Taxachusetts redux?

Where would we be without state Senate President Stan Rosenberg beating the drum for new taxes!

Yes, you can take the Democrat out of Amherst, but ... well, you know.

“It has been many years since we’ve been able to balance our budget without resorting to gimmicks and one-time revenue fixes — Band-aids that result in structurally imbalanced budgets the following years,” Rosenberg told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. “In effect, we’ve been propping up a sagging house without ever addressing the real problem — its shaky foundation.”

Rosenberg insisted that despite a stellar economic performance and an unemployment rate of 3.4 percent, the state’s solid economy simply isn’t translating into sufficient revenue — well, sufficient revenue to support all of the never-ending spending priorities that Rosenberg and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate can come up with, that is.

Of course, the Senate president is all gung-ho for the so-called “fair share” tax that would impose a 4 percent income surtax on those with incomes of $1 million or more — a constitutional amendment expected to make it to the 2018 ballot. (Its approval would pretty much demolish current constitutional prohibitions on a graduated income tax.)

But clearly that’s not enough for Rosenberg who this week also raised the horrifying specter of a sales tax on services. If that’s not a back-to-the-future moment, we don’t know what is.

He recalled that the Legislature did indeed pass such a tax in the waning days of the Dukakis administration only to repeal it before it ever went into effect after Gov. William Weld took office.

“So it’s very controversial, but our economy is even more reliant now than it was then on services and it is certainly worth looking at,” Rosenberg told the chamber.

Because why wouldn’t you kill the goose that is providing the state with so many golden eggs in terms of jobs and the income taxes that go with them?

Even the 2013 sales tax on computer services caused such a hue and cry in the state that the Legislature repealed that too.

The only good news here — and the best check on Rosenberg’s tax-it-till-they-scream attitude — is that tax bills must originate in the House. And that’s where the thus-far rather sensible Speaker Robert DeLeo has held the line on broad-based taxes. We remain optimistic he will continue to do so.