Hardy Jackson = Must Read
Dr. Hardy Jackson has become a must-read on the Governor’s accountability and tax plan. I actually caught his column from Wednesday in an e-mail from a fellow supporter of Ammendment 1. It’s truly astounding what happens when you actually investigate a “fact”,
I teach at Jacksonville State. So when something is attributed to my university I naturally pay attention. Which is what I did the other day a friend sent me a copy of a “fact sheet” prepared by the Christian Coalition and distributed by opponents of the Riley tax reform and accountability plan. The handout reported that the JSU Economic Update of November, 2001, revealed that “Alabama’s state and local tax burden is 24.5 %, as a percentage of personal income, greater than the Southeastern and US average” and also that “Alabama has a diversity of revenue sources, and taxes comprise only about 38% of Alabama’s total revenue.”
Aware that the Coalition had already come under fire for sloppy research and slanted conclusions, I got a copy of the Update, to check things out. Something seemed amiss. So I called a buddy in our College of Commerce and Business Administration, where the Update originated and he said, “the Coalition is wrong.”Alabama’s state and local tax burden is not 24.5 percent of personal income and if the Christian Coalition had paid attention to what they were reading and had done a little math they would have known it.
The Update states that in 1999 (the year under consideration) Alabamians paid $2,007 per capita in taxes. That was the lowest in the region. And when you divide that figure by the per capita income of Alabamians that year ($22,027) you find that the percentage of personal income paid in taxes per capita was 9.1 percent — not the 24.5 percent the Christian Coalition claims. Now is this just an error? Or is the Coalition trying to get the statistics to say one thing when they really say another?
Hardy then encourages people to contact the Christian Coalition of Alabama on why they are playing fast and loose with the facts. Of course, this column was submitted before the Christian Coalition of America came out in favor of the plan. This ought to raise all of our antennae even higher concerning the real motives of John Giles and CC of Alabama are.
Sphere: Related Content
August 11th, 2003 at 7:40 am
Might want to check the actual article out. Page 4 of the article states:
“More meaningful perhaps, is to look at the state and local tax revenues against personal income over the time period, In 1990, Alabama’s revenues reflected 14.9 percent of personal income. By 1999, it had grown to 24.5 percent. A similar pattern emerges for all of the southeastern states. Clearly, the growth rate in state and local government has greatly exceded that of personal income, in some cases more than triple. For Alabama, personal income grew at a compounded rate of 4.4 percent, while the per capita revenue grew at 10.3 percent yearly from 1990-1999.”
August 11th, 2003 at 9:55 am
The article also points out the distinction between “revenues” and “taxes”, there is a difference. When discussing “revenues” the article points out on page 3, “Most of these are user fees, such as those assessed against hospiatals, airports, port facilities, parks and recreation and sewerage. Alabama government depend fairly heavily on this source of revenue, as it comprises 25 percent of total…Also to be included at this level is intergovernmental revenue. These are funds collected at one level of government and transferred to other levels. Nearly one-fifth of all revenue accruing to Alabama governments comes from federal government transfers.” In other words, this statistic is a mixture of state and federal taxes. You also have to remember that that federal money is restricted for specific purposes only.
Also, Alabama restricts itself with 90 percent of the money being “earmarked”, this means that, for instance, all of our income tax goes to pay teacher salaries, by law. Legislators have no control over those funds. Now people are complaining because the proposed package does NOT EARMARK! That’s the point. We need some dollars that can be used to prioritize and take care of situations that arise. It’s ridiculous to argue from both sides of the fence.