After the Sales Tax

Massachusetts liberals were elated last weekend by the Senate's passage of Governor Volpe's three per cent limited sales tax. Enactment of the new tax plan, they reasoned, would provide the state with the funds to implement long overdue programs in the areas of education, mental health, welfare, and metro-politan planning. We hope that their enthusiasm was not premature.

The fourteen month tax impasse has aggravated the split between the Republican Governor and the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. And there is little reason to expect that the same legislators who for many years have been oblivious to the problems of the core city, the need for metropolitan planning, and the urgency for doing away with the state's corrupt and wasteful patronage system will act any differently in 1966.

Passage of the sales tax is an important step forward, but it is no magical cure for Massachusetts' ills. New leaders with a genuine and less political commitment are still desperately needed.