The Sales Tax -- Almost There

Despite last Friday's 22-18 defeat of Governor John A. Volpe's fourth limited sales tax proposal, it appears that passage of his fiscal program is assured next time around. The governor has received assurance from at least three more Democratic senators--all that are needed--that they will support his program when it is resubmitted. That they voted against the plan was a simple courtesy to Senate President Maurice A. Donahue, principal opponent of the sales tax.

It's about time. Passage of the measure is long overdue, as the last ten months of debate have amply demonstrated. Not only are the state's present finances in disastrous condition; not only must the present confiscatory property tax rates in the cities and towns be lowered to relieve overburdened homeowners and attract much needed industry to the depressed areas of the Commonwealth; not only does the governor have an election mandate for his plan but the future of Massachusett's schools depends upon raising sufficient revenue to implement the provisions of the Willis Commission Report and raise education in the state up to adequate standards.

Excellence in education is of course vital to the future of any state, but it is particularly important to Massachusetts, whose best trump card in the high stakes game of attracting industry is its labor force. Also, a long range solution to the problem of racially imbalanced schools in Boston and elsewhere can be reached only with a large-scale, necessarily costly, school construction program.

The performance of the Democratic leadership during the battle can only be described as disgraceful. Unable to come up with a realistic alternative of their own to the sales tax (Democratic leaders did not even bother to release their own program from the House Ways and Means Committee because it was certain to be defeated), they took the negative tack of attacking the governor's programs. How the bitter-end opposition of Donahue, unannounced gubernatorial candidate, has accomplished anything but to better Volpe's chances for reelection is difficult to see.

There is one dark cloud left on the horizon, however. An amendment successfully affixed to the House-passed version of the bill provides that revenue from the sales tax be used only for welfare expenditures and the reduction of the tax rate, not for education.

How then, are increasing costs of education and all the other functions of municipal government going to be met without increasing appropriations and hence keeping the property tax high? Volpe's program is intended to relieve the burden of property owners, not to juggle it. It makes little difference whether a property owner is held up to pay Peter or Paul. Hopefully, no such amendment will frustrate the program when it comes to the floor again.

If the sales tax is passed, it will be due to Volpe's ten months of steady chipping at the opposition, of thousands of hours of work, of interviews, or speeches of pleading, selling, persuading, of comparing dozens of roll call sheets. The governor is about to take the last step in a journey of ten thousand miles. He is to be congratulated on finishing that journey.