^^ Question 4 is the big controversial issue on tomorrow’s ballot

Tomorrow voters in our State will find four bllot questions requesting our yes or no.

Every voter has received the Secretary of State’s information sheet explaining these questions, plus arguments pro and con concerning each. I found this information made the matters more confusing, not less. Nonetheless, the questions are on the ballot. I now offer Here and Sphers’s take:

Question One would, if approved, increase the State tax on very high incomes. Fair Share is pushing this question. On many fronts I like Fair Share’s work. This time, however, it seems out of synch. The State is about to refund to taxpayers billions of dollars of EXCESS colleected revenue (pursuant to a 1986 law requir ing such refund). Why, with the State collecting much revenue MORE than budgeted, would we want, or need, to raise taxes further ? If anything, we should probably be cutting State taxes back.

Vote NO.

Question Two would change the State law on dental insurance charges to require that dentistry insurers apply to costs at least 83 percent of what they charge us — which, says the question, would put dental insurance on the same footing as other medical insurance. The State information does not explain why dental insurance allocations should be the same as other medical allocations. I am thus not convinced that dental insurance operates in the same cost lane as other medicals. Possibly the two insurance categories do incur the same cost but if so, the information does not show us that. I would like to vote yes, but without further information that seems necesary, the case here is “not proved.”

Vote NO

Question 3 would allow for more liquor licenses to be issued than are allowe euner current State and local regulations. i see no reason why not.

Vote YES.

Question 4 asks voters whether or not to approve the law passsed by the legislature, over Governor Baker’s veto, to allow undocumentd immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. Governor Baker’s objection is well founded : the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV), he says, doesn’t have a means for verifying that an undocumented applicant is who they say they are. Yet there’s a solid respons to his objection : 17 States have already made undocumented people’s driver licenses legal. Why can’t our RMV adopt similar verification procedures to those already being utilized in these 17 States ? I fund no reason why the Governor’s office cannot require the RMV to implement these procedures — problem solved.

As for the law itself, I agree that it is in everybody’s interest to not have unlicensed, uninsured drvers on the road.

Vote YES.

What do I think will the voters do ? It would not surpris eme one bit to see all four questions fail. uestion 3 is the most likely to pass. The others have a harder road. Voters in our State have become skeptical of ballot questions, usually with solid reason.

— Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere