The Sales Tax was a Foregone Concolusion

It seems that it was a foregone conclusion that the Senate was determined to follow the House's lead in raising the sales tax to 6.25%.  Any other tax ideas were off the table, and although freshmen Senators Sonia Chang-Diaz and Jamie Eldridge made a nice run at the income tax -- even lowering their sights from 6.3% to 5.9% -- that one wasn't going to happen.  The Governor's 19¢ gas tax idea was obviously a dead letter from the start.  So the sales tax it is.

Is this a good idea?  I'm not so sure.  Somehow I see an initiative and referendum sales tax rollback (if not an outright sales tax repeal) in our future.

Thoughts anyone?