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INCOME TAX Repeal barely beaten back
By Corey Dade, Globe Staff, 11/6/2002

Surprising even supporters, voters came close to passing a proposal to eliminate the state income tax, sending a strong signal to Beacon Hill about distaste for future tax increases as a way to solve the budget crisis. With 89 percent of the precincts reporting last night, support for Question 1 captured 47 percent of the turnout, outperforming the projections by about 7 percentage points. Sponsors of Question 1, led by Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Carla Howell, had hoped for 40 percent in order to assemble a critical mass of public opinion that might dissuade the Legislature from passing a tax increase at the end of the year. ''It goes to show that you can't trust polls,'' Howell said late last night shortly after conceding her loss in the governor's race. ''It also demonstrates that the reporting of how big government must solve everyone's problems is clearly not representative of what all the people believe.'' Eliminating the state income tax would take an estimated $9 billion annually out of state coffers and force an immediate 40 percent slash in state spending - a centerpiece of Howell's ''Small Government is Beautiful'' platform. As a result, advocates said, extra money would flow into the market and create between 300,000 and 500,000 jobs, more than enough to completely wipe out unemployment in the state. Most mainstream economists doubt that scenario. Instead, they say, the state would be forced into an immediate fiscal emergency that would decimate the programs upon which so many people depend. ''It's certainly sobering for the Legislature that with a $2 billion estimated deficit, this puts even more pressure on them to meet the defecit with budget cuts rather than a combination of cuts and taxes,'' said Tufts University political scientist Jeffrey M. Berry. ''I would guess it comes back on the ballot in a little bit.''

posted by An Old Curmudgeon 6:15 AM