From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON - A new nationwide campaign is warning Americans that unless the federal government puts its financial house in order, the country could be bankrupt in a generation.

The project, organized by Peter G. Peterson, an investment banker who served as commerce secretary in the Nixon administration, and David M. Walker, the former comptroller general of the United States, aims to build grass-roots support for wholesale changes to the federal budget - though the overhaul would require middle- and upper-income Americans to give up some cherished government benefits.

Peterson and Walker said yesterday that the campaign, sponsored by the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation in New York, will kick off next week with a documentary called “I.O.U.S.A,” the first salvo in an aggressive, multimillion dollar effort that will include television advertisements and Internet outreach.

Peterson, the foundation president, and Walker, the chief executive, said the widening gap between government revenues and spending will eventually destroy the confidence in the American economy that has led international lenders to continue to finance the national debt.

“We are going to get a crisis like most Americans have never seen,” Walker said during a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.

The national debt is now more than $9 trillion.

See the link for the rest of the article. Peterson’s group also puts out a color brochure titled, The State of the Union’s Finances.

http://www.boston.com/…

A group of antitax activists launched a campaign over the weekend to abolish the state income tax, setting the stage for a contentious public battle if the measure is added to the ballot this fall.After pushing a similar initiative that almost passed six years ago, a group called the Committee for Small Government is back for another round, asking voters to end the income tax and save the average taxpayer $3,600 a year. The group, led by libertarian Carla Howell, is almost certain to gather the 11,000 signatures needed to put a question on the November ballot.

To say that state officials are worried about the prospect would be an understatement.

Community, political, and business officials are grasping for words such as “chaos,” “devastating,” and “catastrophe” to describe the scenario that would unfold if the measure passes.

Six years ago, Beacon Hill didn’t pay much attention to what seemed to be a pie-in-the-sky campaign. Confident that voters would reject the plan as folly, no one even organized a campaign to fight it.

But it almost passed, gaining the support of 45 percent of voters.

A fledgling coalition of city and town officials and union officials hired former Blue Cross Blue Shield executive and civic leader Peter Meade to head a battle against the income tax cut, and is interviewing high-powered public relations firms. Their Coalition for Our Communities plans a fund-raising and public educational campaign to combat the allure of the tax-cutting measure, which would cost the state roughly $12.7 billion - about 40 percent of the budget.

Some political observers are expecting a public tax battle the likes of which has not been seen since Governor Michael S. Dukakis was in office.

“I think back to what happened in ‘89 or ‘90. I think this would be even more contentious and chaotic than that period,” said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, recalling the voter effort to overturn new taxes imposed under Dukakis. “This, I think, would usher in a similar kind of period because the scale of this is so enormous.”

How would the state cut $12 billion?

That’s three times the sum the state sends cities and towns for public schools. Laying off every state employee would only save about $5 billion, said Cam Huff, a private policy consultant who studies the state budget.

An initiative petition is intended to be binding if it passes, but the Legislature has found ways to buck the will of the people in the past. In 2002, lawmakers halted a gradual income tax rollback approved by voters two years earlier, prompting howls that they were bucking an edict from the populace. And though voters passed a ballot question in 1998 that called for publicly funded campaigns, the Legislature famously refused to pay for them. Continued…

I love the gloom and doom talk. I don’t doubt that the government would absolutely drop the ball if this passes. They aren’t any good at cutting back when not under pressure why should they be any better when they are? I like that they come out and just admit the reason they want state level taxation is wealth redistribution. They bring up examples that are really ridiculous like failure to plow the roads. I grew up in a very rural area. Only very major roads were plowed by the county. Random people would plow the other roads as necessary. It’s far more cost effective to have Jim down the road with his F350 plow the local roads.

Their New Hampshire neighbors to the north don’t have an income tax and they seem to do just fine even with all the NY, NJ and MA immigrants bringing their big government beliefs. I’m sure MA would be fine after everyone adjusted back to paying for things more directly.