TAX REVOLTS ARE NOT A THING OF THE PAST:

Massachusetts. The issue is whether to erase the state’s income tax in two phases. The 5.3% tax would be sliced in half next year and then disappear entirely the following year. Advocates of repeal are hoping for support from voters worried about tough economic times and angered by bloated government spending. Six years ago, a similar proposal attracted 45% of the vote.

Eliminating this tax “will mean less money in the hands of politicians and will give back an average of $3,700 to each of 3.4 million workers and taxpayers in Massachusetts — not just once but every year,” says Carla Howell of the Committee for Small Government, a nonprofit citizen group battling to repeal the tax. “There are tax-cut activists around the country who are very interested in what we’re doing here,” she says. “If it does well, we may see copycat initiatives in 2010 and 2012 across the country.”

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington-based coalition of taxpayers and taxpayer groups opposed to tax increases, agrees. The Massachusetts vote, officially dubbed “Question One,” “could be a model for the future” in many other states, he says.

We interviewed Carla Howell yesterday; the podcast will be up later. The initiative to abolish the Massachusetts income tax got over 45% of the vote last time. Here’s more. And here’s the campaign website.