[Vision2020] More on Idaho Budget

[Ron Force]

WHAT GOOD ARE TAX INCENTIVES THAT DON'T WORK? 
The Times-News, Twin Falls
Idaho is open for
business. Trouble is, nobody's knocking on the front door at the
moment. Fact is, when the state's economy is at the bottom of a well as
it is now, the state's industry-friendly tax code - which Idaho's
conservative legislators spent so much time rewriting in the past
several years to benefit the friends of the Idaho Association of
Commerce and Industry -makes it harder to keep state government
functioning.
Much harder.
Gov. Butch Otter has ordered a
mid-year budget cut, which means that many state employees - and
educators - stand to lose their jobs.
The governor needs $159
million to make the budgetary pot right. He'd already have most of it
except for all those tax incentives the state gave away recently, to
the likes of Micron Technology and Albertsons. How'd that work out for
Idaho, anyway?
Over the past 10 years, total revenue from taxes
paid primarily by individuals - the sales tax, individual income tax
and taxes on owner-occupied homes - is up $1.5 billion, 105 percent,
according to Ken Robison, a Boise Democrat who served 17 years on the
Legislature's Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. Revenue from
taxes paid primarily by business, corporate income tax and commercial
property taxes, is up $131 million, 28 percent.
Do the math: Any significant business tax cut means lost revenue will have to come from other taxpayers.
What's
curious about this is that very few across Idaho's political spectrum -
including the tax hawks on the House Revenue and Taxation Committee -
dispute that the state's prosperity for four decades before 2008 can be
directly traced to the enactment of a balanced tax code in 1965.
It's
not so balanced any more, thanks to the Legislature. Which is a big
reason why the budget hole in which Idaho finds itself is so deep.


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20090926/10f2d1bf/attachment.html