Another bright idea
Posted on Wednesday, December 13, 2006
HERE’S another bright idea about
how to spend some of that big
(and growing ) state surplus. Kim Hendren, the state senator from Gravette, liked what soon-to-be ex-Guv Mike Huckabee had to say on the subject—that some $ 250 million of the surplus be used for tax relief. So the senator grabbed hold and made the scheme his own. With an important difference. Mike Huckabee had the political smarts not to get too specific. After all, there’s a new governor, another Mike, in the wings, and his ideas will take precedence. The best way to provide the kind of tax relief Mike Huckabee was talking about is to eliminate the sales tax on groceries. Period. No ifs, ans, or anything elses. But Kim Hendren sounds like too many other legislators these days. He’s got a plan for everything but ending the food tax. His pet project ? Give taxpayers a 3 percent cut on their taxes for a couple of years. Senator Hendren called it a way to pay back taxpayers for the 3 percent surcharge that was added to the state income tax in 2003-05.
Times were tougher then, so the Ledge imposed the surtax to keep from cutting more state services. It worked. Arkansas got through the lean times and is now in such good shape that the surplus is closing in on a cool billion.
We hate to look a tax cut in the mouth, but this one needs to be checked out carefully—and then put aside. Sure, a refund of the surtax would be nice. But first things first. Let’s concentrate on ending the grocery tax before we start distributing the surplus in other ways and never get around to eliminating the unfairest tax on the books—the one on food itself.
Here’s why now’s not the time for Kim Hendren’s refunds. The buzzards are circling the surplus. You can almost hear the ca-ching at the Ledge, where the usual grabby pols are just itching to get their eager hands on all that spare change. They want their cut so they can go back home and spread it around. They call it General Improvements, and they’ll take credit for every one of them in their district. It’s a form of re-election insurance. Hey, it all goes back to the taxpayers anyway, right ?
Yes, but there’s a better way to send it back than just spreading it around 3 percent at a time. Every dollar that’s peeled off the budget pile is one less dollar left to do away with the sales tax on groceries.
By the time the Ledge sets aside a chunk of the surplus for school facilities, grabs some more for everybody’s favorite pork project, and then refunds old surcharges, too, as Kim Hendren suggests, what’ll be left ? Maybe not enough to finally end the state’s No. 1 bad tax.
It was a relief to read that the other Mike, Governor-elect Beebe, said getting rid of the sales tax on food remains his top priority. Even if he does still talk about phasing out the tax instead of just killing the thing with one, long-overdue whack. The way you would a poisonous snake.
Yes, Senator Hendren, we’d all like to have that surtax money back. But we’d much rather see the Ledge repeal the sales tax on groceries—which hits the poorest the hardest. Justice is more important than a windfall of a refund. First, ax the food tax. Then we can talk about the surtax.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online