The Black Friday Mass Exodus

How’s that 6.25% sales tax looking now?

Massachusetts’ loss is Juliana Aquino’s gain. The 27-year-old mother of two could have done her Black Friday shopping at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Methuen, where she lives. Instead, she made a 15-minute trek into New Hampshire, where there is no such thing as a sales tax.

“I come here all the time, even though there’s one closer,’’ Aquino said at 5 a.m. yesterday, pushing a shopping cart loaded with four flat-screen TVs. “I come up here even to buy groceries.’’

Massachusetts shoppers are fleeing the state’s rising sales tax in droves and shopping in New Hampshire. Fueled by necessity – and in some cases anger – customers said they were heading over the border to save money and score deals. Cars with Massachusetts license plates clogged the roads and lots across Salem. And through the early evening yesterday, the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem and Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua – both just a few miles over the border – reported spikes in traffic over last year, according to Laurel Sibert, a spokeswoman for Simon Malls, which runs both shopping centers.

“The New Hampshire malls have definitely benefited from the sales tax increase in Massachusetts,’’ Sibert said.

No surprises here… the reason why Black Friday is such a big hit with shoppers is because prices are lower; why can’t Beacon Hill figure this out?

Bob Bliss, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, said in an August interview with the Globe that the net revenue gains from the sales tax hike outweigh the $48 million in expected losses from sales diverted to New Hampshire, the Internet, or reduced demand. Officials at the Massachusetts Department of Revenue could not confirm projected losses in tax revenue from people going to New Hampshire yesterday. But a recent report by the department showed that Massachusetts’ tax revenues for the first half of November totaled $41 million, equal to collections over the same period last year.

So long as there is still a majority of Massachusetts residents being screwed by the increase in the sales tax, they are still happy. Thanks a lot.

Anyone who can, keep sticking it to them. Cross the border and free yourself of the overbearing tax burden that has been bestowed upon us by the same elected officials you keep voting for.

The Maine Reason

Last week, Maine became the 31st state to reject a referendum that would have legalized gay marriage.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the vote in a referendum that asked Maine voters whether they wanted to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had passed the Legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci.

“The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation,” said Frank Schubert, the chief organizer for Stand for Marriage Maine, which lobbied for the repeal.

For the gay rights movement, which has gained a foothold in New England, it was a stinging defeat. Gay marriage has now lost in every state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine, framing same-sex marriage as a matter of equality for all families in a campaign that used 8,000 volunteers to get out the message.

Five states have legalized gay marriage — Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut — but all did so through legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote.

Portland resident Sarah Holman said she was torn, but decided — despite her conservative upbringing — to vote in favor of letting gays marry.

“They love and they have the right to love. And we can’t tell somebody how to love,” said Holman, 26.

Hold on a minute here…let’s get the record straight. This vote did not outlaw homosexuality, it only outlawed gay marriage. They are still free to love to each other.

While the gay marriage opponents claimed victory, Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for No on 1/Protect Maine Equality, held off conceding until early Wednesday, when he issued a statement vowing to continue to press the issue.

The fight for marriage equality will continue, he told supporters at the Holiday Inn ballroom, where a buffet table included a three-tiered wedding cake — with two grooms standing side by side, two brides standing side by side and the inscription: “We all do!”

And this is why you will never, ever, ever see gay marriage be voted on by the people, and not ushered in by a small handful of judges. The pro-gay marriage movement knows that gay marriage will not survive a vote by the people…and they will stop at nothing to keep you from voting on it.

But hey, if you want to keep electing people that choose to effectively put duct tape over your mouths, by all means…

Suck On This One, Deval

John Lynch, the governor of New Hampshire, has signed a bill that would keep New Hampshire retailers from becoming sales tax collectors for Massachusetts and other states.

New Hampshire doesn’t have a general sales tax, a selling point it uses to attract out-of-state retail dollars. Lynch said today the new law will protect the state’s businesses and will help to strengthen our its economy.

Retailers wouldn’t have to provide sales information to out-of-state tax collectors. The other state would have to prove a good or service bought in New Hampshire is used, stored or consumed in the other state.

The bill was filed in response to action Massachusetts took against a Connecticut-based tire store chain. Massachusetts attempted to collect $108,000 in “use” taxes from Town Fair Tire for sales it made to Massachusetts customers at its New Hampshire stores.

I guess they’ll just raise taxes to get the money…

You Can’t Legislate Good Parenting

Once again, in the aftermath of an accident, the sprint to write new legislation to curtail the problem is underway…

The Green Line wreck blamed on a text-messaging trolley driver isn’t the only example of distracted drivers fueling a tragic trend that Beacon Hill lawmakers have yet to take action against.

Even in “live free or die” New Hampshire, where motorcyclists aren’t required to wear helmets, lawmakers have sprung into action, seeking a swift ban on texting for drivers in the wake of the MBTA crash that sent 49 to the hospital.

“I feel it’s really playing Russian roulette,” said Melissa Martin, whose 17-year-old daughter Amanda was killed while apparently texting behind the wheel in a 2007 wreck in Charlton. “You’re taking your attention off the road. . . . It can kill. My daughter is proof of that.”

She added, “If there were laws in place, kids and adults would think twice about repercussions like fines or having their license taken away.”

Okay, who are we kidding here? Laws put in place to curb things like texting while driving will be about as useful as anti-drunk driving laws (which are a long ways away from vanquishing drunk driving). A law against text messaging while driving by itself would not have saved the life of Melissa Martin’s daughter. Not even close.

A Bay State bill to ban motorists from using cell phones, except for hands-free devices, passed the House last year but died in the Senate. A similar measure is pending and the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Peter Koutoujian, plans to push it aggressively in the coming weeks.

“There is no possible way you could convince me that hands-free use of cell phones wouldn’t make it a safer environment to drive,” said Koutoujian (D-Waltham).

A former prosecutor, Koutoujian added that text-messaging drivers already are guilty of driving to endanger and should be punished accordingly.

Clearly, the worry here is with younger drivers…the drivers without years and years of driving experience who are most likely to be in an accident. Now, whose job is it to reinforce safe driving practices to new and young drivers?

The parents.

Legislation that tells drivers not to text while driving is trying to pick up where parents are failing. It’s the parents that need to talk to their own children about the dangers of driving with distractions like cell phones, texting, or even just adjusting the radio.

Beacon Hill will not solve the problem. The place where the discussion about the dangers of text messaging while driving doesn’t belong in the State House, it belongs inside your house; inside living rooms and at kitchen tables across the Commonwealth.

Interesting

What is Gov. Patrick up to now?

Governor Deval Patrick, who once headed the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department, plans to appeal a federal court ruling that allows minority police officers to pursue a civil rights lawsuit challenging the state’s promotional exam.

The Patrick administration filed notice Monday that it will appeal an April 7 ruling by US District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Tauro rejected the Patrick administration’s motion to dismiss the suit by 44 black and Hispanic patrol officers from seven departments who contend that the written civil service exam for sergeant is discriminatory.

“We are shocked that Deval Patrick is continuing to defend these exams and opposing our efforts to reform this discriminatory promotional system,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan of Boston, the lawyer for the officers. “With Deval Patrick as the governor, you’d think he’d be trying to fix this problem, rather than throw away the state’s money litigating it.”

Kyle Sullivan, a spokesman for Patrick, said in a statement that the governor “believes that all citizens in the Commonwealth should be afforded the same opportunities for employment.” Nonetheless, the administration, represented by Attorney General Martha Coakley, is seeking dismissal of the claims because the officers are employees of cities and towns, not the state, Sullivan said. Tauro rejected that position.

The lawsuit, which the officers unsuccessfully asked the judge to certify as a class action claim, is scheduled to go to trial next month.

At issue is a multiple-choice promotional exam prepared by the state Human Resources Division and used by about 200 police departments across the state, said Liss-Riordan. The 44 plaintiffs are patrol officers who took the exam since 2005 but have not received promotions. They work in police departments in Boston, Lawrence, Lowell, Methuen, Springfield, Worcester, and the MBTA Transit Police.

The officers say that the exam, which relies heavily on rote memorization of facts about law enforcement, discriminates against members of minority groups and has prevented advancement within the ranks. As a result, they said, supervisors in departments do not reflect the diversity of their communities.

In Lawrence, where minority groups make up three-quarters of the population, only two of the 39 police supervisors were members of minority groups, the officers said when filing the suit in September 2007. Methuen, which is more than 10 percent minority, had no minority members among its 25 supervisors, the suit said.

UPDATE: More from the Herald and Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: From Michael Graham.

THIRD UPDATE: More from Holly Robichaud, Mass. News Platoon, the Seattle Examiner, Somerville News, New Hampshire Business Review, the Herald and the Globe.

FOURTH UPDATE: From the Globe and Herald.