Tennessee Anti-Income Tax Fervor Spreads! To Massachussetts!!

Deleting the income tax from the state's fiscal
calculations would not roll us back to the 19th
century. It would roll us back to 1991. Do the
math: Subtract $9 billion of income tax
revenues from this year's $22 billion budget
and you are left with $13 billion. That was
roughly the size of the state's budget (in
unadjusted dollars) when Michael Dukakis left
office. Many things have been said of Dukakis,
but no one ever accused him of cutting
government to the bone. At $13 billion, state
government was big, powerful, intrusive, and
top-heavy. Restored to $13 billion, it would still
be far from Spartan.