The answer is NO

Yup - this is the way you get the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award by raising taxes.

Don't blame me I voted for Baker.

If you make less that $102,000 a year, you get a tax cut. In the upper income levels the maximum tax increase is $3,200 a yeare. Guess who's bitchin' the loudest? GOOD JOB Deval!

"the worst of the recession is over"...according to who?   

Join us here in NH.  Even though our new governor is a Dem, she took the pledge to not enact a sales or income tax.

What is the governor thinking? why does he place the burden on residnets of the state? why would you raise income taxes and lower sales tax? Granted we don't like the higher sales tax but visitors to the state help fund the state's coffers? In addition why not raise tolls for out of state people and leave them alone for residents. We are a great state for vacations, conventions, and tourism. why place the burden on us? As usual the governor can not think like a business person. In addition where are the cuts in the budget and the lower tax rate we as voters voted for.?

The combination of higher income taxes and lower sales taxes is bizarre indeed.  As pointed out below, it misses an opportunity to impose more of a burden on visititors as opposed to residents.  But even more importantly, it punishes those working legitimately "over the table" and benefits those in the underground economy.  Why do you think they have VAT taxes in Europe?  It's the only way to raise revenue from the underground economy. 

The cost of heat, food, gas are high,  we're still in recession, and Patrick needs a choo-choo to take his friends in the Berkshires to Cape Cod? 

Where Elizabeth Warren?  HELP, We Are GETTING HAMMERED!!!!

I'd rather se them perfect a state-of-the-art snow removal system where we don't see three trucks, side by side, plowing a clear, wet street the day AFTER a snow storm!  Also agree with Fred, below, about the decreasing the sales tax (which was initially put through to pay for all eucation in the state), and increasing the income tax (while increasing the personal exemption).

add this to Obama's tax increases and we are working for liberals

Why not some reform first?  Its hard to get behind the idea of giving the MA Gov more money with so much corruption and graft.  And what "prosperity" was he talking about in his speech-didn't he just cut the budget.  Also unemployment is rising.  Perhaps they could start by cutting one or more of the many "holidays" they all get not to mention "personal" days , etc, etc.  That would save millions.

Here we go again.  The public sector grows as the private sector shrinks.   The shrinking private sector is called upon to pay more and more taxes to support the growing public sector.  The end game is socialism.

And for some reason there is still befuddlement when the frustration of a person or group finally boils over to become something much darker.

From the article: "In the House chamber, which was filled with administration officials and Democrats, there was applause when the governor called for more taxes and spending." That about says it all. No doubt there's more applause coming from public sector unions and all those other "public servants" who've been riding the gravy train for years (decades? generations?). I'd consider additional taxes only if the money were used to fund an outside agency to investigate the appalling corruption in this state.

My child does not have her own science text book and our school can't provide extra help in math for all the children who need it. Per pupil spending varies from $10,000 per child to $26,000 per child, because towns and cities rely on the property tax to fund schools. We recently passed on Over-Ride to keep from laying off 60 teachers, but we need a better and fairer way to pay for education. An income tax makes sense that is enough to provide a quality education for all. Yes, we need to be careful about how we spend our money, but the system now needs money. Our full time teacher's aides are paid only $16,000 per year. Thanks to the Governor for his leadership on this. Michael Jacoby Brown, Arlington, MA

Eliminate all the fraud, theft and waste first. Start by getting back the 19,000 EBT cards and money going to non-existent people

There should be no argument with respect to investing in transportation infrastructure and education, two things that will yield dividends going forward. I'm not a Patrick fan but I applaud him for putting forth such an ambitious agenda. As he said, there should be much debate.

Personally I would like to see how our tax dollars are spent. Government spending should be transparent. Show us the agencies we fund, what their mission is and what their budgets are. It shouldn't take Globe investigative teams to tell us where our money is being squandered. Pull back the curtain on current spending and let the debate begin!

I'm getting hit from all sides.

More Federal tax. More State Tax. More local Real Estate Tax, More for Food, Fuel, Utilities and Health Care...where

does this stop.  Deval want more for transportation, but what is he doing to fix the reason for this mess.  Education

is for our children, but where is the money for education going.  I see too many dollars going into $100Million

buildings rather than real education.  In the meantime not enough has been done to stop/curtail funds going

towards public, semi public and mon profit groups for retirement/health benefits...which will consume more

funds for years to come.  How many sex change operations will we be funding for jail occupants?  Just look

at a phone book under government agencies...surely there are too many overlaping agencies.  Yes, I would like to

see improvements in transportation and education, but also want to see quite a bit of improved efficiency in

state programs...like 300+ housing agencies and EBT distributions!

The reason for all tax increases is to do "good things" to make "investments in our future" and "for the children". Money is fungible. You can say the increase is going to be "earmarked" for one thing or another but there's no mechanism or law to insure taxes raised for "education" will not simply allow more room to raise public employee salaries, raise pension benefits or create another round of sinicures for the politically connected. There's no way of knowing that merely spending more on education is going to improve results, in fact there's plenty of independent studies that show, over and over again, that educational outcomes have little to do with the spending. Head Start, for example, has been studied multiple times, children tracked for relative progress, and guess what? The billions spent on Head Start do not result in ANY lasting educational improvement. ANY. If you want to sell tax increases its always cloaked with "for the children"  rhetoric but there's no assurance any of these NEW sums will be spent more productively by the state than by taxpayers on their own kids. State transportation, like all state programs should be funded on a PRIORITY basis, within the framework of affordable taxation. Just cherry picking items like new train service (which is of dubious value in the first place) and then calling for "seperate" funding for them is simply and end run around the fundamentals of budget management. This is simply more of the cynical game this state and the federal government play. "Trust us" we can spend your money better than you can in your private lives. Does anyone really believe that anymore? 

This plan will only make our state taxes more progressive.  They already are in that the lowest income earners are exempt from the state income tax and capital gains (interest, dividends...) are taxed at around double the rate as regular income.  And, of course, higher income persons earn more capital gains.  The elderly are also harder hit here as well since more of their income is in the form of capital gains.

Point is, more affluent people will be further encouraged to leave the state, taking with them the tax dollars they would have contributed, their consumption of Mass goods and services and, oftentimes, their jobs.  The state could be a big loser here.

Add to this the fact that at least the sales tax, burdensome though it is, culls money from all those who don't pay income tax - those on the dole, in the underground economy, whatever, as well as vistors to the state.

Hammer the middle class with income tax increase. Take care of the welfare class with sales tax deduction. Deval for president!

"Governor Deval Patrick, ­unleashed from the political constraints of a looming election, unveiled a bold plan Wednesday for his last two years in office, proposing to hike the state income tax while slashing the sales tax."..And BOSTON GLOBE is also UNLEASHED from the political constraints of insisting that Deval was telling the truth when he told voters in 2010 and 2012 that he would never raise taxes. ..And the same Golbe DEMANDED that voters reject the Question 2 which called for an end to MA income taxes.

Elizabeth Warrn says "The Middle Class is getting HAMMERED!"