Jeff Jacoby offers 4 reasons for a sales tax rollback, one based on BHI's work

JEFF JACOBY:

There is some upside to the passage of Question 3. Consumers will have more dollars to spend in Massachusetts. The money doesn't disappear from the state's economy. It goes somewhere else including making retailers along all of the Massachusetts borders a bit more competitive.

Because a lower tax rate will generate economic growth. An analysis by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University shows that a sales-tax rollback to 3 percent "would create 27,199 private sector jobs, increase annual investment by $73 million, and raise wages by $1.03 billion." Money not confiscated by the public sector would remain in the far more productive private sector, while a sales-tax reduction would give Massachusetts businesses a competitive advantage. And any government jobs eliminated would be more than offset by the creation of new jobs in the private economy

It's time to broaden the debate beyond the diet of fear the public's been served.