What is to be made of the Mississippi Senate’s vote Thursday to pass a $577 million tax cut through a bill it laughably calls “The Taxpayer Pay Raise Act?”
Maybe Thursday’s action is perhaps best understood from an admonition most of us heard from our moms when we were children.
Imagine that Mississippi is a child and her playmates include Louisiana and Kansas.
Mississippi wants to do what Louisiana and Kansas are doing, which in this case is something foolish and unsafe.
You know what Mississippi’s mom will say: “If Louisiana and Kansas jumped off the roof and broke their necks, would you jump, too?”
And how will Mississippi respond?
“Yes. Yes we would.”
The Mississippi Senate, led by its smirking moon-pie-faced leader, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, took a flying leap Thursday and plunged every average, hard-working Mississippian rights along with it. That we will have a few extra dollars in our pockets when we splatter all over the pavement is little comfort.
Considering the current condition of our state economy and what should have been the cautionary tales of Louisiana and Kansas, whose own “tax cut our way to prosperity” strategies have proven to be indisputable nightmares, there is only one way to describe it: Legislative malpractice.
This year, state revenue projections are off by $68 million, which is already forcing across-the-board cuts to our state agencies – education, highways, parks, tourism, human services, you name it. At a time when the nation continues to recover from the Great Recession, our state economy is actually shrinking, as is our population. Our unemployment rate and wages remain among the worst in the country.
Even before Thursday’s vote, we were told there wasn’t enough money to do many of the things we need to do. Education at every level continues to be underfunded and the Mississippi Economic Council, our state’s Chamber of Commerce, has determined that our roads and bridges are in such a critical state of disrepair that it will cost $375 million to make them safe.
Our state foster care system is something out of a Dickens’ novel, so badly underfunded and understaffed that the entire system may soon be subject to a federal take-over.
So what does our legislature propose to do about these problems?
Incredibly, it intends to make them even worse by dangling a tiny carrot before our noses while giving the lion’s share of this “Taxpayer Pay Raise” to big business. Bear in mind, since the Republicans took over control of state government in 2011, we’ve already given out more than $350 million in tax-breaks and incentives to big corporations. More than half of this tax cut money will go directly into the pockets of large interests such as manufacturing, utilities and oil/gas companies.
Of the state’s 150 largest businesses, 100 don’t pay any income taxes at all.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sick of America losing jobs to places run by corrupt, autocratic governments who care next to nothing about their own people. You know, places like Thailand, China and Mississippi.
Reeves and his cronies justify Thursday’s action by saying that the tax cuts put money back into the pockets of Mississippians, thus stimulating the economy. But the portion of that money that will actually go to the average Mississippian is comparable to tossing a few coins at the guy on the street corner.
They also say the cuts will encourage new industries to come to our state.
Really?
Gov. Phil Bryant brags night and day about the fact that our state is the already has among the lowest tax rates for business in the nation. And yet we continue to fall behind.
Could it be the answer is not more tax cuts, but better education, infrastructure and public services – you know, the stuff this tax cut will inevitably take money away from? As it is, the only means we have of attracting new business is taxpayer-funded bribery.
You wonder: How does our Bills-bury Doughboy of a Lt. Governor get with it?
Simple. He appeals to our short-term greed (jumping off the roof doesn’t hurt) while ignoring the inevitable pain (it’s the landing that kills ya).
Everybody wants low taxes (our taxes are already among the lowest in the nation), but we also want good schools, roads, parks, law enforcement and other public services. Mature, reasonable people understand that we can have those things only through taxes. It is our social contract.
That doesn’t seem to matter, though, at least not to our state senate.
Thursday, Mississippi was pushed off the roof with a few pitiful coins jangling in its pockets.
The impact will come soon enough.
It ain’t gonna be pretty, folks.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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