ith three weeks remaining before the election, the two sides battling over a $1.2 billion tax cut take their fight to the TV airwaves this week, with aggressive ads aiming at winning over middle-class voters.
The 30-second spots unveiled yesterday echo the presidential campaign clash over tax cuts, with supporters arguing that the reduction will help the economy and foes deriding the measure, saying it would give ''the richest taxpayers'' most of the benefits.
The union-backed opponents of the measure are spending $718,000 on commercials between now and the Nov. 7 election in an attempt to convince the public that the money for the tax cut would be better spent on improving education or health care, as well as paying down state debt.
''Yes, it's an uphill fight,'' conceded Jim St. George of the Campaign for Massachusetts' Future. ''That's not to say it's an impossible battle. But the biggest challenge we face is just getting voters' attention.''
Meanwhile, the Tax Rollback Committee, the lead group supporting the initiative, is not taking anything for granted, despite recent polls indicating that the measure would pass by a 3-to-1 ratio.
''Anyone who wants to sit on a lead in politics won't win,'' said John Brockelman, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party and spokesman for the Rollback Committee.
The backers will spend about $500,000 in the Boston and Springfield television markets over the next week and again in the final days before the vote. However, Brockelman said the group may spend more.
The ballot question, proposed and championed by Governor Paul Cellucci, would reduce the income tax rate from 5.85 percent to 5 percent over three years.
Perhaps it's no surprise that the Stevens and Schriefer Group, which does political ads for Governor George W. Bush's presidential campaign, also created the commercial for the Rollback Committee. The argument Bush employs in support of his federal tax cut is the same one that Cellucci is using in Massachusetts: Don't trust the government with your money; let taxpayers decide how to spend the cash themselves.
The Rollback Committee's commercial focuses on the fact that the state Legislature raised the income tax rate in 1989 with the promise that it would be a temporary increase to help pull the state through the recession.
''Eleven years ago, the Legislature raised the income tax rate promising to cut it as soon as the deficit was erased,'' the ad states, alternately showing a family in the produce aisle of a grocery store and lawmakers milling about the floor of the House. ''Today we have $4 billion in cash reserves. It's time they keep their promise. A `Yes' vote on 4 will provide a tax cut for working families without cutting a single program, making Massachusetts more competitive and impose fiscal discipline on a Legislature eager to spend. Vote `Yes' on 4. Roll back the rate. Make them keep their promise.''
The opponents' ad shows an unenrolled voter, Nancy Villone of Medfield, looking over the www.factson4.com Web site as she says: ''I've been thinking about voting for Question 4, the Cellucci-Swift tax plan. But then I looked it up on the Web, and I found out we'd lose the chance to reduce class sizes and help our kids learn to read. Or even improve health care.
''And I saw that our state's debt is the fourth highest in the nation, $33 billion. Shouldn't we pay some of that off? And the richest taxpayers get most of the break. When I checked it out, I decided. I'm voting no on Question 4.''
However, supporters of the rollback were quick to point out not just what they perceive to be faulty arguments from the ad, but misspellings. The state and the governor's last name are missing letters on the Web site, as taped for the commercial. (Both errors, ''Celluci'' and ''Massachusets,'' have since been corrected on the Web site.
''The ads are paid for by money from the Massachusetts Teachers Associations,'' said A Promise to Keep, another group in favor of the rollback, in a news release.
Under Question 4, the tax rate would drop to 5.6 percent next year, 5.3 percent in 2002, and 5 percent thereafter.
A ''no'' vote would make no change in the rate. But last year, the Legislature agreed to reduce it to 5.75 percent by 2001.
