I Want It All

My God, it’s like the Duke never left…

Governor Deval Patrick signed a budget yesterday that imposes more than $1 billion in additional taxes on Massachusetts residents and visitors, most of it through the first increase in the state sales tax in 33 years, even as he declined to rule out a future boost in the state gas tax.

Patrick, whose earlier proposal for a 19-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax was largely ignored by the Legislature, continued to make the case yesterday that the tax could be necessary to put the state’s transportation network on sounder financial footing.

“We haven’t done that yet. We haven’t finished that work yet,’’ Patrick said, when asked if he would keep pushing for a gas tax. “And whether that’s the gas tax or something else, we’re going to have to face those issues, I think sooner rather than later.’’

Patrick aides said afterward that the governor had no current plans to push for a gas tax increase.

The governor made his comments as he signed a $27 billion budget that includes increases in the state’s sales, alcohol, satellite television, meals, and hotel taxes. Even while putting his signature on the budget, Patrick continued to try to distance himself from a first-in-a-generation increase in the state’s sales tax, which on Aug. 1 will rise from 5 percent to 6.25 percent.

“The sales tax is not my first choice, and not the preferred course,’’ he said. “It’s the course that the Legislature pursued. I preferred, and still do, more targeted revenue measures that raise, from a particular source, revenue for particular needs.’’

UPDATE: More from WBUR, the Herald, Boston Globe, Holly Robichaud, NECN and the Lynn Daily Item.

SECOND UPDATE: From Michael Graham and Red Mass Group.

THIRD UPDATE: From Michael Graham, Aaron Margolis, Jan Schlichtmann, Holly Robichaud, Mary Connaughton, the Boston Globe and Boston Herald.

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