BOSTON -- This is the time of year when we typically look back and assess how things went, and it's no different for Gov. Deval Patrick.

NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu spoke with Patrick as he looked back at 2009 and toward the future. As he justifies his first term, opponents are lining up to challenge him.

"Do you get the sense that the sales tax is going to come back and bite you in November?" Wu asked.

"They're going to try. It's a crummy time to raise taxes. I know that," Patrick said.

This year, Patrick signed a 25 percent hike in the sales tax after the legislature refused to let him raise the gas tax. He knows his opponents will hit him hard on it, but he says it is because of a global economic meltdown and people like Republican Charlie Baker, who is running against him but was part of the Weld and Cellucci administrations.

"The squirreling away and hiding of billions of dollars of debt from the Big Dig -- it started then and continued in the years since," Patrick said.

"Are you willing to commit that if re-elected, you will not approve any more broad base taxes, be they sales, capital gains, income, gas?" Wu asked.

"If you're asking me, if I'll take the new no tax pledge, I'm not going to take the no new taxes pledge. It's not because I have a secret plan to raise taxes. I don't think slogans are the way to govern," Patrick said.

But what about cuts? So far, he's avoided the most sacred political cow on Beacon Hill. How much longer can he do it?

"You wouldn't take the no new tax pledge. Will you take the 'I will not cut local aid pledge?'" Wu asked.

"I'm having to make some miserable budget decisions. I see those faces behind and aspirations behind every single one of those line items. It weighs on me," Patrick said.

Patrick said that next month will be the first test. His first budget in the new year -- an election year -- is due in a few weeks.