Tilting against income taxes

According to a Jan. 31 Associated Press report, the notion of eliminating or dramatically reducing state income taxes is gathering steam. The AP reported that in Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina — all but one of which elected a Republican governor in 2010 — this idea is getting a serious look.

Currently, only nine states lack an income tax. Until 1991, Connecticut was income-tax-free as well. Considering what has happened in the Constitution State since then, one really can't blame those considering repeal.

In '91, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and the legislature enacted Connecticut's first long-term income tax to solve what then was the state's worst fiscal crisis. Previously, the state's no-income tax status had benefited the state's economy, and as a candidate in 1990, Gov. Weicker likened such a tax to "pouring gasoline on a fire." Upon signing his first, income-tax-included biennial budget, the governor said, "Connecticut will be closing the book on its past, and it'll be facing toward the future."

In the two decades since the tax went on the books, Connecticut has had several fiscal crises. Once in place, the tax removed the incentive for lawmakers to spend wisely. After all, the governor (whoever that was at a given moment) and legislators simply could increase the tax, especially on the hated "rich," every time they wanted to fund pet projects. Tax revenues couldn't keep up with all the spending, and that's a big part of why the state is saddled with a $145 million budget deficit and $20 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

Connecticut columnist Don Pesci points out the 1990-91 budget, the last one without an income tax, was $7.5 billion (when adjusted for inflation, it comes out to $11.8 billion), while the 2011-12 budget totals $20.14 billion.

Connecticut's income tax hasn't been of much help to the state's economy, either. A 2006 report by the Yankee Institute, a conservative think tank, indicated that since the tax was enacted, the state has had zero net jobs growth, and a slowdown in the growth of personal income and median household income. Between 1990 and 2002, the state experienced an exodus of 240,000 Connecticut natives.

With a history like this, is it any wonder that state income tax reduction has, in the words of the AP, "mov(ed) quietly into mainstream political discourse"?

>They increased the income tax this past July and made it retroactive to the beginning of 2011.

That brings up an interesting point; according to the 1798 Supreme Court Case Calder v. Bull [1], the prohibition on Ex Post Facto laws extends only to Criminal Law (that is, they ruled that civil laws only could be so retroactively enacted), but are violations of the tax law (which are being changed in Ex Post Facto manner) being pursued in civil courts, or criminal courts. (I firmly reject that there is any other class of legitimate judicial cases, even Military Law is a subset thereof the UCMJ being a code of law.) If violations are pursued in criminal court, then how do they justify the law’s ex post facto nature?

>It is only in criminal cases, indeed, in which the danger to be guarded against, is greatly to be apprehended. The history of every country in Europe will
>furnish flagrant instances of tyranny exercised under the pretext of penal dispensations. Rival factions, in their efforts to crush each other, have superseded
>all the forms, and suppressed all the sentiments, of justice; while attainders, on the principle of retaliation and proscription, have marked all the
>vicissitudes of party triumph. The temptation to such abuses of power is unfortunately too alluring for human virtue; and, therefore, the framers of the
>American Constitutions have wisely denied to the respective Legislatures, Federal as well as State, the possession of the power itself: They shall not pass any
>ex post facto law; or, in other words, they shall not inflict a punishment for any act, which was innocent at the time it was committed; nor increase the degree
>of punishment previously denounced for any specific offence.
[snip]
>Every ex post facto law must necessarily be retrospective; but every retrospective law is not an ex post facto law: The former, only, are prohibited. Every law
>that takes away, or impairs, rights vested, agreeably to existing laws, is retrospective, and is generally unjust; and may be oppressive; and it is a good
>general rule, that a law should have no retrospect: but there are cases in which laws may justly, and for the benefit of the community, and also of individuals,
>relate to a time antecedent to their commencement; as statutes of oblivion, or of pardon. They are certainly retrospective, and literally both concerning, and
>after, the facts committed. But I do not consider any law ex post facto, within the prohibition, that mollifies the rigor of the criminal law; but only those
>that create, or aggravate, the crime; or encrease the punishment, or change the rules of evidence, for the purpose of conviction.

[1] — http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=3&invol=386

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.