FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BEVERLY REPUBLICAN CITY COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON SALES TAX INCREASE

The Beverly Republican City Committee released the following statement today in response to Monday's vote by the Massachusetts House of Representatives to raise the state's sale tax to 6.25% despite a veto threat from Governor Patrick. Representative Mary Grant (D-Beverly) voted in favor of the tax increase. The Beverly Republican City Committee continues to call on the legislature to pursue real cost-saving reform, including giving cities and towns the ability to control employee health costs.

"It is disappointing to see that Rep. Grant chose to support this 25% sales tax increase but certainly not surprising given her consistent record of raising taxes for citizens and businesses in the commonwealth," commented Brett Schetzsle of the Beverly Republican City Committee.

"Raising taxes during a recession is a bad enough idea, but this sales tax increase will especially hurt families and retailers, leading to even tighter household budgets and job losses in an important sector of the state's economy. Over the past several months, there has been wide discussion about the state's over-reliance on volatile capital gains taxes and how that has made this recession even harder on Massachusetts and so to help fix that problem, the majority of House Democrats have chosen to increase an almost equally volatile tax."

Schetzsle added, "Republicans in the legislature recognized that raising the sales tax was an awful policy approach and called on the Governor to promise a veto and he responded with that promise. It is good to see that with the 35 Democrats who voted against this increase along with House Republicans there is a growing coalition on Beacon Hill finally willing to fight for taxpayers and for a sustainable state budget. Unfortunately for taxpayers in Beverly, Rep. Grant is not among that group."