KK,

The stats you quoted were not the sum of all parts (the tax stats cited were from '01 and were idenified as 'income taxes'. Sales tax is a seperate entity altogether.

I know about cumlative taxation because I did a paper on it in college--but that's going back many moons. My thesis was (and is) that you can have either a state income tax or a state sales tax to meet state expenses (there's no need for both).

I don't know of a website that compares both state income and state sales tax (if applicable) to that of others.

You can Google Massachusetts income/sales tax and add them together and compare them to other states (they're aren't that many that have both--for good reason).
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Speaking of Massachusetts, taxation and representaion, isn't it TYRANNY that Massachusetts residents are paying taxes while Senator Kerry draws a Senators salary and benefits while missing over 75% of the senate votes while running for president?

Bob Dole did the appropriate thing and resigned from the senate when he ran for president in 1996. He did this so his constituents in Kansas could have representation in the senate while he was preoccupied with running for president.

Wasn't it a James Otis (from Massachusetts) that said, "Taxation without representaion is TYRANNY"?

You'ld think a well educated Beacon Hiller like John Kerry would be familiar with that quote.

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