Letter: Hubbard looking out for the rich, not majority of citizens
Published: October 20, 2009
Hubbard looking out for the rich, not majority of citizens
Your coverage of Rep. Mike Hubbard’s remarks to the Rotary Club quotes him as saying, “We’re not opposed to removing the sales tax on food, but we are opposed to shifting the burden.”
We do not know if he elaborated on what that burden shift would be, but your readers probably already know that the shift would be away from those in the lower- and middle-income levels carrying the heaviest tax load to the most well off paying a larger share.
When asked if they would support removing state sales tax from groceries and making up the lost revenue by raising taxes on individuals making more than $100,000 and couples making more than $200,000, 65 percent of a representative sample of voters said “ yes.” (Capitol Survey Research Center polling). Although a large majority of Alabamians favors this measure, Rep. Hubbard has worked very hard to see to it that a majority of the Legislature does not.
In other words, Hubbard is unwilling to give the majority of citizens a break from taxes on the necessities of life because he’s looking out for the rich.
Ruth Gynther
Auburn
Who really carries the tax burden in Alabama?
Your paper reported that Mike Hubbard, in speaking about taking the state tax (4 percent) off groceries, is opposed to “shifting the burden.”
Where is the burden now? Families in the lowest 20 percent of income are now paying 11 percent of their income in local and state taxes while the top 20 percent in income pay 5 percent or less. The burden needs to be shifted. The top 20 percent are not paying their fair share while the lower income folks are being taxed into poverty. Some very reasonable proposals have been offered to alleviate this problem. Of course, the high-income folks oppose any such ideas. When will some folks support fairness?
Marilyn Garrett
Opelika
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Greg,
You bring up a good point.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/01/americas-fattest-states-m_n_223699.html
AL and MS are consistently at the top of the list of fattest states.
This food tax doesn’t seem to halt the fact.
The amount paid on average has to be somewhere around $300-$400 annually for taxes on food. This taken from 4% sales tax on food in our tax code and an roughly $150/wk spent on groceries not including household ammenities.
I personally don’t see this making or breaking any family since we can all find a way to save this amount of money.
If you take the notion that many of these so called “low income families” receive tax refunds from the federal/state government there’s not much of an argument here. These low income families pay nothing in federal taxes annually and still receive money back…ie stimulus checks.
One argument to doubling the tax is based on the fact that healthier foods do cost more. This would easily defeat any bill that would double the sales tax on food.
With all the fatties that I see waddling around in this state everyday, I think maybe we ought to DOUBLE the tax on food.
Oh Captain Clueless, I see you are at it again. Whinning about why the world isn’t perfect and wanting to take what others have earned.
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
Look, its a clue!
Its tough when someone presents facts about taxes huh?
It looks to me like Ruth and Marilyn are a little misinformed.
To claim that the lower income families have the largest tax burden is not only incorrect, its a consistent lie liberals have been telling for decades in order to push the socialist agenda. Its just not true! Mike Hubbard stated that he isn’t opposed to removing the sales tax on food. This in turn will not be an opportunity to collect the same funds from the people that are already paying over 40% of our federal income taxes. Taxes pay for things such as police force, roads and other luxuries such as welfare. By no means does the constitution grant the government the right to take more tax dollars from the wealthy because they succeeded financially.
I find it interesting that you continue to harp on Christians and conservatives alike.
Isn’t the liberal view supposed to be open minded?!
Keep trying, I hope one day you get it.
Increasing taxes on the wealthy has always been the easy button for the left though it has never proven to be the right resource. Spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax gets us nowhere in a hurry.
“The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”-Margaret Thatcher.
Write this down and read is every day until you understand its meaning.
cls67 brings up what in 2003 became known as the “Who Would Jesus tax?“ vote. The similarities of how some have delayed reform on our taxing food are certain.
Bob Riley had the bark stripped off him by movement conservatives who couldn’t abide that he’d not just follow their ideology but actually deviate significantly. Big Mules also had their interests threatened. Money poured in so that Riley and the reformers were routinely outflanked. It was a perfect storm and reform was simply trounced.
A Christian facet to the issue, there was also an argument raised by supporters of reforming Alabama’s archaic tax arrangements that large, frequently out of state, landowners would be impacted significantly more than most “Mom and Pop” landowners.
(How cls67 defines the position of “the liberals” is interesting to me in that h/she has recently on another thread accused a person using a straw man fallacy.)
Push back against the Riley reforms came from various Big Mules via their tried and true fearmongering where regular folks holding smaller tracts were told they’d soon be soaked. Again, the proposals for reforming our food tax have been met often with the same approach.
I don’t dispute cls67’s statistic on percentage of timberland ownership but as I recall the Riley proposal the little folks were relatively protected in their holdings via exemptions and the like. You had to have a pretty good chunk of land to see much impact. The increase was to be phased in and even after the dust settled our property taxes would still be as low or lower than other Southeastern states.
I do recall several of the folks I knew lamenting what was to come if reform passed and having the chance to go over the details of the proposal. They were surprised and angry when they realized the Christian Coalition and ... had been engaging in outright misrepresentations and frankly very un-Christian activities.
Even some that said “I’m going with my self-interests in the vote” admitted being troubled with how they’d been lied to.
“There is no ... ‘fair’” per cls67 on the issue of our tax policy. When poor families pay a much greater percentage of their income in state tax than wealthy families pay, I’ll submit “fair” comes into play. Additionally, economics, investment into human capitol, finance, and ... are factors that our representatives should consider. What should we build our tax policies off of cls67?
cls67 asks what else the poor spend their money on. I suppose that’s a fair question yet I fear we’re heading into “Reagan’s welfare queens” territory. Also, even if some of the poor do make poor choices in their spending the same might apply to the swells the right tries to make sure sure pay less and less in taxes “so they’ll create jobs” and “fuel the engines of commerce.“
cls67, I still hope you’ll tell us where you’ll cut our budget. The right frequently tells us we ought to cut, cut, cut and yet at some point the fat is rather rare. This “across the board” approach seems to me to be more ideological than practical.
You earlier wrote something about the money we keep going to better uses that going to the gov’t. Surely there’s some truth here and yet we’ve got to have adequate revenue for basic functions that all but the most Galtesque souls accept as legitimate.
What? You know 50 individuals yourself? You mean the liberal story about timberland being controlled by a few large corporations isn’t true? Why, if it were not for them, we could just pass a tax on timberland and all would be well. Fact is somewhere around 60% of Alabama’s 22 million acres is owned by farmers and other individuals and you could easily know 50 of them.
If you want to worry about the % of income of what a person pays in tax, start worring about what they spend the rest of their money on as well. I’m not concerned with it. There is no answer to what is “fair”.
cls67, You wrote “Less than 50 people(companies) own all of Alabama’s pine trees ...“ but I personally know at least fifty people that own timberland. I’m confused about what you meant by the above.
Then again your “the largeness of the weathlier” also has me a bit lost too. Perhaps “the largess” is what you had in mind?
I remain interested in your suggestion for across the board spending cuts. Please deal in specifics rather than generalities and tell us what areas ought to be cut.
Your “I know Alabamians pay too much in taxes and ...“ is interesting in that my understanding in that our poor pay a far larger percentage of their income in taxes than do our wealthier citizens. So how do you know? Can you cite any authority, ideally comparing other states, for your claim?
Our state legislators don’t seem to be worried about the state agencies as they continue to take home a bigger salary gathered at night and take lots of pork home for dubious projects. Why should I worry if they don’t?
I don’t worship anything, but I know Alabamians pay too much in taxes and if we keep the money it goes to better uses when we spend it. I don’t know what the two ladies had in mind and don’t know if they know what Hubbard had in his mind either. Crying about him protecting the rich is silly. Why not complain about Senator Little double and triple dipping? That actually happened.
Get real. Pine trees? Less than 50 people(companies) own all of Alabama’s pine trees and most of those don’t live here. Why not talk about all of the benefits the “poor” have thanks to the largeness of the weathlier now. Reduced housing cost, food stamps, EIC, Wic, the food bank, the salvation army. The list is a mile long.
By the way, lots of other states are dead broke, so I would not hold other states up as a beacon of light to follow.
Don’t hold your breath on the AMT ever changing, but do look for more people qualifying as the dollar cheapens and the salaries double just to keep an equilibrium. That is exactly how the last million or so got on the AMT merry go round.
Mike Hubbard doesn’t say or do anything unless he can benefit from it. He’s never cared about representing the people of his district, he only represents himself. Himself and the highest bidder, of course. He either has his hand out or already in your pocket. You really can’t believe a word this guy says….if his lips are moving, he’s lying.
cls67, Why discriminate instead of following your “across the board spending cuts” suggestion? Uh, because that would be smart? Perhaps some areas in our budget could be trimmed and yet a good number of state agencies are operating on fumes. And it is about to get especially scary.
Seriously, across the board? Do you also worship tax cut Jesus and believe that freeing the magic markets solves all? You can certainly take or even advocate for those positions, vote for or even defend the likes of Mike Hubbard, and we’ll see how this all washes out. However, Alabama needs servants seeking solutions rather than posturing and pandering. I think that was the exception these two ladies took with Chairman Hubbard.
As far as the relevance of other what other states do, when Alabama and Mississippi are the only doing something a certain way one could easily find that as reason enough to question the policy.
Certainly each state can tweak their own revenue arrangements to suit their circumstances and I don’t think the strongest advocate for ending the sales tax on food thinks otherwise.
My point on the “good deal” that the wealthy get relates mostly to our property tax arrangements. Essentially the same acre of pine trees is in Georgia taxed roughly four times what the state collects in Alabama.
I hear you cls67 on the AMT yet that has always been fixed for the benefit of the truly middle class with temporary solutions. When the grown ups rather than reactionaries and weenies take charge in DC we’ll likely see that fixed permanently.
Even Mike Hubbard accepts that we ought not to tax food. If he can grasp the morality involved in this issue then surely others can.
Cut spending across the board, why discriminate?
Totally immaterial that only 2 states tax food unless you want to model their tax system.
Modest increases never stay modest and why the “most affluent”? Haven’t we seen the AMT go from 123 people or so of the most affluent to millions of “new” rich?
It is immaterial whether the rich get a good deal or not in Alabama unless you are willing to admit the poor do as well.
It would not be fiscal responsible to remove the tax without reducing spending, which I would support.
So we are immoral for taxing food?
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