When Class Warfare Goes Local

Montana and Minnesota share an issue these days. Very likely so does the rest of the country. With all the head way the super rich have made in the past 8 years of the Bush Administration, they continue to squeeze the rest of us on the local level. Sometimes even the issues stand out as obscenely unfair.
But the rich count on controlling government by pinching the working class until they are too busy and stressed to pay attention to the political process. Then the lobbyists get busy padding the pockets of legislators.
The only solution is watchful vigilence. And it would help to tax the rich until they are too tight to pay for political adventures.
SFGate.com

Our story begins in the Montana legislature, though it could be anywhere, as this lawmaking body is a microcosm of America's ideological divides. Democrats pushed to boost education spending and give each resident homeowner a $400 property tax rebate. To fund the plan, they proposed closing tax loopholes and strengthening tax enforcement in a state where roughly half of all Fortune 500 companies doing business get away with paying less than $500 a year in taxes.


But such a move offends conservative politicians and the corporate lobbyists who crowd the hallways of state capitols like the one in Helena -- and these types don't take lightly to being offended.


The GOP-controlled Montana House pressed a tax cut for corporations financed by spending cuts, including one eliminating all public-health programs. When last week it came time to negotiate a compromise, Republican class warriors dug in further, offering amendments to kill Democrats' proposal to beef up corporate tax enforcement.

It's a little less obvious in Minnesota, but it's still about the super rich soaking the rest of us.
Postbulletin.com

Property taxes have risen more than $2 billion over the past four years and will rise by another $500 million if we adopt the governor's budget plan. That is unacceptable.


To pay for ongoing property tax cuts, the bill increases the tax on high levels of taxable income. Income above $400,000 for a couple or $226,000 for a single filer would be taxed at 9 percent instead of the current 7.85 percent, so a couple earning half a million dollars per year would see an increase of $1,150 on their income tax bill.


To further reduce property taxes, the bill also includes more than $1 million in additional Local Government Aid for Rochester and $2.7 million in school levy reduction aid for Rochester public schools. The proposal is "revenue neutral" because all of the money raised in additional income taxes from 1 percent of Minnesotans would go toward property tax cuts.


Is it fair to raise the taxes of the top 1 percent to give cuts to 90 percent of Minnesotans? You be the judge. A recent report from the Minnesota Department of Revenue shows that middle income Minnesotans pay 12.3 percent of their income in state and local taxes while the top 1 percent pay only 9.6 percent of theirs. Without a change in law the gap will be even wider by 2009. The House tax bill is not just property tax cuts; it is a step toward tax fairness.