Governor Tobacco Gets His Way
Mar 14, 2007 15:29 Filed in: Mississippi/Jackson
The tax swap to lower the sales tax on groceries and raise it on tobacco pretty much died this week in the legislature. With the governer's opposition, it had little chance in the Republican-dominated Senate.
Why did the governor oppose the revenue-swap? Two reasons:
First, as a right-wing Republican, he is philosophically opposed to tax relief for anyone but the wealthy. A sales tax reduction would benefit all the people of this state, but it would benefit the people at the bottom the most. That's a no-no.
Second is his long-term lobbying relationship with the tobacco industry. Clearly this is more important to Governor Tobacco than the welfare of Mississippi youth who are the most vulnerable to the blandishments of this industry of death.
In the linked article, Governor Tobacco mentioned that as soon as the state budget improves he has some major tax cuts in mind. You can be virtually certain that his proposed tax cuts will not include the sales tax, one of the most regressive taxes levied in this state, but you can be sure that he will propose cutting income and estate taxes, small as they may be, because the benefits of those cuts would go to the wealthy.
Of course, there must be spending cuts to balance the budget (unlike the federal government). Guess where they will come from? You guessed it: programs intended to benefit the public and for which there is no immediate payoff. Fortunately, the likelyhood of the tax cuts is slim, because the legislature must match revenue and expenditures and those are parts of the budget that will be almost impossible to cut, practically or politically.
The total state tax burden on Mississippi's citizens is regressive. A person earning less than $11,000/year pays the State of Mississippi an average of 10% of his income. Persons making between $53,000 and $96.000 pay 8% of their income, and persons in the top one percentile (annual income $509,200.00 and over) pay only 5.3%. Who needs tax relief, then? Who can afford to pay more taxes? The answer is obvious.
Even an absolutely flat tax—where all state taxes combined extract the same percentage of income from everyone—would be preferable to what we have now. That 10% literally takes food off the table of the folks at the bottom. It would be pocket change for persons in the top 1%.
But Governor Tobacco will have none of that.
Why did the governor oppose the revenue-swap? Two reasons:
First, as a right-wing Republican, he is philosophically opposed to tax relief for anyone but the wealthy. A sales tax reduction would benefit all the people of this state, but it would benefit the people at the bottom the most. That's a no-no.
Second is his long-term lobbying relationship with the tobacco industry. Clearly this is more important to Governor Tobacco than the welfare of Mississippi youth who are the most vulnerable to the blandishments of this industry of death.
In the linked article, Governor Tobacco mentioned that as soon as the state budget improves he has some major tax cuts in mind. You can be virtually certain that his proposed tax cuts will not include the sales tax, one of the most regressive taxes levied in this state, but you can be sure that he will propose cutting income and estate taxes, small as they may be, because the benefits of those cuts would go to the wealthy.
Of course, there must be spending cuts to balance the budget (unlike the federal government). Guess where they will come from? You guessed it: programs intended to benefit the public and for which there is no immediate payoff. Fortunately, the likelyhood of the tax cuts is slim, because the legislature must match revenue and expenditures and those are parts of the budget that will be almost impossible to cut, practically or politically.
The total state tax burden on Mississippi's citizens is regressive. A person earning less than $11,000/year pays the State of Mississippi an average of 10% of his income. Persons making between $53,000 and $96.000 pay 8% of their income, and persons in the top one percentile (annual income $509,200.00 and over) pay only 5.3%. Who needs tax relief, then? Who can afford to pay more taxes? The answer is obvious.
Even an absolutely flat tax—where all state taxes combined extract the same percentage of income from everyone—would be preferable to what we have now. That 10% literally takes food off the table of the folks at the bottom. It would be pocket change for persons in the top 1%.
But Governor Tobacco will have none of that.
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