Politicians at war with the citizenry!

SPRINGFIELD - People may be nervous about the economy, but Gov. Deval L. Patrick heard from Western Massachusetts municipal leaders Thursday afternoon that potential disaster looms on the November ballot.

Any time you hear the words “potential disaster” and “ballot” it means someone is going to have less power than they used to having.

Patrick, holding a public meeting of his cabinet at the Bangs Community Center in Amherst, listened as Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins called for the public to rally against a ballot question that would eliminate the state’s 5.3 percent income tax.

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! “Come on people! Take arms against tax elimination!” That’s some funny shit right there. Something tells me folks won’t exactly be whipped up into a frenzy over that one.

Look at these quotes …

“I’m really challenging the whole room that we need to work together on this question,” Higgins told an overflow gathering of more than 175 people.

… and …

Chicopee Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette, echoing Higgins’ concern, said the ballot question “ought to scare the living daylights out of any thinking person.”

… and …

Bissonnette then put the issue in monetary terms, saying passage of the question would cripple Chicopee’s $150 million annual budget.

“We’ll cut that by a third if this thing passes,” Bissonnette said.

DISASTER! For politicians. For the citizens it actually might be kinda nice.

How did it get on the ballot? Good old fashioned hard work and pissed off liberty-minded citizens:

The question got on the ballot after a petition drive by the Committee for Small Government, led by Libertarian Carla Howell, got the necessary 11,000 signatures.

Nice job, right there.

I love watching politicians squirm. It makes me happy. Like donuts and coffee, well-written code, the smell of gunpowder in the morning, or a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.

Leslie A. Kirwan, secretary of administration and finance, said personal income taxes account for about $13 billion of the $28 billion state budget. “This is the most staggering challenge that faces us,” Kirwan said. “It’s very important that all of you do as much as you can to see that that ballot question does not prevail,” she said.

That’s just pure awesome. I love that it’s a “disaster” that there’s a challenge posed by thousands of like-minded residents.

And if you ever wondered if Deval Patrick was a complete tool, this should put to rest any doubt you’ve ever had in your mind:

“I don’t meet people who like paying taxes. … I don’t like paying taxes,” he said. However, the governor recalled living in Darfur in the Sudan after he graduated from Harvard College. There were no taxes - and more.

“(There were) no roads. No hospitals. No schools. No public safety,” Patrick said.

BBWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That’s it right there. Get rid of MA taxes and it’ll be farking DARFUR! Slaughter in the streets! No roads! No hospitals! No Schools! No PUBLIC SAFETY! Oh … stop … laughing too hard … gonna pee … Public Safety … in … Assachusetts … BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Deval Patrick is trying to tell you that no taxes are the reasons Darfur is what it is. If that holds true, then if MA doesn’t have a state income tax, everyone will have to live in dung huts, half of them will have Aids and Malaria and every day hundreds of people will be slaughtered by psychos wielding machetes. Oh, and Bono will show up regularly to hand out mosquito nets! In The Name Of Love!

Forgive me if I feel that’s a small stretch.

The governor then went to Holyoke for an outdoor town hall meeting at Holyoke Heritage State Park. Hundreds of people gathered in the evening heat as Patrick, his suit coat off and shirt sleeves rolled up, took questions and offered that the work of government is really the work of the public.

“Government is about us helping ourselves,” Patrick said.

No. Helping yourself is about helping yourself. Government nowadays (and particularly in MA), is about taking your money and funding billion dollar boondoggles, socialized health care, a disarmed citizenry (well, except for Jay), and politicians who sound as if though they’re about ready to spend every last penny and pull every trick in the book protecting state income tax.

Now, you knew this comparison would be inevitable … New Hampshire has no personal income tax and last I checked … we have roads. Schools. And pretty much everything else they DON’T in Darfur.

Darfur … oh, man, my sides hurt from that one …