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Analysis: Sales Tax Boost Might Push Retailers To Breaking Point

The rhetoric over taxes is heating up on Beacon Hill.

Gov. Deval Patrick again threatened to veto a sales tax increase from 5 percent to 6.25 percent approved by the House, unless the legislature makes broad reforms in pension rules, ethics laws and the state's transportation bureaucracy.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo shot back that reforms in all these areas are underway, and that the sales tax increase is more prudent than increases in the gas tax and other taxes that Patrick has sought.

To get beyond the rhetoric and see what a sales tax increase would mean for consumers and the state, WBUR spoke to Harold Peterson, an associate professor of economics at Boston College.

This program aired on April 29, 2009. The audio for this program is not available.

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Bob Oakes Senior Correspondent
Bob Oakes was a senior correspondent in the WBUR newsroom, a role he took on in 2021 after nearly three decades hosting WBUR's Morning Edition.

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