February 14, 2007

Food For Thought

Today's Nashville City Paper story about Gov. Phil Bredesen's opposition to lowering the sales tax on food stands in stark contrast to the news out of Arkansas yesterday, where legislators and the governor agreed to slash that state's food sales tax in half, saving the average Arkansas family $234 a year.

The City Paper says Bredesen opposes increasing the cigarette tax to "pay for" lowering the state's sales tax on food because it would make the tax code more "regressive," - meaning it would shift more of the tax burden to the poorer income demographics, presumably because those people smoke more than higher-incomed Tennesseans. Okay, but Bredesen's proposal is to triple the cigarette tax but not cut any other taxes - a proposal that's even more regressive than the tax-swap proposal he opposes because it is regressive.

b>Update: Mark Rose nails it.