HERE’S A COLUMN on the Kerry state income tax issue mentioned here earlier:

On the issue of affluent Americans paying more income taxes, John Kerry is, as always, consistent in his inconsistency.

On the campaign trail, he’s in favor of raising taxes on everybody who makes over $200,000 a year. Unless, of course, he’s the one being asked to pay more, in which case, forget about it.

We know this because of a little whoopee cushion recently inserted into the income tax forms of his home state of Massachusetts.

Weary of liberals always clamoring for higher taxes on other people, an anti-tax group managed to place a line on the tax form giving Bay Staters the option of paying at the old, since-repealed 5.85 percent rate, rather than at the current 5.3 percent rate.

For two years now, John Kerry has had the opportunity to pay his “fair share.” But like some Benedict Arnold CEO, the Democratic Party candidate for president has taken the money and ran.

“Why do you even call asking about this?” his spokesman, Michael Meehan, said Saturday morning. “He has made the same decision as 99.9 percent of his fellow Massachusetts residents.”

Read the whole thing.