February 26, 2005

It's Baack.

How ironic. On the same day I got an advance copy of Phil Valentine's new book, Tax Revolt : The Rebellion Against an Overbearing, Bloated, Arrogant, and Abusive Government, coming out March 8 from Nelson Current, a history of the Tennessee Revolt that defeated repeated attempts to pass a state income tax a few years ago, a liberal state legislator from Memphis has filed legislation that would create ... an income tax.

Blake Wylie has all the details, commentary and links. The good news is House Bill 2027, which would enact a 1 percent payroll tax, appears to have no Senate counterpart and the legislator who filed it, state Rep. Mike Kernell, has virtually no clout in the House even though he's been in the House since 1977.

Still, the mere fact that the legislation was filed illustrates an important truth to those of us who fought in the Tennessee Tax Revolt, and to all Tennesseans who oppose the creation of an income tax and oppose out-of-control taxation and government spending:

The war against the income tax and inexorably higher taxes is not over. We have won some key battles but, as former state Sen. Marsha Blackburn - now a rising star in Congress - once said, "They only have to win once, we have to win every time."

We can win with finality only one way - by forcing our state legislators to pass the following legislation:

1. A constitutional amendment to explicitly bar any form of taxation of income - even though the state constitution already appears to ban an income tax, the Left will not admit it and plays word games to argue an income tax is constitutional.

2. A constitutional amendment called the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which would require state government to restrain spending growth to a sustainable rate, and require all future tax increases and new taxes be put to a vote of the people in a referendum.

Legislation is pending in the state legislature to put both of those amendments on the ballot. Call your legislators today and urge them to vote for those amendments. Call them tomorrow, fax them the next day, email them the day after that, and don't stop until both pieces of legislation have passed and the amendments are on the ballot. You can find all of their contact info here under the House and Senate links.

By the way, I've read more than half of Valentine's new book, and it is excellent - well-written, heavily researched, and very accurate. You can buy it here.

UPDATE: Blake Wylie has updated his post to note that Kernell also has filed another bill that would create a full-blown state income tax. The bill has no Senate sponsor. Kernell titled his legislation the "Tennessee Investment and Economic Development Act" because "Grandstanding Bill That Has No Chance, Filed By A Joke of a Legislator Who Has Accomplished Little in 28 Years In The House" was too long.