We saw a vision of the Ghost of Tax Reform Battles Past this week. Let us explain. Alabama Arise wishes to correct the way the state collects taxes. Income taxes here are levied against folks making as little as $4,600 a year, a pitifully tiny amount. It’s the lowest in the nation. As one UA law professor so eloquently has pointed out, it defies the teachings of Christ.
Arise’s plan raises the $4,600 minimum and reduces the burden for 60 percent of taxpayers while hiking taxes on the top 20 percent. The proposal aims for fairness and applies the principle that “of whom much is given, much is required,” a hallmark of all progressive tax codes.
Reading over a Thursday Mobile Register news story about Alabama Arise’s latest proposal, we heard the rattling chains of the Ghost of Tax Reform Battles Past.
“It’s a little disingenuous to talk about tax reform when it’s really a tax increase,” he said, while taking the form of Christian Coalition President John Giles.
Giles is right, up to a point.
If we are to treat the poor fairly and at the same time provide all citizens the health, education, economic promotion and personal security a state should, someone has to pay for it. In most states the heaviest burden falls on those who are most able to pay.
Not in Alabama.
In Alabama, the heaviest burden falls on the poor.
And John Giles and the Christian Coalition of Alabama want to keep it that way.
So who is being disingenuous?
