To Dream What Never Was and Ask, "Why Not?"

Over Thanksgiving one of the Mustard Street quartet, discouraged by Spitzer's loss of mojo, discussed with an aunt the apparent hopelessness of real change in New York in our lifetime.

Aunt Betsy, who's been around longer than any of us, recalled attending an anniversary dinner for National Review magazine back in the early seventies.   This, she noted, was when the Cold War division of the world seemed about as permanent a feature of life as anyone other than the most visionary could imagine.   One speaker brought the crowd to its feet with a concise assertion of the two main goals of conservatives:   roll back Communism and repeal the income tax.   In the 1970's both apparently seemed hopeless causes.   Yet here we are today.

One down and one to go.

We were reminded of this by a story that right next door, in Massachusetts, voters will decide in a referendum next year whether to repeal the state income tax.

Massachusetts was once known as "Taxachusetts" and "the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts."   But that's changed.  From here in the Banana Republic of New York, getting to vote on repealing the income tax looks like democracy at its best.