Western Massachusetts loves taxes and the Quote of the Day

The Boston Globe published an article today titled about attitudes towards taxation in Massachusetts. According to a study, Bay Staters in southeastern Mass consistently reject tax hikes while: "The protax towns are all clustered in the Western part of the state," said John Barrett, director of research at the Beacon Hill Institute.

Any compelling reason why Western Mass embraces higher taxation?

Representative Ellen Story, an Amherst Democrat, said that people in her community believe that taxes help pay for necessary government services. "I think it shows that Amherst and the other towns surrounding Amherst all understand that taxes are the price you pay for a civilized society," she said. "Amherst does have three institutions of higher learning, two colleges, and one university. Often, when there are more educated people, they do understand that taxes are worth paying."

Sweet tap-dancing Moses! She didn’t really say that, did she? So that’s why all us gun-totin’, NASCAR-lovin’, Fox-watchin’ types don’t like taxes – we’re dumb!

It must give Ms. Story a warm feeling to fork over her earnings, secure in the knowledge that she can see the big picture. Al Gore intimated the same liberal superciliousness, the same moral perceptiveness, when he said the only reason Americans support conservative policies is because they’ve been hypnotized by a GOP propaganda machine. And recently George Will dedicated a column effectively lampooning the theory put forward by some professors that conservatism is a mental disease. The liberal cause is rooted in the mythology of socialism that automatically imbues true believers with moral superiority. It is inconceivable to them that others might think differently so, as the case with the psych professors, it can’t be that conservatives have actual “reasons” for their ideology, it’s because they suffer from fascist tendencies brought on by a short circuit in the brain.

One final word on Amherst. I live right next to Amherst and, for nine months out of the year, the local economy is sustained by the influx of thousands of students to the Five-College system (Amherst, Hampshire, University of Massachusetts, Mt. Holyoke (Holyoke) and Smith (Northampton). The vast majority of these students don’t have to worry about the crush of taxes; even if they’re working, they’re in the lowest bracket. So there’s a whole class of students largely unburdened by taxes under the tutelage of professors who, in the rarefied fantasy world of the Happy Valley, spend their spare time organizing anti-war rallies and protesting the American flag. But, in their twisted world, conservatives are the ones who need to understand.