(NECN: Alison King, Boston) - Mass. Governor Deval Patrick outlined his tax plans during Wednesday's state of the state address.
Governor Patrick said that increasing income taxes by 1 percent - from 5.25 percent to 6.25 percent - and decreasing the state's sales tax to 4.5 percent will provide funding for his ambitious education, transportation and infrastructure initiatives.
It was the kind of state of the state address that only a governor not seeking re-election could give. If passed by the Legislature, the tax plan could be one of the largest tax increases in recent history, not seen since 1967.
"The opportunity is too important to leave to chance," Governor Patrick said.
With only two years left in his second and final term in office, Governor Patrick used his state of the state address to lay out series of ambitious proposals that would pump $1 billion into the state's aging transportation system and half a billion dollars into education reform.
This, at a time when the state is already struggling to pay its bills.
"Meeting those needs demands new revenue," Patrick said. "Now, there is no good time to raise taxes. This is the point I knew in this speech when silence would fall over the hall."
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The income tax proposal's money would be channeled into the education reform proposal.
"I will propose that we double the personal exemptions for every taxpayer and eliminate a number of itemized deductions," Governor Patrick said. "Making those changes gives us a tax code that is simpler and fairer."
Alison King has more on the story in the attached video.
