ballot questions

Taxing coverage

adamg — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:40:37 -0400

The Globe covers yesterday's anti-income-tax rally in Boston (only 250 people?), while Yvonne Abraham heaps scorn on Carla Howell and her made-up figures about waste in state government.

A Proper Bostonian comes up with Swiftian reasons to vote for the measure (as in Jonathan, not Jane).

Who's funding the anti-tax movement in Massachusetts

adamg — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:53:24 -0400

The Herald takes a look at the people paying Carla Howell's salary as she tries to convince people to repeal the state income tax:

The push to scrap the state income tax - billed as a grassroots movement - is heavily bankrolled by an odd-ball collection of libertarians who don't even pay taxes in Massachusetts, including a crackpot who’s likened Homeland Security to the "Gestapo" and a "Biblical capitalist" who thinks paper money should be eliminated. ...

Anti-tax backer 'intellectually dishonest'

adamg — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:52:39 -0400

Rick Holmes, opinion editor at the Metrowest Daily News, explains why he isn't buying Carla Howell's effort to repeal the Massachusetts income tax in November:

Carla Howell, the leader of the income-tax-repeal effort, came in to see me last week. I have an editorial here about the question I keep asking: Is the point of the referendum to "send a message" or enact a law?

Howell says it's about enacting a law, one that would remove some $12 billion from the state budget. Fine, but if you are going to ask the voters to make decisions on the budget, you ought to be able to provide some details, and Carla appears to have decided not to. ...

Perfect storm could lead to end of state income tax

adamg — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:16:18 -0400

On the heels of the MBTA pay-raise story comes the news that people are paying more in property taxes on houses that are worth less. The Outraged Liberal, who predicts disaster if Question 1 passes, hopes:

... Hopefully those folks who plan to speak out against Question 1 are hard at work for a campaign that will launch right after Labor Day -- you know about the same time the Democratic convention ends, the Republican convention begins and the political media's focus on the presidential race obliterates all other discussion?

Deval Patrick gets tough

adamg — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:14:30 -0400

First state pensioners, now detail-lovin' police, but there's an endgame in mind here and it's not necessarily Washington:

... Make no mistake, Patrick has an election in mind all right. It's the November referendum on Question 1, the income tax repeal. Polls suggest voters are unhappy enough that they could vote their wallet and not their best interests. Sacred cows need to fall.

If that means dealing with upset pensioners and police officers angry because they've been asked to do some dieting along with the rest of the state budget (and there will be a lot of that in the months ahead, particularly if the federal Medicaid waiver is slashed) that drama may only help convince fence sitters that Question 1 is a recipe for disaster. ...

Do Globe reporters ever check their own paper's archive?

adamg — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:16:47 -0400

This past Saturday, the Globe declared the South End was overrun with Yuppie rugrats even though, as Michael Pahre pointed out, the thesis contradicted a Globe story just seven months earlier that said Yuppie parents had fled Boston en masse.

Today, on Blue Mass. Group, David points out a similar "huh?" in a Globe story that quotes the owner of the Raynham dog track as saying a ban on dog racing would cost 6,000 to 8,000 jobs at the state's two dog tracks. In January, the Globe reported Raynham only employs 350 people. As David notes, it seems unlikely that the smaller Wonderland track employs several thousand more people.

The myth of Taxachusetts

adamg — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:31:20 -0500

The Outraged Liberal explains why we're no longer all that highly taxed and why the ballot question to end the state income tax will actually accelerate the number of people fleeing Massachusetts.

The income-tax repeal question

adamg — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:36:38 -0500

Chris Lovett gives it good odds of passage in part because this year has some parallels to 1980, when Prop. 2 1/2 was passed: An economic slowdown, a presidential election and, in Boston, a seeming mayor for life.

Explaining a couple of complicated issues so that even somebody in a Nyquil fog can understand

adamg — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 13:34:23 -0500

Mike Mennonno dissects the state's new health-insurance law, the one the Globe loves to bits.

Jay Fitzgerald dissects the argument that legislators are doing the right thing by breaking their constitutional responsibilities.

No wine cleanup in Aisle 12

adamg — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 08:57:42 -0500

Mass Marrier analyzes the defeat of the three statewide ballot questions; he says 2 and 3 were just too confusing for most people. As for 1:

... Voters bought into Chicken Little-style claims of bodies on the highways and drunken teens in an updated version of Reefer Madness. ...

Talonvaki was glad to see Question 1 defeated, but for a different reason:

... The small liquor stores have something the supermarkets don't have: character. I have grown to love the local packies. The one near my house, where I've been going for 6Â½ years, and they know me (the woman remembers when I moved in!), the shop on Mass Ave., where until recently Dixie the cat lived, the shop in Southie with the autographed photo of Bobby Orr in midair (and a story to go with it), the store across from the Star Market on Beacon in Somerville that's a shrine to firefighters ... every time I go into one, it's not just to get booze, it's to connect with the neighbourhood and have a conversation.

You can't do that in the supermarket. And now that you can buy liquor on Sundays, there's really no need to. ...

Same for Onward Charles:

... I live in Mission Hill, so the booze runs plentiful, and already having a plethora of liquor stores and bars doesn't really elicit a reaction of "omfg we need Stop & Shop to have crap wine too!" The scare was that bringing wine and beer to convenience stores would have been big trouble for little mom n' pop shops.

Ed. note: You can buy wine in a few supermarkets; if you really want to pick up some wine with your Stouffer's, try Omni Foods on Rte. 9 in Chestnut Hill. Also, does anybody know if Melvin Drugs on Comm. Ave. in Brighton still sells hip-flask bottles of hard liquor?