Massachusetts lawmaker who voted to raise the sales tax caught in New Hampshire avoiding the sales tax

Earlier this year Massachusetts lawmakers increased the state sales tax from 5% to 6.25%, an increase of 25%. In doing so they also pulled a fast one on Massachusetts residents. They extended the sales tax to alcohol which was exempt from the sales tax because there is already an excise tax on alcohol in Massachusetts. Massachusetts now has two taxes on alcohol. Needless to say the sales tax is calculated on the full cost to the consumer meaning that part of the sales tax that Massachusetts residents are now paying on alcohol is a tax on the excise tax. Massachusetts residents are being taxed on a tax.

One of the arguments that was used against increasing the sales tax was the fact that this would drive Massachusetts residents into New Hampshire to buy goods in order to save on the tax. Once this new tax was applied to alcohol it was inevitable that Massachusetts residents would flock to New Hampshire to buy their booze. New Hampshire residents are laughingly calling the increase in the Massachusetts sales tax the Massachusetts “New Hampshire stimulus package” and New Hampshire politicians have gone on record as thanking Deval Patrick for stimulating the New Hampshire economy.

The idea that so many Massachusetts resident would flock to New Hampshire in numbers that would neutralize the revenue intake of Massachusetts was laughed at by proponents of the sales tax increase. Michael J. Rodrigues, a Massachusetts lawmaker who voted to increase the sales tax, was one of the people who decided that the increase in the sales tax and extension of the sales tax to alcohol was a vital and neccessary sacrifice that Massachusetts resident should make.

However just last weekend Michael J. Rodrigues was spotted pulling into a New Hampshire state liquor store, in his official Massachusetts vehicle no less, and loading up on alcohol to transport tax free back into Massachusetts.

Rodrigues claimed that he was just buying a car load of booze while making a rest area stop and blamed the uproar on Republicans.

He also blamed the brouhaha on “Republican demagoguery.” “Unfortunately, I think that’s why the Republican Party is in such bad shape in Massachusetts,” Rodrigues is quoted as saying. “The electorate here is smart enough to figure out what they’re up to

He voted to extend the sales tax to alcohol and then he crossed state lines to avoid the tax that he supposedly feels that all Massachusetts resident should pay. And then he has the balls to blame the very few Republicans legislators that are in Massachusetts. I hope that he is right about one thing. When he says that “The electorate here is smart enough to figure out what they’re up to” I hope that he is right and that the voters in Massachusetts are indeed smart enough to see what is going on here.

This man is nothing but a hypocrite. He felt that extending the sales tax to alcohol was necessary and he thought it was fair to tax the excise tax on alcohol. He asked Massachusetts residents to sacrifice for the good of the state, the least that he could do would be to adhere to the same sacrifices that he is asking his constituents to adhere to.

Besides the hypocrisy of this man on this issue there is one more aspect to this story that I would like to write about. Massachusetts has what they call a “use tax” that means that any goods that are bought by Massachusetts residents out of state that is to be used in the state of Massachusetts must be claimed on state tax returns so that the state can collect the sales tax. This law is not enforceable and Deval Patrick took on a campaign to strong arm New Hampshire businesses to collect Massachusetts sales tax. This was met with great dissatisfaction by all of New Hampshire politicians and New Hampshire quickly passed a law that would bar Massachusetts from infringing on the interstate commerce clause of the constitution. And recently the Massachusetts supreme court ruled that Deval Patrick’s attempt to infringe on state’s rights was unconstitutional.

So I find it very interesting that the governor of Massachusetts tried to collect sales tax from New Hampshire businesses and meanwhile his own legislators are streaming over the border to avoid the sales tax that they themselves agreed to raise.

So yes, I hope that Massachusetts voters are smart enough to realize what is going on, but not in the way that Rodrigues claimed. I hope that they are catching on to the type of duplicitous dirtbags they have elected to run their state. If Deval Patrick’s 20% approval rating is any indication, the voters are finally catching on.