From JJM’s “Matinee Mitt” piece , btw:
Romney’s first priority as governor involved the budget. The state had to deal with a $3 billion deficit. This being “Taxachusetts,” the Democrats’ preferred option was entirely predictable. It was also unacceptable to Romney. “You don’t create economic prosperity by raising taxes,” he says. He cut some programs, combined others, and looked for savings everywhere he could. In the end, he was forced to boost fees for a variety of government services by more than $200 million. “I know it’s kind of hard to distinguish between taxes and fees,” he says, “but we stayed away from broad-based fee increases such as driver’s-license registrations.” He says that balancing the budget without a tax hike has been his most significant accomplishment as governor. “We couldn’t be happier with him,” says Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation, the state’s leading taxpayer group. Steve Adams of Boston’s Pioneer Institute, a think tank, concurs: “Without Romney, we would have been slapped with a lot of new taxes.”