State News Quick Hits: Virginia’s Gas Tax & Vermont’s EITC on Chopping Block, and More

There’s no doubt the fiscal cliff compromise reached on New Year’s Day will impact state budgets in complex ways, as CTJ’s partner organization, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) will be explaining in the coming weeks.  In the meantime here’s an important blog post from the Wisconsin Budget Project on why extending the federal estate tax cut will actually reduce Wisconsin state tax revenues.

The Roanoke Times is wrong to call Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s plan to eliminate the gas tax “worth debate” (we explain why here), but the editors hit the nail on the head with this: “The component of McDonnell’s plan that does not merit consideration is his reliance on money plundered from education, health care, public safety and other programs to backfill transportation. The highway program is starved for money because the gas tax rate has not changed since 1987. Are teachers and their students to blame? No, they are not. Did doctors and mental health workers cause the problem? Absolutely not. Did sheriff’s deputies and police officers? No. Legislators themselves are at fault, and it is shoddy business for them to strangle other services rather than accept responsibility.”

Focus on State of the State: In his combined inaugural and state-of-the-state address last week, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin proposed cutting his state’s refundable Earned Income Tax Credit (PDF) by more than half to pay for an expanded low-income child care subsidy.  The Public Assets Institute called the governor out, observing that his proposal “would take from the poor to give to the poor.”  Rather than supporting broad-based tax increases to boost available revenue to pay for state priorities such as affordable child care, Governor Shumlin’s plan will substantially raise taxes on the very families he purports to help. From the Public Assets Institute: “…if the governor is going to insist on a zero-sum game and take from one group of Vermonters in order to “invest” in another, he should look elsewhere for the child care money. Vermont’s business tax credits would be a good place to start. The EITC was created to reduce poverty, and it’s been a great success. The same can’t be said about business tax credits and jobs.”

Focus on State of the State: During his 2013 State of the State speech, Idaho Governor Butch Otter officially outlined his intention to eliminate the state’s personal property tax. The state policy team at ITEP recently previewed this proposal (among others), saying that Idaho’s “personal property tax raises 11 percent of property tax revenue statewide, and in some counties it raises more than 25 percent. Some legislative leaders in the Senate have expressed doubts about the affordability of repeal, especially on the heels of last year’s $35 million income tax cut for wealthy Idahoans—a change that put more than $2,600 in the pocket of each member of Idaho’s top one percent (PDF), while failing to cut taxes at all for four out of every five Idaho families.”