Celebrating Prop 2 1/2
PROPOSITION 2 1/2 was passed by voters on Nov. 4, 1980. It was a revolution, a passionate and controversial ballot campaign; now, 25 years later, it is an institution.
Yes, once upon a time the property tax burden was the second-highest in the nation, which called us Taxachusetts.
Over the decades, taxpayers had been promised lower property taxes in return for other revenue sources. So by 1980 we had a high income tax, a sales tax, a lottery, and high property taxes. Further, we were one of the few states with an automobile excise and something called school committee fiscal autonomy, which gave local schools any amount of money they requested regardless of the wishes of city councils or town meetings.
On top of this, instead of getting a fair share of state tax revenues in local aid, the cities and towns had to fund any new bright idea that came down from Beacon Hill. On top of that, the courts had just ordered all communities to comply with the state Constitution and assess all property at its full and fair market value. Many homes were assessed much lower; people imagined the community's existing tax rate being applied to their home's true value.
Between outrage at broken tax relief promises and panic about the coming revaluation, Proposition 2 1/2 was born. Citizens for Limited Taxation collected signatures on an initiative petition that limited property taxes to 2.5 percent of a community's value, cut the auto excise from $66 per $1,000 to $25 per $1,000, gave renters an income tax deduction, repealed school committee fiscal autonomy, and forbade new unfunded state mandates on cities and towns.
Battle lines were drawn: CLT, the Massachusetts High Technology Council, the Massachusetts Auto Dealers Association, and the National Federation of Independent Business against almost everybody else. Leading opponents were the Legislature, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and other public employee unions, various human service organizations, the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the Catholic Church, and, incredibly, the Massachusetts Association of Older Americans.
Union fliers featured either a picture of a gun shooting backward, titled ''How Prop 2 1/2 Works," or the heading ''Cutting taxes? Or cutting our throats?" Human service fliers featured a senior with a walker, a young man in a wheelchair, and a couple of minority kids looking terrified.
There were debates galore, hours of talk radio devoted to the issue, yard signs, bumper stickers. The League of Women Voters held one-sided forums that presented only its point of view: ''Prop 2 1/2 will cause drastic cutbacks in basic public services."
Nevertheless, the people passed Prop 2 1/2, 59-41.
Then the battle really began: public employee marches, demands for repeal. But the Legislature, getting the message, decided to work with the people's law. CLT teamed up with MMA, legislative Republicans, and conservative Democrats to get more local aid. Town finance committees finally had access to the overgrown school budgets.
With Governor Ed King promising a veto of any changes that would damage Prop 2 1/2, a sensible provision for new growth was added, and the 2/3 vote for an override became a majority vote for various kinds of overrides, intended for bonding projects or emergencies. Local officials were more respectful of taxpayers whose support might be needed to pass them. Local aid increased almost every year. Opponents who had prophesied the end of the world looked silly.
Back then, of course, it was impossible to imagine voters raising their own taxes for operating expenses and teacher pay raises. Twenty-five years later, the property tax burden is still too high, at eighth in the nation. The long-term goal, to get education spending off the property tax, has yet to be realized. But individual taxpayers have saved a bundle on both the property tax limit, the rental deduction, and the auto excise cut.
A new study by CLT, available on its website, www.cltg.org, tracked the property taxes of nine individuals and families, including me, before and after Prop 2 1/2. I pay $3,109 on my five-room cottage in Marblehead, assessed at $376,400 this year. If I had to pay the same annual increase I was paying during the 1970s, my taxes would be $6,710.
A family in Malden saved $5,834 this year alone. A recently married gay couple in Saugus saved $2,173. A straight married couple who raised three children in Scituate, $5,787. A widowed retired social worker in East Bridgewater, $1,260. A former military family in Billerica, $2,400. They all celebrate 2 1/2, 25 years old this week.
Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, which created Proposition 2 1/2. 
