Barbara Anderson died recently. She is unknown in Maine, but in Massachusetts, where I lived for 18 years, she was the guiding light and inspiration for stopping many excesses of the Massachusetts Legislature.
For more than 40 years, Barbara headed Citizens for Limited Taxation, a grass-roots organization that fought tax increases, attempts to put limits on the citizen petition process and other issues.
I can only imagine the plight of taxpayers in “Taxachusetts” without her leadership in rolling back Massachusetts income tax increases, reducing auto excise taxes and – her and Citizens for Limited Taxation’s crowning glory – campaigning for Proposition 2½, the law that limits annual property tax increases to 2½ percent.
My first involvement with Citizens for Limited Taxation was in the successful 2000 petition initiative to roll back Gov. Michael Dukakis’ “temporary” 1989 state income tax increase. Citizens for Limited Taxation had previously initiated a successful petition drive in 1986 to repeal a “temporary” 7.5 percent surtax increase.
Massachusetts legislators are known for their selective amnesia. To refute their assertions, Citizens for Limited Taxation had to produce newspaper articles where these solons guaranteed the tax increases were “temporary,” as Howie Carr recalled in his April 10 Boston Herald column, “The true savior of Mass. taxpayers.”
I thought I was escaping such nonsense when I returned to Maine in 2008 – not so, as we have seen recently with the “temporary” 2013 sales tax increase to 5.5 percent magically becoming permanent.
Where are you, Barbara? We need you here in Maine.
Bob Casimiro
Bridgton
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