Massachusetts, vote NO on Question 1

Ballot Question 1: A YES vote would reduce the state personal income tax rate to 2.65% for the tax year beginning on January 1, 2009, and would eliminate the tax for all tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2010.

I know, I know. I hate paying income tax, too. I dislike government waste, too. It would be nice to have a little extra money in my pocket. It would be nice to see the state get leaner. In a world full of magical money fairies that preserved essential state programs in the absence of revenue, the Question 1 proposal might be a good idea. But there are no magical money fairies, and the only rational vote in response to question 1 is No.

I freely admit that I don't dislike taxes as much as the next guy might. The State provides me services that protect my meager wealth and support my standard of living. Accordingly, I favor the support of those services through fair taxation and fiscal responsibility. However, virtually every state in the nation, in addition to programs that support the public good, also funds programs that do little more than support public servants. Massachusetts, like any other state, is beset by waste, corruption, and appalling incompetence. Perhaps if we put the state on a starvation diet by squeezing off one of its chief revenue sources, it would force the government to trim unnecessary programs and waste.

Perhaps.

But you, and I, and anyone who has ever encountered government in any of its forms, know that's not going to happen. Oh, there may be some trimming here, some squeezing there, but the deep cut, the major restructuring, is not going to happen. What's going to happen instead is a restructuring of the tax system. Money that used to flow into state and community coffers from the income tax system will now be obtained via increased sales and property taxes.

"Higher sales taxes don't matter," you say, "I'll just drive up to New Hampshire to shop." And maybe you will, but that's not an option for everyone. Those who do their shopping in-state will end up paying more for less. Retailers will either have to cut prices to compensate, or just accept reduced sales. More people go out of state to shop, and those who stay will have reduced purchasing power.

"Property taxes don't matter," you say, "I rent, anyway." But somebody owns the property you lease, and when their taxes go up, so will your monthly rent. The heightened cost of ownership will drive some people to sell their property, increasing demand in the rental market and driving up prices that way. And even if your landlord doesn't hike your rate, the squeeze means something, be it maintenance, landscaping, or snow removal, will have to go. Moreover, the higher property taxes will be passed along to Massachusetts businesses that own or rent their stores. Higher prices or staffing cuts will follow.

The government of Massachusetts could and perhaps should be smaller. The tax burden of state citizens should perhaps also be lower. Getting there by eliminating the income tax, however, is akin to trying to lose weight by cutting off your legs. Precipitous, intemperate action of this kind will only raise the cost of living in Massachusetts, while adversely affecting the economy and standard of life. No matter how much you hate taxes, the only responsible vote on Question 1 is "No".

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Policy and the law of prudence

The one thing I find most infuriating in debates about anthropogenic warming is the inevitable point in the conversation when the denialist states that we shouldn't do anything because we aren't really sure that humans cause global warming. If you point out to him that the vast majority of scientists believe the evidence supports this conclusion, he will either point out that scientists 30 years ago were wrong about something relating to climate (the "global cooling" gambit), or that people have been wrong about things before ("everyone believed the earth was flat"). Both these points are irrelevant: forecasting technology has improved vastly, and it was not scientists who believed the earth was flat (most educated people knew it to be a sphere), but backwards hicks like himself. But there's a more important point to be made: when it comes to policy decisions, it doesn't matter whether we cause global warming or not.

In the first case, most of the things we need to do about climate change are just plain good ideas, whether the earth is warming or not. We need more efficient ways to grow and transport our food. We need to end our dependence on the finite resource of fossil fuels. We need to make our cities better filters of their own pollution. We need better water management. We need to end suburban sprawl. We need to control the global population of human beings. It doesn't matter whether our planet is warming, cooling, or staying the same: almost all mitigation policies make sense in any context. For policymakers to sit on their hands and ignore these steps is inexcusable, regardless of their belief in anthropogenic warming.

When it comes to emissions caps, however, the typical denialist will draw his line in the sand. Why ruin the economy if we aren't sure that warming is our fault? Leaving aside the fact that economic forecasts are at least as unreliable as climactic ones (and therefore just as bad a reason to make decisions), there is a very good reason to alter our policies to eliminate emissions of all kinds. This is the law of prudence: If you don't know how it works, don't mess with it, especially if you're stuck with it.

You don't try to jack around in the engine before you board your passenger flight to Miami. You don't screw with the wheels before you get into a roller coaster. Why not? Because you don't know how it works, and once you get on that thing you can't get off. The same principle applies here. We're stuck on this planet; we can't leave and start over. If we ruin it, we will all die. Thus, if you truly believe that our best scientists really don't know enough about this planet to say how its climate system works, then your only rational choice is to minimize our impact on that system.

Denialists love to argue that we're uncertain about climate change as if ignorance is a reason for inaction, but this does not follow. Inaction is a decision, and it is the wrong decision to make when faced with uncertainty. When ignorant of an essential system's mechanics, we do not want to damage it, and that means not screwing with it. The reduction of all forms of pollution (including carbon) as rapidly as possible is the best decision we can make if we're unsure of what's going on with our environment. If, as is the case, we suspect or believe that our actions are outright harmful, then elimination of emissions is the only reasonable option.

You'll hear the uncertainty argument again; in fact, you've probably already heard it once today if you've had a discussion about Gore's Nobel Prize or the environment generally. Uncertainty is always used as an justification for inaction, but it actually supports the opposite.

For Blog Action Day...

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