TN TAX BATTLE: (STACKED) Commission to study taxation (income tax)

NASHVILLE - The tax debate that has dominated Tennessee politics for four years is likely to continue with the creation of a tax study commission.

Lawmakers approved a measure sponsored by Sen. Joe Haynes, D-Goodlettsville, to create a 15-member independent commission.

The legislation requires the commission to perform a "comprehensive study" of taxation in Tennessee and report its findings to the Legislature by July 2004. The commission is to evaluate the soundness, fairness, equity and deductibility of the state's tax system. The General Assembly appropriated $400,000 for the committee this year and is expected to approve $372,000 next year. The money will cover the cost of hiring staff, plus supplies and other expenses.

The governor and the speakers of the House and Senate each will appoint five members.

Haynes said he plans to write Gov. Don Sundquist, Lt. Gov. John Wilder and House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh in a few days to urge them to make the appointments as soon as possible. Sundquist will appoint the commission chairman and representatives from chambers of commerce, senior citizens, accountants and state employees. Wilder will appoint representatives from counties, businesses, banking, labor and tax attorneys. Naifeh will appoint representatives from cities, agriculture, families, the health-care industry and the insurance industry.

"I felt (the commission) was needed to take a good honest look at where we are now from a standpoint of our tax structure in Tennessee," Haynes said. "I felt if we had a wide range of different interests to meet together, those who are not in the General Assembly, they could produce an objective study of where we are." Many lawmakers and observers say the state's tax structure relies too heavily on the sales tax, taking a disproportionate share from the poor and middle class and failing to keep pace with economic growth. They advocate creation of a state income tax and repeal of sales taxes on groceries and other goods.

The contentious issue has dominated four regular legislative sessions and two special sessions.

The income tax came close to passing this year, but death and illness took away key votes at the end of the session. Lawmakers instead voted for the highest tax increase in state history - $933 million - by raising the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent.

When the tax takes effect July 15, Tennessee will have one of the highest sales taxes in the country. Most Tennesseans will pay between 9 percent and 9.75 percent on goods, excluding groceries, when local option taxes are added to the state rate. Asked if it is inevitable that the commission will recommend a state income tax, Haynes told The Tennessean newspaper: "I don't know. That is something we ought to leave to the commission. If it is an income tax, how is it framed? What kind of tax reform do you do? Do you go to 6-0? Do you go graduated income tax? Do you go to the flat tax? What tax burden do you relieve? Are we taxing business too much? Are we taxing farmers too little? Are we letting people get by without paying any tax? Who are they and why? All of these questions need to be answered."

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Busting the Cap

Tennessee's constitution has had a provision capping the growth of government spending since 1978, when an amendment was approved that limits annual spending increases to the rate of economic growth. However, the cap has a major flaw:

The legislature can break the cap by a simple majority vote.

It is the loophole that has swallowed the law - and billions of extra taxpayer dollars

Since the 1984-85 fiscal year, spending exceeded the cap nine times, by a total of just under $2.2 billion. The cap was exceeded twice during the Gov. Lamar Alexander years - by $446.1 million in FY 1984-85, and $100 million in FY 1986-87, and five times under Gov. Ned McWherter - $101 million in FY 1988-89, $74 million in FY 1989-90, a whopping $703.1 million in FY 1991-92, $450 million in FY 1992-93. Gov Sundquist has been just as irresponsible, proposing budgets that ultimately lead the legislature to over-spend the cap by $55 million in FY 1996-97, and $270 million in FY 1999-2000.

But this year sets a new record. Gov. Sundquist's budget request was cut some $500 million, yet he still has the dubious honor of having signed into law the single largest spending in excess of the cap in history. It goes along along with the largest budget in state history and the largest tax increase in state history - neither of which were anywhere near as large as the self-styled fiscal conservative had sought.)

SEE LINK for rest of articleHobbs

http://216.111.31.12/details.asp?PRID=99

Did you hear that the income tax is dead?

The spin has begun. The income tax is dead. It's no longer an issue.

Remember that it was dead after session three years ago. And two years ago. And after two special sessions. And we were assured it was dead at the beginning of this year's session, because it's an election year and they won't bring it up again.

But we came closer than we ever have.

How soon we forget. The stories in all the papers the morning after quoted legislator after legislator saying the billion dollar tax increase didn't solve the problem. They all said it would only be good for a couple of years and they'd be back again.

Speaker Naifeh's comment was in a headline at the top of the Tennessean. The income tax will have to be "revisited."

So why is the spin now that the income tax is dead?

Because Phil Bredesen knows that everyone knows that Van Hilleary is adamant against the income tax and his record is spotty at best. He leaves himself wiggle room in order to appease the pro-income faction of the Democratic Party. He wants the issue to go away because it splits his base and he knows Hilleary owns the issue.

Anyone who says the income tax issue is dead is almost certain to be an income tax supporter. They want Bredesen to be elected because they think in a couple of years he will head down that road. They know that Hilleary will not and cannot.

So listen carefully as the summer wears on. The income tax is dead. The income tax is dead.

Yeah, but the only way it gets a stake through its heart is if Van Hilleary is elected governor and Republicans make substantial gains in the General Assembly.

Election items:http://www.memphisflyer.com/onthefly/onthefly_new.asp?ID=1530 (KEEP IN MIND THIS IS A FREE WEEKLY SOCIALIST RAG)

Bredesen VS. NAIFEH: METHOD OR MADNESS?

In case anybody thought Phil Bredesen’s “repeal-an-income-tax” pledge of three weeks ago was incidental, accidental, or a sign of political foot-in-mouth disease, they should certainly know better after Wednesday.

Even as Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, surprise loser in an historic House flat-tax vote, was licking his wounds in a public press conference, the ex-Nashville mayor and current Democratic gubernatorial hopeful was having copies of his latest income-tax bashing circulated in Legislative Plaza.

Although the statement contained a grace note about the “good people” who disagreed with him, Bredesen concluded by saying, “The income tax came to a vote today, and it clearly failed. Now it’s time to move on. We need to focus on better managing state government, fixing the problems in TennCare, and growing the economy to address our long term budget problems.” GOP candidate Van Hilleary, who had made exhortatory phone calls to anti-tax legislators and called the income tax protest an example of "Americana," had made a similar statement somewhat earlier.

Inasmuch as Naifeh even then was suggesting he might try and try again to get his 4.5-pecent package enacted, Bredesen's newest statement was a clear shot across the bow, an even greater challenge to the Speaker than Bredesen’s previous seconding of Hilleary’s promise to repeal any such income-tax package that got passed in this session.

In the wake of that one-two punch, which had come as Naifeh first set out to build his 50-vote coalition, the Speaker had privately expressed his fury and let it be known publicly that he was not going to be taking Bredesen’s phone calls.

In such a context, Bredesen’s newest statement has to be read not only as a further repudiation of the income-tax concept, but as a purposeful distancing of himself from Naifeh and, for that matter, from the current legislative leadership of his party.

There is already speculation that the ultimate failure of the income-tax bill in this session might mean curtains for Naifeh as House leader (as it almost certainly does for Steve McDaniel, the Republicans’ leader and a flat-tax supporter); Bredesen’s posture can be interpreted as an attitude of “So-Be-It”– if not something stronger.

During the fallout from his “repeal” statement, Bredesen had explained himself by saying he did not intend to let Hilleary, his likely fall opponent, make the income tax a focal issue in the governor’s race. He seems to be saying something stronger now – that he does not intend to let the party which he hopes to lead into the future be tied to the carcass of a dead issue.

Two weeks ago, some high-ranking Democrats launched an anonymously attributed trial balloon, telling Bredesen, in effect, that he was weakening his credibility by seeming to be in a Pete-RePete relaionship with Hilleary on the income tax and that there was a ceiling on how many times he could safely repeat that kind of misadventure.

Bredesen’s statement Wednesday can be taken as his answer to that message, as an affirmation that he knows what he’s doing and the consequences be damned.

Those who have talked to Bredesen in the wake of the income-tax vote and his response to it suggest that he is indeed aware that he might be, directly or indirectly, accelerating a shakeup in the legislative hierarchy, and, although the initial reaction to his Wednesday statement among Democrats – especially those in the General Assembly – was unfavorable, already some have begun to embrace – or at least consider – a newer thought: Maybe, just maybe, Bredesen is right. On the political scale, anyhow.

Running On Fumes

Unable to agree on a plan, the General Assembly faced a total government shutdown.

oily phil's dell deal

"I felt (the commission) was needed to take a good honest look...."

Hahahaha....!!!
Great post!!These three income tax scumbags are going to appoint people to a "commission" for the purpose of giving them exactly the report they want to get.

The General Assembly appropriated $400,000 for the committee this year and is expected to approve $372,000 next year. The money will cover the cost of hiring staff, plus supplies and other expenses.

And they will get their report for less than a measly million of the taxpayers' dollars, LOFL!!!
Man, you still have a lot of work to do in Tennessee.
Elections are coming up soon - - get these scumbags (Sundquist, Wilder, and Naifeh) outta there!!

Then maybe you can get a "commission" which examines the out-of-control spending.

Well we are free of Sundquist. He is term limited and leaves after this year.

Naifeh has no opponent. A write in Republican is considering a challenge. Covington TN is so yellow dog Democrat and pro-Naifeh, I do not know if he could ever be displaced. He may however loose his job as Speaker of the House which would be great.

Wilder is pretty much in the same boat as Naifeh. Probably get re-elected but may loose his control in the Senate. The man is over 80 I believe.

Problem is the Dems are running the former Mayor of Nashville, Phil Bredesen. He is as slick as Bill Clinton ever dreamed of being. He keeps his language vague enough to convince some in the anti-tax crowd that he will not pass an income tax while also leaving hope for the pro-tax crowd that he may have an icome tax. We in Nashville know him for the tax-and-spend liberal that he is but he has already conned some of the anti-tax people into supporting him over the Republican who has signed a pledge of no income tax.

Bredesen is a "carpetbagger" from New York. Attended Harvard. Came to Nashville for the haelth care industry. Is a multi-millionaire. He buddies up to big business by promising them things that they want at tax payer expense. That means he gets lots of RINO support from Republicans who do not care about anything else than making big money. All the while, he supports that liberal social policies and programs of the 60's.

This seems to be a trend in this year's races. I call it wolves in sheep's clothing. Democratic candidates try to sound as business-friendly as possible to get some Republican votes while keeping their liberal base quietly in the background with secret deals already in place. Shows how shallow Dems really are, they are embarrassed to admit the things they believe! I guess Clintoon set a pattern for them that they think will fool the sheeple endlessly.

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.