed the state’s example and doubled their budgets.

The 2008 edition of this tax revolt is against unbridled taxation and unbridled spending. The accumulation of spending outrages is about to cut the throats of the zany liberals whose appetite for revenues knows no bounds.

The Massachusetts electorate will revolt and deprive the state of 39% of its income. Are you ready for this? The state will have to survive (proportionally) on the same revenues required to run it in 1995.

Once the ballot passes, the games will begin. Rather than cutting the bureaucratic blubber off this government whale, the miscreants will cut the heart out of the police and fire departments. This will be done to spite the taxpayers. The school systems will disband sports, the arts and music rather than cutting through the maze of bureaucratic duplicity in the system.

This nastiness will crush the Democratic Party. And it could be coming to your state soon.

Thank You Massachusetts

It’s nearly impossible to park in the lot of a Wal-Mart, Lowes, Staples, Target, gas station, liquor outlet, grocery store, or a shopping center in southern New Hampshire without being surrounded by vehicles with Massachusetts license plates.

It would not be surprising to discover that the New Hampshire retailers were the largest contributors to the Commonwealth’s Democratic election coffers. And for good reason. The merchants in southern New Hampshire owe their prosperity to Massachusetts’ leftwing government.

If you can earn it, own it, clean it, wear it, listen to it, smoke it, see, use or touch it, Massachusetts taxes it. This is pretty much ditto for Maine and Vermont. That’s why their residents shop in New Hampshire.

For the record, although New Hampshire has no state income or sales taxes, its property taxes are brutal. People on fixed incomes, especially the elderly, are pushed to the brink by ever increasing taxes on their homes.

There is more disturbing news. The oppressive tax burdens placed on families in the Border States continue to encourage them to move to New Hampshire. As Republicans are as rare as diamond mines in Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts, the state of New Hampshire is rapidly turning blue.

It’s obvious that these border jumpers are not necessarily America’s best and brightest. Most are arithmetic and civics challenged. They flee states with confiscatory taxation and then demand the same Nanny State accommodations in New Hampshire.

Evidently, they interpreted the New Hampshire slogan “Live Free or Die” to mean “Live Free on Entitlements.” In fairness, many were educated in liberal dominated public schools, where years ago scholarship was replaced by a feel-good agenda and multi-culturalism, so they are probably illiterate.

Any serious candidate for political office in New Hampshire has always had to take “The Pledge.” Put simply, they had to guarantee the electorate that they would never vote for any broad based tax.

The newcomers, usually Democrats, believe that any candidate that takes The Pledge is evil.

They aren’t aware that the subject was thrashed out a few years back. The majority of New Hampshire citizens agreed that reliance on property taxes was unfair. They saw what it was doing to the elderly, and this mindset hasn’t changed. Neither have politicians.

There was a roaring debate over introducing a sales or income tax. The debate ended when the politicians refused to guarantee that property taxes would be reduced dollar for dollar by the revenues raised by a new sales or income tax.

In addition, the politicians were unwilling to cap the percentage bite of any new sales or income tax. Nor would they promise to cap property taxes. The taxpayers smelled a fat government rat.

New Hampshire’s citizens are often labeled as ignorant hayseeds, but they are smart enough not to trust the spending habits of politicians. You can’t say as much about our sophisticated neighbors in Taxachusetts.

They are currently looking down the barrel of a one-half billion dollar tax increase. The market value of homes in New Hampshire should improve shortly. Thanks Governor Duval Patrick!