Keller @ Large: Will Patrick Admit Computer Services Tax Was A Mistake?

BOSTON (CBS) - No one likes to admit they made a mistake, am I right? It's embarrassing at best, sometimes even mortifying.

But why?

Go online and you'll find tons of memorable quotes about the value of making, admitting and learning from mistakes.

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing," wrote George Bernard Shaw.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

Said Mahatma Ghandi: "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

There may not be all that many Shaws and Ghandis among them, but a growing number of our state legislators who last month voted to extend the 6.25% sales tax to a wide range of computer and software services - the largest tax of its kind in the country – are admitting that was a mistake.

As we told you the other day, it started in the Boston mayoral race and the contest to succeed Ed Markey in Congress, where candidates, presumably getting an earful from the voters, have been lining up to call for repeal of the tax.

And Tuesday, the State House News Service reported that top senators like Dick Moore from Uxbridge are expressing interest in repeal.

But an even more interesting development is the misgivings being expressed by the new head of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, Tim Murray, who says the software tax may be a "deterrent" to growth in a key economic sector.

Murray, of course, was lieutenant governor when Gov. Patrick first proposed the tax last winter.

Perhaps he'll now lobby his former partner to admit his mistake, once he returns from August in the Berkshires.

He could cite the British poet John Powell, who said: "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.