We retired Tax Justice Blog in April 2017. For new content on issues related to tax justice, go to www.justtaxesblog.org
The Tulsa World takes a look at the growing list of reasons to oppose an income tax cut in Oklahoma, including arguments being made by education groups, businesses, retirees, real estate developers and lawmakers themselves. As the World puts it, basic public services already “haven’t been protected for years and as a result are decimated by recent cutbacks. Protecting them should mean restoring some funding, but that’s not how tax-cutters see things.”
The Maryland House and 
Senate have each passed budgets containing progressive personal income tax increases that roughly hew to the Governor’s original blueprint. As the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute points out, the Senate plan raises more revenue from across the board increases, while the House plan raises less and targets the state’s highest-income residents. The differences between these two plans will be worked out in the days ahead.
This great editorial in the Lincoln Journal-Register (Nebraska) calls the newly formed Open Sky Policy Institute “an informed new voice” in Nebraska’s public policy debates. The editorial also shares some of the Institute’s numbers (compliments of ITEP) making the case that “the number of dollars the tax cut would put into the pockets of higher-income Nebraskans dwarfed the amount that would go to low- and middle-income Nebraskans” under a plan the governor has proposed.