What
was Question 1 anyway?
Question 1 in Waltham, Massachusetts was the first-ever ballot initiative to cut taxes
in the city's history. And it was the boldest property tax cut proposal that we have seen anywhere in America. Fiscal watchdogs
Rich Aucoin and Kim Bryant formed Waltham Citizens for Taxpayer Justice in 2003 and
collected over 4,000 signatures from Waltham residents.
Their petition
read: Shall the City of Waltham be required to reduce the amount of real estate and personal property taxes to be assessed
for the fiscal year of July first, two thousand and four by an amount equal to $40,672,041? Yes____ No ____.
Why the need for Question 1?
While running for city council in
2001, Rich Aucoin discovered that city spending had spiked sharply in the previous three years - jumping by approximately
$30 million. Further research revealed that city spending had nearly doubled since 1990.
Aucoin and budget analyst Kim Bryant began trying to obtain city spending records from the city's
bureaucrats but were stonewalled. The city refused even to turn over a copy of the basic city budget, so Bryant finally resorted
to Xeroxing each page from the public library's copy of the huge document.
"By this time, it was already clear that a bold measure was required in Waltham," said Aucoin. "The secrecy and accountability
issues alone demanded it. But Kim Bryant had also managed to find published news articles that provided breathtaking spending
figures for the city's insurance and retirement payouts that were far in excess of what average taxpayers receive in the free
market. And we learned too that Waltham was the 3rd biggest spender in the entire state for education - a whopping $13,000
per student per year," he said.
Aucoin and Bryant began making the
case that these few areas were so wasteful that they alone could absorb a $40 million spending cut. And Aucoin used a
fresh run for city council to demand citzens' access to public records, so that he and Bryant could begin exposing the additional
waste within each department's itemized spending reports - which would help set the stage for subsequent tax cuts.
Waltham's "Little Digs"
But Aucoin says an impending school-construction
project was his biggest reason for acting, and would have been justification enough for his initiative even without all the
other justifications that turned up along the way. In 2003, the City of Waltham was in the early stages of an 8-school construction
project worth an estimated $210 million (or nearly $50,000 per student) - at a time when the student population had
dropped by 1,000 students in little more than a decade, and was still dropping.
The new supersized
schools had been justified based not on a need for school buildings but rather on a state bureaucrat's decree
that one of the city's most beloved schools (Fitch Elementary) was creating a "racial imbalance problem." The state then dangled
the carrot of building assistance money if the city would agree to give away five of its existing school buildings, erect
a series of new ones, and introduce a racial busing program. Waltham's parents and taxpayers were naturally upset and attempted
to blow the whistle on the scam, but the local pols had dollar signs in their eyes and had already begun shopping out contracts
to their friends. And the local newspaper chose to spin the scheme as a "windfall" for the city. The steam roller couldn't
be stopped now - unless something exraordinarily big and bold came along to stand in its way, like a $40 million tax cut.
What happened come November?
As the election drew near, a band
of 13 government-employee unions from across the state, dubbing themselves "Coalition of Concerned Citizens," spent over $50,000
to bombard the city of Waltham with "No on 1" signs and hysterical sky-is-falling propaganda. In the end, Aucoin and Bryant
couldn't compete, and the measure received 18% of the vote. However, Aucoin and Bryant gained a wealth of intelligence from
the experience, and have been eager to share most of it publicly. The pair spoke out in 2005 about the importance of their
initiative and how their experiences can help other local tax cutters.
Lessons
learned
Lesson #1: You and just 3 other people can drive
a city-wide ballot initiative. Aucoin and Bryant needed just two other dedicated people in their core group to help them move
their question to the ballot.
Lesson #2: You can force the politicians
to discusss their least favorite subject: government spending. Question 1 stole the show of the 2003 municipal election, even
overshadowing the mayor's race. And every single public official opposed cutting the waste from city government. In fact,
then-councilor Jeanette McCarthy (now mayor) went so far as to privately admit to Aucoin in May of 2003 that there was $40
million in waste that could be cut. But she, too, opposed the measure, claiming it would "tie the mayor's hands too much."
Lesson #3: Many taxpayers who gleefully signed the petition didn't vote! Most of the
people who came out to vote in 2003 (an off-election year) were city employees and their friends/family. The unions had a
formidable Get-out-the-Vote machine. They were a taxpayer-funded force! Therefore, future local tax-cut initiatives should
focus on getting out the vote of people who tend not to vote or who tend to vote only in even-year elections. Or simply run
your tax-cut initiative on an even year.
Lesson #4: Even if your
initiative doesn't win, it can still shine a much-needed spotlight on government spending and secrecy. The City of Waltham's
unwillingness to provide taxpayers with public spending information is now notorious. Even the editor of Waltham's Big Government-loving
Daily News Tribune, Brad Spiegel, corroborated Aucoin's and Bryant's charges of bureaucratic stonewalling. In an audio-taped
meeting with Aucoin a few weeks before the election, Spiegel admitted to Aucoin that his newspaper also faces stonewalling
by employees of the city government "every day." (Interestingly, Spiegel hasn't [yet] written a single word about all this
stonewalling in any of his weekly columns.) Which brings us to...
Lesson
#5: NEVER trust the media, particularly if you're advocating smaller government. Former Daily News Tribune political reporter
Joshua Myerov wrote a one-sided expose' published the day before the election which discussed the private funding
sources for Yes on 1, but wrote nothing whatsoever about who was behind No on 1. When Aucoin asked Myerov why his article
neglected to mention anything about the government unions' funding of No on 1, Myerov whined that the unions had failed to
comply with the state's campaign finance reporting laws, and therefore he didn't have access to the details of their finances.
When Aucoin asked Myerov why he didn't see that as the far bigger story, Myerov admitted he'd "dropped the ball,"
and promised Aucoin he would write a post-election story to expose the unions' law breaking. The promised article was never
written.
Lesson #6: You can help build name-brand recognition for
the small-government movement. Aucoin notes that in the years since Waltham's Question 1 was on the ballot, taxes and spending
have continued their relentless upward spiral, and the school-building construction program has already been cited for serious
cost overruns by a state audit.
Aucoin believes Question 1 will reverberate for years to come in Waltham. "Our initiative
was so bold that it won't soon be forgotten," he said. "And as our predictions of skyrocketing taxes continue to come true
over the next few years, many voters will think back to our initiative and kick themselves for not getting out to vote for
it."
Lesson #7: Property owners aren't the only ones who benefit
from tax cuts! Don't neglect to inform commercial and residential renters that if they fail to vote in local elections, they
will pay dearly! Rents will stay high and go up.
Lesson #8: No sitting
on the sidelines if you want less government! Donate to local tax-cut initiatives. Hold a sign on election day. Pass out fliers.
Talk to friends and neighbors about the benefits of voting YES. And above all, be sure to VOTE! Building momentum for shrinking
government requires every single tax cutter's help. If there is no tax cut initiative to support in your town, find
one in another town to support.
Lesson #9: Start learning how you
can make government small in your hometown. The Center For Small Government
is a terrific place to start. Visit today!
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