January 7, 2006

Why we can never fall for tax hiking rhetoric

By Ben Cunningham
Back in 2003, Alabamians overwhelmingly defeated a $1.2 billion tax increase proposed by Gov Bob Riley. Actually, it was more than defeated, it was crushed. Virtually every demographic voted against the bill.

The result: loud screams of self-righteous outrage declaring that life as Alabamians had known it would end, the sun would never rise, the sky would never be blue again...yada, yada, yada.

Flash forward two years and what is going on? That same Gov. Riley is now talking about a SURPLUS and "if there is a surplus, he wants to give it back to taxpayers."

Now comes gubernatorial candidate and former Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore and he says, "the money should be returned 'to the taxpaying people of this state now' rather than waiting until fiscal 2007, as Gov. Bob Riley has proposed, because Montgomery officials tend to spend any money that is sitting around."

Ok, a thought experiment: What if the $1.2 billion tax increase had passed? Would we now be talking about returning $1.7 billion to the taxpayers? (Thats the $1.2 billion tax increase plus the $500 million projected surplus without the tax increase).

Of course NOT. We would much more likely be talking about another tax increase because of all the new programs and employees that would have been created with the original tax increase. Once a government program is created there is simply no way to stop its growth. The very best that can be hoped for is to limit its growth and that typically doesn't happen.

I sure hope the politicians in Alabama will show more concern for the family budget than they do for the government budget and return the surplus but the odds on that happening are VERY long.