The ballot initiative in MA to end the income tax
Years ago, a friend of mine signed me up for the MA Libertarian newsletter, put out by Carla Howell and Michael Cloud. Since then, the friend in question has, quite wisely, moved from Libertarian to hardline conservative (this happens when you finally realize Libertarians with a big-L are, on a number of issues, clinically insane and/or stoned).
However, the good hardline conservative AND the good hardline liberal sometimes come full circle and find themselves sitting down for a Libertarian pow-wow. The Libertarians put some good things out there, and this is one of them: the ballot initiative to END the income tax in Massachusetts.
So I'm putting up their latest little email to me. Fans of small government in MA, take note, you might want to donate.
-------
From: Small Government News
To:
Subject: The Perfect Christmas Gift: ENDing the Income Tax in Massachusetts
===========================================================
THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT: ENDING THE INCOME TAX IN MASSACHUSETTS
===========================================================
Dear Friends,
It's the season of miracles.
A time to give. A time to receive.
Wouldn't you love to give the Perfect Gift - ENDing the Income Tax in
Massachusetts?
Wouldn't you bust out smiling as you watched 3,000,000 Tax-achusetts
workers and taxpayers get back $3,600 EACH worker, EVERY year?
Wouldn't you celebrate and cheer as you saw small government activists
in other states launch 4 or 8 or 12 Ballot Initiatives in 2010 to END
their states' Income Taxes?
Wouldn't that be the Perfect Christmas Gift - for you to receive and
for you to give?
Will you chip in and help us buy this Christmas Gift?
In this season of giving, will you help?
We need you to give now - so we can arrange news coverage by the Wall
Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, USA Today, the Washington
Post, Newsweek, Time, and more.
We need you to give now - so we can reach out to ABC, CBS, NBS, and
PBS News and Magazine Shows. So we can arrange appearances on Fox
News, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC. On the political - and BUSINESS - shows.
We need you to give now - so we can broker appearances by Carla Howell
and Michael Cloud on the hundreds of crucial Talk Radio Shows.
We need you to give now - so we can ignite an explosion of Internet
NEW Media essays, Blogs, Links, and - most importantly - Internet
Activists who will help us reach and teach, motivate and mobilize tens
of thousands of supporters.
We can do it within 120 days - IF you act in a spirit of giving.
How do we know?
Ron Paul proved it. The first 3 months of his Presidential campaign
this year, he raised $530,000 - and attracted 10,000 to 20,000 looky-
loos to his website and campaign.
The next 3 months, Dr. Paul was included in televised Presidential
debates. His supporters evangelized the Internet with his small
government, anti-Military Interventionism campaign for President - and
he raised $2,400,000: FIVE times the money he did in the previous 90
days. Better than 10,000,000 Americans googled Ron Paul and visited
his website. And dozens of supporters launched their own pro-Ron Paul
Websites and blogs.
Our first 4 months, we collected and filed 78,512 certified and
validated petition signatures with the Secretary of State's Office -
and raised $200,000 to fund it.
Following Ron Paul's lead, in the next 4 months, we could generate 100
Internet articles, 30 or 40 newspaper, magazine, TV, and radio stories
on our Ballot Initiative to END the Income Tax.
This News Coverage will let us reach and teach tens of thousands of
Internet advocates and supporters who can help us get the word out.
Who can donate and volunteer.
And these supporters can help us raise $400,000 to $1,000,000 for
advertising and publicizing our Ballot Initiative to the 3,000,000+
Massachusetts voters receptive to what we're offering.
We can promise you 2 things:
1. This will NOT happen if YOU don't give.
2. This CAN happen - it WILL happen - if YOU do give. If you help now.
If you make it happen.
This Media Breakthrough will cost $50,000. But the payoff is huge.
Just like Ron Paul's was.
In this season of giving, will you make a difference with a Christmas
donation today?
We need one $5,000 donor. If you will donate $5,000, one of our
earlier donors will MATCH your $5,000 donation. Will YOU donate $5,000
now?
We need ten $1,000 Christmas givers. Will you help us make a miracle -
and donated $1,000 now?
Will YOU be one of the twenty $500 donors needed to create this Major
Media Breakthrough? Your $500 holiday donation WILL make a difference that you'll soon see.
Or will you be one of the twenty $250 donors we need to make this
happen? Will you give $250 now?
Will you please be one of the vital eighty $150 Christmas
contributors? Or one of the crucial forty $65 or $85 Christmas givers?
613 people have already taken us this far.
Will you please be one of the 172 Christmas givers, miracle makers,
champions of small government?
Please give now by credit card by clicking:
https://secure.bluehost.com/~savyonco/ms/sga/sga2.php
Thank You for making this an unforgettable season.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,
Carla Howell & Michael Cloud
posted by Kip Lange @ 11:13 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
How will roads get paved or schools get funding for after-school programs or to buy books, etc, if we don't pay taxes? Where will the money come from? You do know that military spending comes from American tax payers. So are important government programs and initiatives. Once we stop paying taxes and leave these things up to corporate sponsorship, we lose control. Then, what becomes of Democracy? Paying taxes is just part of being a free citizen, along with voting. Privitization just leads to corporate control. It takes the power out of the hands of the citizens. Why do so many conservatives want an end to taxes? You will save more money in the long run using taxpayer money to sponsor things such as public works, rather than taking that away so the poor can't afford to repave their roads or send their children to school and the rich have to pay out of pocket for these luxuries. It sets a further gap between the classes, which is not what this country was founded on. This country was founded on the belief that every (wo)man should have equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream. Once we end up having to pay out of pocket for what we always took for granted, things start to fall by the wayside. The poor can't pay and the rich don't want to pay. We are not giving the government free money. We are paying a government to represent us and take care of our communities. Everybody rich or poor pays taxes and everybody votes. While I do believe in cuts in certain frivilous income tax penalities, we need, conservative and liberal, to see the small details, as well as the big picture and not pick which view we think is more important. There is a real reason we all contribute and some things more important than a little extra cash every week.
Okay...
Anonymous said...
How will roads get paved or schools get funding for after-school programs or to buy books, etc, if we don't pay taxes? Where will the money come from?
First, you do realize that we're talking about ending just the state income tax, right? And -- income tax. We already pull in craploads of money from sales taxes, lotteries...why is giving the government more money always the answer for liberals? As P.J. O'Rourke said, giving money and power to Congress (state or otherwise) is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
I imagine the Libertarians have in mind revenues generated from sales tax and such in MA, and might even suggest bumping up the sales tax. They would also most likely pursue privatizing things like clearing roads. I did say I'm not a Libertarian, didn't I? Notwithstanding, I think I can live without the state income tax.
Likewise, many after-school programs are already privately subsidized.
Now...
You do know that military spending comes from American tax payers. So are important government programs and initiatives. Once we stop paying taxes and leave these things up to corporate sponsorship, we lose control.
First, I didn't say end the Federal income tax. Yes, we need a tax, and said tax should go immediately to things like national security and providing some sort of social safety net for those who really qualify. I'm not against that.
As for "importent government initiatives", I say, any damn time the government wants to "do good" on the home front, it blows up in our faces. Because government is ultimately just a money-sucking machine. You claim that when we stop giving the government our money we lose control. Isn't the fact that we're unwillingly giving the government money already kinda qualify as "losing control"? I don't get an itemized agenda I can tick off to earmark my bills only for national defense. I have to go along with idiotic programs like HeadStart and such.
Why do so many conservatives want an end to taxes? You will save more money in the long run using taxpayer money to sponsor things such as public works, rather than taking that away so the poor can't afford to repave their roads or send their children to school and the rich have to pay out of pocket for these luxuries.
Why do want an end to taxes? Well, first, almost all of us agree some base tax is necessary. What we want is an end to bullshit taxation that never stops going up, and which people such as yourself accuse of helping the rich when they help the great majority of this country far more -- the middle class. Liberals crap on the middle class, always have, always will. Which means you're crapping on 99% of our society, basically.
I dispute the idea of "saving money in the long run" through taxation completely, although I do enjoy the little pie-in-the-sky mixed-Socialism pablum you're spreading around.
And...paying taxes is just par of being a free citizen? What? That's the most corporate damn thing I've ever heard. People should never be compelled to vote. You don't want to vote, that's fine. That's one of the great things about America. Other countries will fine you if you don't vote. Of what value is compulsory voting?
It sets a further gap between the classes, which is not what this country was founded on.
Oh, please. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, right? You do know they just finished a study (I forget where, I'll pull it if you need it) that showed the most "equal" societies are also among the most squalid. The higher the income gap, believe it or not, the higher the overall state of living, period. It's not a bad thing, not at all. Better than all animals being equal with some more equal than others.
This country was founded on the belief that every (wo)man should have equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
Actually, this country was founded when a bunch of drunken religious zealots with guns got tired of being taxed so damn much. Boston Tea Party. Ring a damn bell? What multicultural history class from hell have you taken? ;-)
We are not giving the government free money.
Oh, I'm sorry! So close, but the correct answer is you bet your damn ass we're 90% feeding a bloated bureacracy with money we earn in our own lives in a private capacity.
The rest of this, I mean, it goes on, it's well-meaning idiotic liberal blather. Well-intentioned, again, at best. Free enterprise is the answer, not monolithic government investment or support. I know that. Most people know that. Get outta your liberal dream world and notice life, man, that's all I can say, instead of feeding this quasi-Socialist babble to me.
The most feared phrase in the English language is, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
Ok ok, point taken. You do make a good one.
Hey, I appreciate that a lot. Thank you. Just remember, I'm not a big-l Libertarian. They're just too far out for me. For instance, privatizing prisons and farming out the prisoners as slave labor? That's a Libertarian idea I don't like much.
Now, if we legalized marijuana anda taxed it...and that is a Libertarian idea, and a good one at that.
But you raise just as many valid points. We do need money from somewhere, obviously, and free enterprise can't do everything. And I honestly believe in welfare; people who can't help themselves, we do have a duty to provide for them.
In other words, I'm not saying abolish taxes altogether (although that would be nice, if we could somehow finance it), but tax less. As you can guess, I'm an ardent supply-sider. So my issue is not taxes per se, but the diminishing returns taxes that are too high create in business...taxes that can keep a small company from employing the people it needs...taxes that target the middle class..."blue collar" taxes like cigarette taxes...we're taxed too much, it's that simple, in my mind. Less taxes, more productivity -- yes, I support "voodoo economics". ;-)
I'm just wondering, Anonymous -- do I know you in real life, or from back a little further? You seem awfully familiar with the way I think, is all. ;-)
Also, quick disclaimer -- while the Carla Howell post may have endorsed Ron Paul, I am in no way endorsing Ron Paul.
I'm not the same anonymous as the person who left comments on the previous entry...just this one. And yes, I did know you many years ago...
Ah, how tantalizing. How come you're using the anonymous tag, then?
Seriously, drop me a line at the email addy listed on the main page. I love catching up with people. I'd repost the email address here, but then it'd get spidered and I'd be getting 600 spam emails a day (the email address on the main page is an image so it can't be spidered and I *still* get spam on it).
So, hey, come on, fess up and tell me who you are. :-)
Your ... at the end is even more intriguing. Intrigue squared. Intrigue cubed. Drop me a line. You can call me a fascist bastard if you want to!
The last time we spoke, you were less than nice to me. It might not be the best thing for me to email you.
And, btw, now I really do play Warren Zevon on occasion...
Hope you are well...
PS - The elipses are a crutch for me. ;-)
Ah. Well, if I wasn't nice to you at the time, it depends. I have a short-fuse temper sometimes, which I'm sure you know, but I also enjoy the low, long-smoldering grudge, as well. ;-) You have to figure out which situation it was (and whether or not I was drunk).
Ellipses are fun; however, I'm a semicolon junkie. I've actually trained myself to use them less, believe it or not (dead serious on that).
Oh well. Merry Christmas anyway, even if I do hate you for some reason.
And Warren Zevon...are you from the Nuke days? That's the only connection I can make there.
"Oh well. Merry Christmas anyway, even if I do hate you for some reason."
Hahahahaha...nice. :-)
You too.
Post a Comment
<< Home