Again this past Tuesday
I was back before the Joint Committee on Revenue, as I was on June
6th. My purpose last month was to oppose a bill that would freeze
the income tax rate at 5.1%. This week’s hearing, in B-2 at the
State House, had four bills listed on the agenda to reduce the
income tax rate to 5%.
This being July an
experienced State House watcher would hardly expect all 17 members
of the Revenue Committee to be at the hearing, although I suspect
all 17 were at the State House in January to vote on their obscene
pay hike. Only four committee members were present, despite the
huge bump in pay for its chairmen, assistant chairmen, etc. At
least one was a taxpayer-friendly legislator, Rep. Shawn Dooley
(R-Norfolk) who received a 93% in the most recent CLT rating.
I pointed out to those
of the committee in attendance that it has now been 28 years since
the income tax rate was hiked “temporarily.” I handed out the
collage of press reports produced by CLT that promised at that
time the tax increase would be only “temporary.” Frustrated by the
delay in the return to 5%, CLT put the question on the ballot in
2000. The voters, by an
almost 60-40 margin, dropped it back to 5% by 2003. The
Legislature then defied the voters and “froze” the tax rate at 5.3%,
replaced the voters’ will with its own convoluted formula to let it
glacially fall back down in the eons to follow. These facts were
casually reiterated by me with no signs of discomfort from committee
members.
I closed my testimony
to those in attendance with this poignant passage that Chip Ford had
remembered about Barbara and passed on to me to include:
