Is he ready for prime tax time?

Deval Patrick is smooth but he really doesn't have a tax plan, except perhaps to raise them. Mr. Patrick how do you plan to cut property taxes? Will you protect Proposition 2 1/2?

BOSTON --While lamenting $985 million in fee and tax hikes he said the Romney-Healey administration proposed or used to close a state budget deficit in 2003, Deval Patrick refused Wednesday to outline how he would have eliminated the $3 billion cash shortfall.

The Democratic gubernatorial nominee instead insisted his solutions for coping with such a cyclical economic phenomenon were not as important as lifting the veil on what he calls the administration's "fiscal shell game."

Patrick said Gov. Mitt Romney and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who herself is now the Republican gubernatorial nominee, portray themselves as conservative fiscal stewards, yet property taxes have gone up $1.8 billion while they have been in office, and various fees and taxes have also increased.

Healey wants to roll back to the state income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent, a reduction Patrick says the state, municipalities and homeowners cannot afford.

"My point is that if we are going to talk about an income tax rollback, let's start telling the truth, and this administration didn't tell the truth," Patrick said during a news conference called to draw attention to his housing proposals.

"It continues to talk about how it's a champion of income tax cuts when, in fact, it's been responsible for sharply higher fees and taxes at the state level and at the local level, and if we're going to do this going forward, what people can count of from me is that I will tell the truth."

Asked to define the economic "truth" he would have conveyed to state residents in 2003, when the deficit was pegged at between $2 billion and $3 billion, Patrick replied: "I'm not talking about going back. I'm talking about today."

He then walked away from the microphones assembled outside his campaign headquarters