by David Safier
(TASL)
Has the time come when Arizonans are willing to consider increasing taxes rather than gutting education?
Apparently, recent polling indicates that, when people are asked if they would pay more taxes to improve education, a majority says Yes. (No, I don't have the data or a link. So accept or discount this statement as you will.)
Gary Nine is the Superintendent of Florence Unified School District and one of the organizers of Sunday's protest at the Capitol. Here's Nine in a radio discussion after the protest:
"Money could come from sales tax," Nine said. "It would cost the average Arizonan $12 a month," he added, suggesting a $.01 sales tax increase.
People don't talk much about raising income taxes, but it's a well kept secret that tax rates today are significantly lower than they were in the early 1990s. No, Napolitano hasn't overspent, as the Republicans repeat every chance they get. The state is underfunded.
I'm working on crunching the numbers,so I don't have exact figures. But according to the Tax Foundation, in 1991, Arizona was 25th in the nation in income tax rates. Today we're 41st. The lowered rates go a long way toward explaining how our school spending went from 25th to 49th, and we still have trouble balancing our budgets.
I talked with Rep. Phil Lopes at the Saturday State Party Elections in Phoenix. He says he's putting together a bill that would raise the gas tax incrementally over three years until it's at about the same level as neighboring states. We suffered through $4 a gallon gas not very long ago. We can afford to add a few cents to the current $2 a gallon price.
Tax increases — or tax fairness, or whatever you want to call it — has been the idea that dare not speak its name in Arizona. But the Bush years are over. Obama was elected saying he'd raise taxes on the rich. The time has come to suggest the idea seriously in Arizona.
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Conservatives always worry about poor people when it’s in their interests, then complain about minimum wage and health care for the poor. My favorite is when conservatives protect their tobacco growing friends by saying the poor smoke a lot, so a tobacco tax is a burdensome tax on the poor.
Thane, my point is that the difference between $2 a gallon and $2.10 a gallon is a buck or two for a fill up. Compare that with $4 a gallon, caused by artificial raises in oil prices and obscene windfall profits, which doubles the cost of a tank of gas. Were you sobbing for the poor single mothers then, or was that just the invisible hand of the marketplace working its magic?
“We can afford to add a few cents to the current $2 a gallon price.”
Ah the royal we. I wonder how many struggling single mothers agree with that assertion.