FAYETTEVILLE — I thought I’d report on the blog on my quick trip here yesterday to debate state Rep. Charlie Collins on his idea to reduce state income tax rates a little in every category to provide what he calls a “jobs magnet” for the state.
I will present a substantive report on my five-pointed rebuttal to his proposal in Sunday’s column. But the event itself was interesting in peripheral ways.
I praised the amiable and sharp Collins then, and do so again now, for putting together these kinds of forums to account to constituents, advance his views vigorously and present opposing sides generously and civilly.
We gathered in a lovely conference area on the back side of a modern office building nestled against some woods. Donated pizza was brought in, but not enough, it turned out, because we must have had 60 or 70 or more people.
I looked out from the front table and saw every liberal in Northwest Arkansas. I saw a minuscule percentage of the conservatives of Northwest Arkansas. That provided a nice audience balance.
I made an eye contract with a familiar female visage on the back row, and she grinned a bit wryly. I thought, “Who is that? I know that woman.”
Then it hit me. I knew this face from that startling television commercial that, in last Sunday’s column, I had called the best and worst I’d ever seen.
This was Appeals Court Judge Jo Hart, vanquisher of my friend Raymond Abramson by nearly two-to-one in last week’s Supreme Court race — an outcome I had found so distressing (well, more precisely, a campaign I had found so distressing, no matter the outcome) that I resurrected and intensified my argument for a Missouri Plan with appointed judges standing alone for occasional voter review up-or-down.
Judge Hart came up to me afterward and introduced herself. I asked how she and Raymond were getting along there on the appeals court and she said, oh, fine, it wasn’t personal, at which point I said that if somebody pounded me two-to-one, I’d consider it personal, at which point she said she had run for the office and not against anybody.
Also in the audience was Mark Henry, lawyer there in Fayetteville. Now this gets interesting: He was formerly married to the now-Courtney Goodson, then Courtney Henry, who got elected to the Supreme Court two years ago. Right after getting elected — having availed herself of prominent Henry family ties to Bill Clinton for good will and a fund-raiser — she split the sheets and took up with Texarkana trial lawyer Johnny Goodson, later marrying him, after having had to report lavish gifts from him on her financial disclosure. So, anyway, I confirmed with Mark something I’d heard, which was that he’d consulted Hart’s campaign and helped create that TV ad I called the worst and best ever. He confirmed, saying he had chosen to emphasize the word “best.” I do not know what any of that means. I just think it’s a single-degree of separation that bears mentioning.
Also in the audience was a fresh-faced young man looking about 20, but who told me he was 34, thank you. This was Bart Hester, former Razorback baseball player who got elected to the state Senate up in Benton County over a less extreme Republican, state Rep. Tim Summers, with the considerable outside help of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, which couldn’t stand Summers’ occasional moderation and support for a functioning government.
There was the local liberal Episcopal priest, Lowell Grisham, who got up to cite a report from the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families about the burdensome regressiveness of our state income tax system and to argue for progressive taxation that relieves the poor man and transfers the burden to the wealthy man better able to pay. Later I reviewed Twitter posts during the event and found a couple scoffing that I was getting support for my tired liberal views of progressive taxation from “the local socialist preacher.”
The Republican Party propaganda brigade was up from Litttle Rock headquarters to live-tweet as well, perhaps seeing a chance to try to assail Democrats as tax liberals because an independent newspaper columnist was expressing personal views in opposition to a Republican officeholder.
Let me assure you: Arkansas Democrats want nothing to do with a newspaper columnist arguing for higher income tax rates on the highest incomes.
That’s just me, OK? Don’t blame any politician for my brave and lonely truth-telling.
That goes triple, I’m sure, for the nice woman down front. This was Adella Gray, member of the Fayetteville City Council and the Democratic opponent of Collins in November. She was recognized to say a few words, and all she said was that it was a beautiful day and she so appreciated this kind of civil and respectful public policy discourse.
That’s a competitive race. Collins told me Gov. Mike Beebe kind of messed with the district in reapportionment “because he doesn’t like my tax plan.”
Beebe has a commitment to continue drawing down the sales tax on food. I asked Collins point-blank in the debate if he was for that, and he wouldn’t say. He prefers cutting rich people’s top marginal income tax rate in Arkansas from 7 percent to 6.
(NOTE TO MISREPRESENTING RIGHT-WING GOP POLITICAL OPERATIVE: I did not just say there that anyone making more than $30 grand is rich. I did not just there define rich. Did I? In fact, I called in my remarks for rearranging rates to make lower middle class ones such as for $30 grand and kick the threshold for the top rate, which I would raise a point or two for progressivity and to achieve revenue neutrality, at least to six figures.)
This whole notion of lower or nonexistent state income tax rates fueling economic growth in states — well, we’ll discuss that in Sunday’s column. Or I will.
John,
Thanks again for coming to Fayetteville. I voted to reduce the food sales tax in the last session and as I said yesterday, am in favor of reducing many taxes, including the food sales tax.
I said that priority one for me is income tax relief for workers, to lower the cost of hiring Arkansans making us more competitive with workers in nearby states (all bordering states have a lower income tax rate than we do). That will help turn Arkansas into a Good Jobs Magnet.
Priority one for me is income tax relief. I also support food sales tax relief. Can we agree to reduce both?
Charlie
Charlie Collins
1 Jun 12 at 8:03 am
charlie: your tuned has changed. i directly asked you yesterday if you would support a further drawdown of the food tax in the next session, and you would not say. you needed more data, i believe you said. this is all on videotape. you prefer your 7 to 6 percent reduction for high incomes on state income taxes. i asserted we could not afford both. you said you could reduce income taxes and somehow not cut the budget. i countered that less money means less money. now, having slept on it, are you saying we could reduce both income and sales taxes and not cut the budget? do we need to reassemble for round two?
John Brummett
1 Jun 12 at 8:22 am
John,
Ah, the third element– “And still not cut the budget…” is the part I could not think through fast enough on the spot yesterday when I said “It depends.”
But, I have figured out how to do both now, we extend the phase in period for the tax reductions, then we can do both over time without an overall budget cut.
I think we can reassemble for a round two and I think the topic could be, “Economic Growth.” We can discuss our differing views on that and what causes it.
You are a fair person, I appreciate you!
Charlie
Charlie Collins
1 Jun 12 at 8:51 am
Charlie: Last I looked, there were FOUR states that didn’t have a deficit. Arkansas was one of them. You want to take us out of that?
Last I looked, a tax cut took the US government out of a surplus and into a deficit (and recession). You want to put us in that condition?
The business leaders I’ve talked to don’t care about income tax rates as a job magnet. They care about infrastructure and skilled work force. We don’t have that, and tax cuts will assure we never will. But your fat cat friends who financed your campaigns will get fatter.
And who was that Virginia group that poured so much money into your last campaign? Why are they so interested in Arkansas, and what do you owe them.
As my daddy once told me, “Better to own a legislator than to be one.”
Bill Kennamer
1 Jun 12 at 9:13 am
[...] to the blogosphere, demonstrating his ability to play fast and loose with facts by publishing this dazzling analysis of the debate that reads more like a red carpet review, with a tinge of Brantley-esque Koch [...]
John Brummett Is Not Ignorant
1 Jun 12 at 11:35 am
Charlie,
What impartial studies exist to support the idea that tax rates drive business location decisions?
.
eLwood
1 Jun 12 at 12:41 pm
eLwood,
What is your name?
Charlie
Charlie Collins
1 Jun 12 at 6:52 pm
Bill,
No, I don’t want to take us out of that– My plan would be phased in to maintain a balanced budget AND not cut overall spending vs prior year. We’ll do it by slowing the growth of spending. Over time the dynamic effects would accrue and we will turn Arkansas into a Good Jobs Magnet.
I know Arkansans, we are great people, just as good as those in the other 50 states– Just imagine if our quality of life measures (median incomes, college graduation rates, etc) improved to the national average– We can do it!
Charlie
Charlie Collins
1 Jun 12 at 7:00 pm
Charlie: Spending is not the problem. My college roomate’s step-father ran the AIDC back in the day. There ain’t no way Arkansas becomes a job magnet unless we get an ocean on our border, an educated work force, and more infrastructure than we have now.
BTW, most of us who graduated from Arkansas colleges and Universities spent a considerable amount of their working career outside the state. Not that I wanted to, but that’s where the money was. But I paid more taxes in CT and OK than here. Less in TX, but their severance tax and sales taxes with a larger POPULATION and economy made a difference, although now their government is suffering too. Can you say $21 billion dollar deficit? Thanks, Rick Perry.
Nope cutting taxes isn’t the answer. I never saw an economic problem that a Republican had a solution for that actually worked.
Bill Kennamer
2 Jun 12 at 7:46 pm
Why do the citizens of texarkana ar not have to pay any state income taxes , john
Mo orr
3 Jun 12 at 7:49 am
i suspect you know, but i’ll tell it: back in the ’70s, i think, texarkana, ark., civic leaders convinced the state that the arkansas side would lag behind the texas side because the texas side had no income tax and the arkansas side did. so the state enacted the “border-city exemption” for texarkana. and the arkansas since has continued to lag. monkey seeing texas and monkey doing provided no jobs magnet.
jbrummett
3 Jun 12 at 11:21 am
Just out of curiosity, how do the property taxes compare between sides (in Texarkana)? It seems to me that states will get their share one way or another.
Delta2
3 Jun 12 at 2:29 pm
Not having attended the Collins/Brummett event, I really can’t speak specifically to why Mr. Collins believes that lowering state income taxes bears any significant relationship to job creation. In theory I understand the notion that labor is made cheaper by lowering the gap between what employers pay and what an employee takes home. So theoretically, employers would want to locate their businesses in places where the labor cost is cheaper. However, the available data suggests that in practice there is only a negligible relationship between the tax wedge and job growth. The primary determinant of hiring, particularly at a time like this, is demand. Even at reduced rates, employers aren’t going to hire more workers if they don’t need them. As for Arkansas in particular, our wage rates are relatively low already.
As Mr. Brummett and Mr. Kennamer point out, the best way to increase demand for jobs is public investment in education, job training and infrastructure. These investments have a measurable impact on job growth over time.
Fred Flintstone
4 Jun 12 at 3:08 pm
Fred,
Thank you for at least conceding the theory is sound and logical.
Charlie
Charlie Collins
4 Jun 12 at 8:05 pm
You’re welcome, Mr. Collins. Still, one duty of our elected representatives is to reject a theory when the objective evidence confirms that its implementation will not accomplish the stated goals. If you are truly interested in job creation, look for ways to encourage investment in education, job training and infrastructure. Lower state income taxes won’t accomplish this.
Fred Flintstone
5 Jun 12 at 9:23 am
Enjoying the Hell out of this exchange.
mike graves
5 Jun 12 at 7:24 pm
[...] [...]
John Brummett Is Not Ignorant «
6 Jun 12 at 8:24 am
Fred, Mike, Delta, et al,
Check out my guest essay, “For a Better Life” in today’s ADG for more details, happy to respond to q’s on that (you can find on this website).
Charlie
Charlie Collins
7 Jun 12 at 5:07 pm