Friday, June 30, 2006
Fair Taxes? Nah!
The latest bunch of Einsteins have submitted another report on the state tax system. There are two pieces of good news here. One, we did not pay for it. Two, it wasn’t written by Yankees. The consultants (insert nasty side references of your own choosing here) have decided that Arkansas should make the income tax fairer to the middle class. Thanks guy, we needed that.
They also figured out that exemptions to the sales tax should be abolished. That notion has only been kicking around for the past fifty years. It was a huge topic of discussion in the original push to improve public education back in 1983. Somehow, the experts seem to have omitted increasing the severance tax on natural gas. That seems especially appropriate since the Fayetteville shale has brought so much activity to the state. It seems that they did not even discuss the sales tax on groceries.
I, for one, am certainly grateful to the Center for a Better South for stating the obvious. Unfortunately, state lawmakers seem a lot more sensitive to the whims of lobbyists than the folks back home. The benefit of this kind of information being released is that we do need to be reminded so that things don’t get any worse.
(Broadcast June 30, 2006, Arkansas Priority Radio Network)
They also figured out that exemptions to the sales tax should be abolished. That notion has only been kicking around for the past fifty years. It was a huge topic of discussion in the original push to improve public education back in 1983. Somehow, the experts seem to have omitted increasing the severance tax on natural gas. That seems especially appropriate since the Fayetteville shale has brought so much activity to the state. It seems that they did not even discuss the sales tax on groceries.
I, for one, am certainly grateful to the Center for a Better South for stating the obvious. Unfortunately, state lawmakers seem a lot more sensitive to the whims of lobbyists than the folks back home. The benefit of this kind of information being released is that we do need to be reminded so that things don’t get any worse.
(Broadcast June 30, 2006, Arkansas Priority Radio Network)
