June 10, 2004

Local Alt-Weekly Endorses Tax Cut. Really.

The Nashville Scene - Nashville's liberal "alternative" newsweekly - has an editorial this week that is positively amazing. In the piece, titled "Win This One for The Gipper," the Scene endorses legislation pending in Congress that will make the federal tax code more fair - and endorses the basic contention of supply-side economics that cutting taxes spurs economic growth. The Scene also endorses the legislation even though passage would make it more difficult for tax "reformers" in Tennessee to ever pass a state income tax, a tax the Scene supports. Published on the day after Ronald Reagan's state funeral, the editorial makes it clear that the Reagan legacy looms large.

What opponents will say is that tax cutting isn't appropriate when the country has sky-high deficits and the matter of a couple of wars to pay for. But they're not considering that the issue is more about fairness than anything else. States with an income tax shouldn't be favored over states without one.

Furthermore, as Reagan would surely attest if he could, tax cutting historically has proved to invigorate the economy, create jobs and put more discretionary dollars in consumers' pockets. Ensuing problems, of course, arise when corresponding spending controls aren't adopted. For that, we have the same Congress and presidential administrations that pass the tax cuts in the first place to thank. But we digress.

...What can't be disputed is that congressional passage of this legislation ... would shoot a fairly enormous hole in the pro-income tax argument in Tennessee, because that movement wouldn't be able to use the lack of tax deductibility here as an argument for its passage. But we think the issue should be considered alone, and not as part of some movement that is as dead at the moment as, well, Ronald Reagan.