Collapse

Looking only at the rapidly plummeting threshold for defining "affluence," one assumes the economy must be crashing even harder than we feared it might this year.

Only just back in December, we were having this argument over where to draw the line of affluence with regard to tax policy.

In the months before the election, and in the weeks after his victory, Obama had a clear position: The Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000 were ending. He would not sign any extension, and if Republicans refused to extend tax cuts for income below that level, he would hold them responsible for it until they did.

Now, by all accounts, Obama is prepared to extend the Bush tax cuts up to $400,000 a year. Or maybe more. As of Friday, Obama had told Republicans they could have the tax cuts extended on income up to $400,000 if they would accept the estate tax rising from its Bush-set rates. As of last night, Democrats were conceding the estate tax plus the higher exemption on tax rates, which had risen to $450,000. And Republicans still hadn't agreed to it! Why would they, when Democrats keep hurling money at them? By midnight, Republicans might be getting the Saturday Night Live version of Obama's offer ("a 1% raise on the top two Americans — just two people").

Obama pushed the line up to $450,000 from $250,000 after a long series of arguments appeared in our increasingly elitist and out-of-touch press complaining that a $250,000 per year income was really not all that wealthy.    Because the President eventually agreed, the new consensus definition of affluence came in at somewhere around $400,000 in annual income as recently as this January.

Since then, something has changed dramatically.  I don't know if it's the sequester, or maybe the stricter NFL salary cap, or uncertainty over the fate of the bridge tolls, but something has apparently sent the economy into free fall. 

How else does one account for the fact that only three months later we're looking at an entirely different sort of affluence threshold?

Compare and contrast

Then gubernatorial candidate Foster Campbell's 2007 proposal to eliminate state income taxes:

As governor, Campbell would try to eliminate the state's individual and corporate income taxes and replace them with a fee on oil and gas processing and distribution in Louisiana, a proposal he drummed year after year in the Legislature.

Critics say Campbell is too quick to point to the proposal as a cure for all ills and that it would stifle one of Louisiana's staple economic sectors, send an antibusiness message to the rest of the nation and place too much reliance on a single source of revenue to support the state budget.

According to Campbell, the fee would generate $5.5 billion a year, more than half the amount of the current state general fund and well more than the $3 billion the plan would give up in income taxes. He says the new resources would pay for improvements in health care, education, roads and coastal restoration. He paints it as a fight against worldwide industrial giants on behalf of poor and middle-class people.

Current Governor Bobby Jindal's proposal to eliminate state income taxes:

Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration is considering the elimination of state taxes on oil and gas extraction as part of the governor's tax overhaul for the upcoming legislative session, according to the state Department of Revenue. No decision has been made on whether the final version of the plan will include the repeal of the so-called severance taxes but nearly all forms of taxes, with the exception of property taxes, are now on the table, department spokesman Doug Baker said Friday evening.

So what we're saying here is we're fine with eliminating the income tax so long as we don't ask oil and gas to pay for it for us. 

Tax Fairness Commission

City council votes 6-1 to increase property taxes

The increase will generate $20.5 million in revenue for the city. The vote comes the same week the mayor signed an executive order establishing a Tax Fairness Commission, designed to explore reforms to the city’s tax system and find ways to collect millions of dollars in unpaid or under-assessed taxes.

Not sure I understand the point of that. I thought consolidating the assessor's office was going to solve all of these problems.

Besides, everything you've ever wanted to know about tax fairness was covered by Bernie Sanders yesterday.

Info Porn

Here's a pretty good Wa-Po table based on the Tax Policy Center's analysis of Obama and McCain's tax proposals. Note that when John McCain and Sarah Palin barnstorm the countryside screaming bloody murder about President Obama's plan to raise "your" taxes, they are speaking to a very specific "you" when they say that. And that "you" is not very likely to be... um... you specifically.

What that guy said

I'll just reprint here and thoroughly endorse what Other Jeff said in an earlier comment thread on the proposed income tax repeal and its relationship to this topic.

This is retarded. The idea that giving individuals a couple thousand dollars more to piss away on their own perverted interests rather than investing in healthcare, education, coastal restoration, or any of the other mammothly pressing needs of this state just does not deserve to be dignified with a response.

Can we talk about the airport brilliance? Can I ask why the state needs an airport that makes $500K a year in order to invest in projects in NO that the state should already be investing in anyway? I think it's safe to say that the BR and Jefferson Parish interests dominating the conversation are foaming at the mouth for the LA Airport Authority to be revived. And all we have standing between us and that prospect is a Mayor who would like nothing more than to have one of his idiotic ideas borne out for once, and Ron Forman, who knows what to do with 4 mills (animals!), but who I wouldn't trust to run a pet store.

He doesn't have to pay for it

If everything they say about him is true, Gov. PBJ will likely have climbed the next rung by the time anyone actually has to deal with the repercussions of the income tax repeal ($4 billion dollar hole in the state budget). So if it passes the House, is there any reason for the Governor not to sign it?

The Future of Conservatism

Up and coming G.O.P. rock star (and potential Vice Presidential candidate) Gov. Bobby Jindal will apparently have to make two very interesting political decisions at the end of the current legislative session.

While he's being coy about his intentions, it will be very difficult for the Governor not to veto the proposed repeal of the State income tax. At the same time, PBJ may soon be signing into law a steep increase in many Louisianians' auto insurance bills.

This should make some interesting political theater for the rising star in the coming months. We would have asked him to comment but he doesn't seem to be available lately.