Out Back Question of the Week—Answer

The Question was, who is the Speaker of the Massachusetts House and where does he or she stand on tax increases.

The answer is Mr Robert A DeLeo and today's Globe suggests he is for a bump of 1.25 percentage points in the sales tax.

As for the bonus question, I would think that it would (a) result in a few more people going out to dinner at restaurants and (b) people reducing the size of their tips by about a percentage point off the total bill. It is an experiment I am not interested in observing. On the other hand, we either cut programs, dip into the rainy day fund or we raise taxes in one way or another.

So, we now have the question, is this big enough to upset the voters, but not big enough to do the job without cutting programs?

Regards  —  Cliff