Citizens for Tax Fairness, a bipartisan organization that supports the equitable distribution of tax burdens, has recently published a report grading our representatives in Congress on their votes for tax fairness. With two exceptions, our representatives present a dismal picture. Our four Republicans, Lott, Cochran, Wicker and Pickering score a zero over the period 2001-2006. This means that they voted to shift the tax burden from the lower and middle classes to the small wealthy elite that have the least need of tax relief.

The tax fairness winner for Mississippi over this period is representative Gene Taylor, who scored 100%. As a Democrat who voted for the odious Bankruptcy "Reform" Act and this year's torture-authorizing legislation, I had just about lost faith in him.

Bennie Thompson, who usually votes in favor of the lower and middles classes, scored only 83%, due to an "F" he earned for his vote in 2004 for the “The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004,” H.R. 4520, appropriately titled The 2004 Corporate Tax Giveaway Bill. Here's a description:

This bill began as an attempt to resolve a trade dispute between the United States and Europe over a $5 billion a year U.S. tax subsidy for American exporters that had been (repeatedly) ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.It expanded into a huge array of corporate tax giveaways, totaling $214 billion over 10 years.

The true cost of the bill was masked by gimmicks and false assumptions, including: $49 billion in revenue “saved” from complying with our trade treaties; $82 billion in added revenues from what Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mt.), co-sponsor of the Senate bill, accurately called “measures which in themselves should be good public policy and we should pass anyway”; and $79 billion in probably phony “sunsets” on many of the new tax breaks in the bill. So, despite the fact that these supposed offsets fall into the categories of things that Congress had to do, ought to do anyway or probably won’t do, the bill was officially “scored” as cost-free.

The vote on the bill was taken just prior to the 2004 elections. There is little doubt that many members of Congress voted for the bill in an attempt to show a friendly face to business, and thereby gain campaign contributions. As a result, the vote is the most lopsided of any of the votes we surveyed. In the House, the vote was 251–178, and in the Senate, 69–17. Members of Congress who opposed this bill received an “A” grade, while those who voted for it received an “F.”

So kudos to Taylor, qualified kudos to Thompson, and a pox on the rest of them. They have done Mississippi no favor.

Tags: taxes, tax fairness, Lott, Cochran, Wicker, Taylor,Thompson, Pickering