Dear Alabama voters: way to go, you chuckleheads.

The BBQ Pit
1

I know, I know. It sounds like sour grapes. It sounds like I’m being elitist because I think I’m right and nearly 70% of Alabama voters are wrong.

That’s pretty much accurate.

This plan, which was rather incompletely described as a “tax hike” on the link I provided (it was a tax hike on the wealthy and the corporate interests, who basically pay jack shit as it stands now, but I’ll get into that later…but a substantial tax relief on the poor) would have:
[ul]
[li]reformed Alabama’s medieval fucking tax code. It would have raised the tax threshold for income tax from the current $4,600 per year (yeah, you read that shit right) to a national norm of $16,500. That alone should have been enough to pass the bill.[/li][li]increased the dependent allowance substantially.[/li][li]generated tons of money by modestly increasing state property taxes (currently an unbelievably low rate of $39 per year for a $100,000 house) to a still-fucking-low $140 per year.[/li][li]forced Alabama’s wealthy taxpayers to pay their fair share of taxes (not more than their share…just bring them up to closer to fair.) See the bottom of page 2 here (warning: PDF.)[/li][li]more importantly, forced corporations, which routinely rape this state in terms of taxes paid, resources used, and labor rates, to at least pay more property tax. The timber industry alone owns something like 40% of all land in Alabama west of Selma, and they take advantage of locally cheap, nonunion labor, lax-as-hell environmental laws, cheap land, and nonexistent tax scheme to make the Alabama economy the virtual equivalent of Sierra Leone’s.[/li][li]decreased taxes on the poor,[/li][li]covered the $675 million state deficit,[/li][li]improved education, medicaid, prisons, and paid for more state troopers,[/li][li]outlawed pass-through pork projects, making them jailable offenses,[/li][li]reformed the Alabama tenure rules for deadwood teachers.[/li][/ul]

And all of that would have been accomplished while avoiding the single greatest blockade to fiscal progress in the state: earmarking. Earmarking is an ass-backward, paranoid way to run the state budget. Essentially, the state predicts it’s revenue at the beginning of the fiscal year, then budgets accordingly, with 80% (a US high, I believe) of state revenue then being committed according to state laws or constitutional amendments (for example, gas taxes go mostly to the Highway Department.) The idea is to make politicians accountable for every dime of tax money, and to make sure that each state-funded program gets it’s allotment of money.

Great so far, right? Well, one of the unfortunate side effects of all this earmarking is that Alabamians are so paranoid about “Montgomery fat cats” that there are no ways to pass the money between programs if it’s needed. Thus, if the education general fund runs out of money midyear (which it does…every year,) there is simply no legal way to transfer money from another program, even if it is swimming in cash. Thus, OOPS, proration…again, and schools have to do things like not run air conditioners to save power, force the teachers to spend their own personal money on classroom supplies, and fire all district janitorial staffs except one or two, who are on constant rotations within a school district.

But the opponents of the plan, which was wildly popular before say, July, put up an aggressive ad campaign based on scare tactics, mudslinging, and outright lies. They said there was no accountability. Bullshit. They said there was no financial commitment to schools. Bullshit. They said taxes would rise. Bullshit. For nearly 70% of taxpayers, taxes would have fallen or stayed the same. They had grim images of grinning, seersucker suit-wearing carpetbagger types sucking on ridiculously oversized cigars and presumably counting their ill-gotten lucre at the expense of po’ hardworking Joe Average.

What a load of utter dingo shit. The Tax Accountability Coalition ( a rather shadowy group ostensibly comprised of “small businessmen and farmers”) threw money hand over fist at a negative smear campaign, and managed to dupe the voters of Alabama.

Folks, you got punked. ALFA, the Alabama Cattleman’s Association, the timber companies, and the chemical companies simply had more money to throw at the problem. All they really had to do was play on Alabama’s mistrust of “Montgomery politicos” and the battle was half over.

You jackasses voted today to keep Alabama’s taxes regressive, force huge state budget cuts which will slash thousands of jobs, and keep the same-old-same-old good ol’ boy network in full fucking power.

And when March comes around, if any of you idiots has the gall to bitch that we’re in another prorated year, or moan about overcrowded prisons, or complain when your state job gets hacked, or bitch that those damn Montgomery fat cats never look out for the little guy, I’m going to laugh in your fucking face.

I gotta get out of this goddamned hellhole.

2

I heard today that because of this not passing, several thousand inmates may be released.

I’m so out of here in two years, Ogre. Wanna come with?

3

Man, Ihope I’ll be outta here before two more years. With a $675 million shortfall last year, and brutal state cuts this year, I’m sure glad I got out of state employment when I did. I think I’m gonna take my RSA payout and move to the Virgin Islands. Wanna come?

Man, I wish my payout was big enough to move to the USVI. :frowning:

4

Well, if your impressions are right, I’d say the media had a hand in this too, if your link, which had headlines such as “No New Taxes” and a poll that asked if users would approve a “plan for taxes” is any indication.

5

Yea, I was driving through there not too long ago, but I heard the commercials on the radio against it. I laughed, they were so ludicrous, but I knew deep down in my black soul that they’d work.

6

I agree that Alabama’s tax structure needs to be reformed, badly. But I disagree that this plan was the way to do it.

Riley tried to lump too much in there at one time. If we’re talking about making the “fat cats and corporations” pay more in taxes, why the hell did they plan to impose a tax on services such as automobile and appliance service and repair? Joe Schmoe at the garage isn’t a fat cat, or a corporation.

And frankly, I was put off by the scare tactics he and his minions tried to shove down our throats near the end of the campaign, when it became obvious that the vast majority of Alabama voters were against this thing. “We’re gonna have to shut schools down! We’re gonna have to release inmates! Our society will crumble!”

Strikes me as ironically funny that our last governor, a Democrat, promoted a state lottery to help education rather than try to increase taxes, while our current governor, a Republican, came up with a $1.2 billion tax plan. One would think those roles would be reversed.

7

Good rant, Ogre. I’m no expert on Alabama politics, but if things are as you’ve described them, then it all sounds pretty fucked up. Unfortunately, the voters (or “the herd” as i prefer to call them in my less charitable moments) are often easily swayed by emotional appeals that bear little resemblance to the actual situation, and large lobby groups with highly-paid PR flacks and advertising agencies can push the hot buttons every time.

Well, if the result of the initiative failing is that they do have to close schools and release inmates, then it was more than just a scare tactic, wasn’t it?

8

Yeah, but the thing is, Alabama faces some sort of budget crisis every year, and the refrain is always “We’ll have to close schools! We’ll have to release inmates!”

Politicians can only cry “wolf” so many times before the public becomes inured to the message.

9

We in North Carolina are very thankful for Alabama and Mississippi, who collectively guarantee we will never ever be in 50th place among the states in any measure of educational attainment…

10

An article in today’s Birmingham News sheds a little more light on some of the reasons the tax bill didn’t pass. Excerpts:

"None of the state money Riley’s plan would have raised would have been earmarked, or reserved, for specific purposes such as funding his proposed college scholarships.

That opened the door for opponents to say Riley wanted to create a $1 billion-plus slush fund for lawmakers, said state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills.

“The general impression among the public is that we’re a sorry lot and we’re irresponsible and untrustworthy,” Waggoner said. “That fanned the flames.”

Sen. Steve French, R-Mountain Brook, agreed that people distrust state lawmakers, who could have spent the state taxes raised by Riley’s plan however they wished. “They’re not comfortable at all with giving the Legislature a blank check,” French said …

People disliked the part of Riley’s plan that would have imposed state and local sales taxes on labor charges for repairs and installations. Waggoner said people complained to him the most about the services tax.

Marty Connors, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the services tax would have affected everyone, including poor people, which undercut Riley’s claim that the package would have eased the overall tax burden on the poor."

11

To be honest, Sauron, there were two parts of the tax reform I didn’t agree with…the service tax, which I saw as pretty repressive, and the fact that it did not get rid of the sales tax on food. So I’m with you there.

But scare tactics? The Tax Accountability Coalition wrote the book on scare tactics during this campaign. As far as I’m concerned, in the same way that running a mudslinging political campaign forces your opponent, in most cases, to do the same thing, the TAC pretty much gave Riley no choice but to say, "The opposition tells you these horrible things will happen if the plan passes, so here are the horrible things that will happen if we don’t do something now. Namely, budget cuts and possible inmate releases.

12

I agree that the TAC blew things out of proportion with their campaign, Ogre. Unfortunately, though, their core message was accurate.

One of the linchpins of Riley’s whole campaign was the issue of college scholarships for Alabama students. Now, I’ve got five kids, the oldest of which is 10. God knows I would love to have a guaranteed scholarship for my kids, assuming they want to go to college. But not one cent of the $1.2 billion was dedicated to funding the scholarships. Earmarking funds is a good thing for government (although it’s bad to the extent Alabama’s state government does it now; flexibility must always be a part of such a program). But promising college scholarships as a part of this package, and then providing absolutely no accountability within the package to actually fund said scholarships, amounts to a bait-and-switch.

I wanted to support the tax plan, but this issue and several others just wouldn’t allow me to.

Riley was asking Alabama voters to trust not only him, but every single state politician currently in Montgomery and every single one that would follow them in perpetuity with an extra $1.2 billion and absolutely no restrictions or guidelines on how that money would be spent. I wasn’t willing to do that.

13

No restrictions? Pork was outlawed by the bill. Pet projects could no longer be funded through state money. That’s a pretty big restriction.

The scholarships were guaranteed by the amendment. The analysis on al.com reads thus:

And the guidelines were all there in the bill, including the formation of an oversight committee.

14

Thank you for the analysis. Please point out the part where my kids (assuming they met the criteria) would be guaranteed a scholarship, even a reduced-amount scholarship, under this tax plan. All I see is a ceiling on the amount the state could spend on scholarships. There is no floor.

That’s kinda my point. The scholarship program was part of the tax plan, and I’m sure Gov. Riley fully intended it to be funded and utilized. But he won’t be governor forever. And had the bill passed into law, nowhere does it say the state is required to pony up dollar one to continue to fund the scholarship program.

15

Yes, it does. It wasn’t a normal bill (as even I have been guilty of saying.) It was a constitutional amendment. It would have taken another amendment to eliminate its funding.

As for the scholarships, how about this?

or this?

The free tuition, or free partial tuition, guarantee, was explicit in the language of the bill, up to a functional ceiling of $120 million per year. It would be nearly impossible to put a number on a bottom value, because tuition changes.

16

Nope. Nowhere in this bill is there a requirement to fund the scholarship program. It may be implied, but nowhere does it say “The State shall pay a minimum of $X, or a percentage of tax revenues, whichever is less, to fund the scholarship plan.” Yes, that’s earmarking, but in this case it’s necessary earmarking, in my opinion. Lawmakers could have come back two years from now and said “Okay, we’ll fund the scholarship program this year with $10,000. The other $1.199990 billion, we need in other areas.”

You do understand the difference between “qualifying” for free tuition and “receiving” free tuition, right?

I talked with my old college advisor about this plan over the summer. He supported it, but he had severe misgivings about the scholarship portion of the plan in particular – mainly because he doubted it would actually be implemented.

Tuition does change from year to year; however, it almost universally goes up in Alabama (and pretty much every other state), not down. For that reason, putting a floor on the funding for the program would have been simple; it’s highly unlikely that tuition would ever go down to the point where another amendment would be necessary to prevent Alabama from paying students to go to college.

17

Sorry, but [url=“http://alisdb.legislature.state.al.us/acas/ACASLogin.asp”]no
[/quote]
. The language of the bill is explicit.

Any qualifying student would have reaped the benefits, and no specific budgeting was required.

18

But, Ogre, the problem with the passage you quoted is that, while it “authorizes” the state to pay the tuition of any qualified student, it does not seem to require the state to pay that tuition. Just because the state is authorized to do something does not make that thing mandatory, as far as i’m aware. Is there language elsewhere in the bill that says that any qualified child will, under the bill, have a right to the scholarship?

While i certainly agree with the general point that you made in the OP, it does seem that the way the tax changes were set up did leave considerable room for fudging by unprincipled politicans, now and/or down the track.

19

For the record, I believe Riley intended for the plan to work the way Ogre and others interpreted it. But it seems to me that a lot of political wrangling went on in an effort to draw up this 600-page monster of a plan, and I had serious doubts that it would function the way it was intended.

20

Ummm, pardon me for being Alabignorant, but what the hell’s a pass-through pork project? :confused: