I Have a Question.
By Jim Conley • Oct 17th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
Print This Post
• Email this author
Perhaps those attending tonight’s public hearing to tee up a Proposition 2.5 over-ride in Brookline can help me out. (I’d go to the hearing, but I’m in a rock fight and I don’t want to miss it.) I have a question for the Selectman’s Study Committee, if a reader might be kind enough to ask, and it is this:
History has proved that when even the mildest recessions are upon us and there is a significant tightening of credit (like right now), a tax increase has always had the effect of making things much worse. (You know, there’s that nasty business of raising income taxes to cover government expenses in the 1930’s and triggering the Great Depression.) Under the circumstances, why wouldn’t the effects of a tax increase be detrimental to the Brookline economy?
Is it because we no longer have any local businesses that might be adversely affected by the decreased buying power of residents?
Or is it just that our town government has been gifted by Providence and we are protected from all manner of hardship?
Perhaps a member of Brookline’s Economic Advisory Board can make something up in response. Something along the lines of taxpayers sucking it up so town government gets what it needs first. A simple variation on the recurring theme is all I ask.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
Email this author | All posts by Jim Conley
