Income Tax Bill

Jim wrote the following piece regarding HB 583. CNHT also has a piece on the bill at their website.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.

Special interest groups have fired another shot across our bow in the form of HB583. The brashness of this proposal, a 5% income tax for "educational adequacy" and absorbing teachers into the protected class of state employees, should help identify this plan for what it truly is; a power and money grab by the privileged few at the expense of taxpayers.



At the statewide legislative forums, several citizens expressed skepticism about "educational adequacy" being little more than a front for an income tax and an expansion of the education industrial complex. Such concerns were met with derision and scorn, yet the fact that we're here today demonstrates beyond a doubt that these concerns were in fact justified.

The Supreme Court made it clear in their Claremont ruling that they are not willing to protect us from this onslaught. We look to you, the legislature, as our last line of defense. The only bright side to an income tax is that 10% of the people I worked with in December will remain unaffected, as they no longer shoulder the burden of income. This nationwide employment downturn makes increased state spending particularly offensive.

The folly of solving a manufactured education crisis through increased taxation is reminiscent of the purses my mother carried when I was young. Each year she bought a larger purse hoping it would hold enough. She finally learned that less baggage, not larger purses, was the answer.

Many lawmakers and our Governor have already pledged to protect us from broadbased taxes, because they understand that the purse will never be big enough. To the undecided, please find it within yourselves to resist the pressure to expand government bloat during the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes. Prudence demands that we consign HB583 and anything like it to the dustbin of history.

Jim Peschke