Art Pope says he opposes the abolition of NC's personal and corporate income taxes, said idea having been floated by the influential policy group he funds.

UPDATE: Some detail here. "'A gross transaction tax, without any regard to whether you're actually making any money, not a tax on net income, I think that's going to hurt the economy,' Pope said. 'It is regressive in nature, no doubt about it.'" 

Comments

[Spag]

In other related news, when asked if this meant that the sales tax wasn't being floated so "that corporations and Art Pope" would pay less taxes as initially claimed, Ed Cone said:

[Spag]

Wow. I never thought I'd see the day that Ed Cone did an about face and became an "Art Pope stooge".

Of course you know Pope is lying. He has to be. He's Art Pope after all. The Stooge Master. He only cares about the rich and wants to pollute the water.

[polifrog]

Why not go with a progressive lottery?

[Thomas]

Polifrog - "And the argument that Civitas's plan is somehow regressive in a nation of welfare dependents buying food, phones and all needs with the transferred efforts of others is an incredible reach. But such is Keynesianism."

Art Pope - "It is regressive in nature, no doubt about it."

OMG, Pope is one of them crazy Keynesians!

[polifrog]

I don't argue that they are crazy...just destructive.

[Hartzman]

"Kansas lawmakers haven’t figured out how to pay for the tax cuts without potentially crippling public schools and other local government functions. Reducing the income tax has left a projected $2.5 billion revenue hole through fiscal 2018, according to the Kansas Legislative Research Department. On Jan. 11, a state court ruled that the legislature was illegally underfunding schools and ordered a payment of $440 million.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-25/kansas-bonds-left-behind-highlight-risks-of-levy-cuts-taxes.html

[polifrog]

@Hartzman:

Here's one problem:

Of the first $50 million, $80,000 is transferred to the Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund. Of the remaining $49.92 million, 85 percent of the remainder transferred to the Economic Development Initiatives Fund, 10 percent to the Correctional Institutions Building Fund, and 5 percent to the Juvenile Detention Facilities Fund. Any receipts in excess of $50 million must be transferred to the State General Fund.

Kansas generates $250 million/year from the lottery. That's $200 million pissed away in a general fund year after year instead of being plowed back into their schools.

And if it chafes some, make it a progressive lottery by not allowing those on welfare to participate.

=====

And here is another problem. Poor assumptions:

Kansas lawmakers haven’t figured out how to pay for the tax cuts...

To assume that a tax cut is a cost is to assume that government is the source of prosperity when it is not. The fact is that a tax cut is not a cost, a tax cut is a limitation on government spending.

The assumption that tax cuts must be paid for assumes that those funds are the government's first. The fact is that the reason a government taxes at all is that government is a cost, a burden, a dependent on the private sector. Government is unproductive, hence, not self sustaining or profitable. Government is not the source of prosperity.

[Andrew Brod]

Art Pope presumably opposes Bobby Jindal's proposal as well.

As for a "progressive lottery," preventing sales to people on public assistance might mitigate the regressive nature of the state lottery, but it wouldn't erase it. It would still be the case that the working poor would spend more per capita than the rich.

Banning lottery sales to those in bankruptcy would have little effect, and possibly no effect at all, on the regressivity of the lottery. Bankruptcy is a mixed bag when one relates its frequency to household income. Plenty of middle- and upper-income folks go bankrupt.