Restraining the Leviathan: property tax limitation in Massachusetts

The support given by the people of Massachusetts to the Proposition 2 1/2, a ballot initiative that dramatically reduced local property taxes, can be attributed to a perception among the people regarding agency losses that will result from the difficulty of monitoring government. The support given by the people can also be attributed to a belief that the government is inefficient because the people have high tax burden. Three theories of voter sentiment, namely the agency loss theory, the regret theory and the personal finance theory, were proven based from the patterns of votes support.