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WHY VOTERS SUPPORT TAX LIMITATIONS: EVIDENCE FROM MASSACHUSETTS' PROPOSITION 2-1/2

Like two recent papers in this journal about tax limitation votes in California and Michigan, this paper uses survey data to examine why voters support tax limitations. The study uses data from a large 1980 survey of Massachusetts household heads to measure the importance of several policy-relevant reasons for supporting or opposing Proposition 2-1/2, a measure to limit local property taxes. The effects of views toward services (disaggregated by service category), spending and taxes, tax reform, government efficiency and the relative fiscal status of the household are distinguished from one another. The results indicate that the favorable vote was more an attempt to obtain lower taxes and more efficiency in government than to reduce the level of services or to substitute other revenues for the property tax. The consistency of these findings with those from other states implies a certain commonality to the tax revolt and suggests that findings can be generalized from one state to another.