Greenwood Commonwealth. December 27, 2022.
Editorial: Another Round Of Tax Battles
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has made it official. To no one’s surprise, he announced policy goals for the 2023 legislative session that contradict those of Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn.
Hosemann said last week once again that he supports a one-time income tax rebate, which he estimates would be up to $500 per taxpayer; Reeves and Gunn want the state to completely eliminate the income tax.
Hosemann wants the state to permanently extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for low-income working mothers to a year; the governor and speaker still are against anything that remotely smells like an expansion of Medicaid.
The lieutenant governor, noting that Mississippi is sitting on a huge, multibillion-dollar pile of cash from two years worth of higher-than expected tax revenues, also wants to increase education spending, give willing school districts an incentive to set up year-round classes, and find solutions for hospitals whose finances are stressed, citing specifically the example of Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Balancing the proposals from the two sides, it is easy to determine that Hosemann offers the more commonsense path forward.
On income taxes, Mississippi has already made two large reductions that will be phased in over the next several years. It is simply sound management to wait and see how those play out before going all in with your chips.
More to the point, Reeves and Gunn like to say that other states, such as Texas, Florida and Tennessee, have thrived without an income tax. And it is true — those states are a lot better off than Mississippi is. There is, however, no objective evidence to prove that their relative prosperity is directly tied to their lack of an income tax. And you can be certain that they exact their pound of flesh from taxpayers in other ways — such as through high property taxes. Besides, Mississippi’s income tax rates are reasonable.
If lawmakers want to cut more taxes, a better place to look would be the general sales tax, which is too high at 7%. It would help everyone in the state, especially those at the lower income levels.
As for Medicaid, permanently extending postpartum coverage for mothers for a full year would be a good move in a state with some of the nation’s highest rates of infant deaths and women who die in childbirth. It is mind-boggling that legislators who say they’re pro-life seem more interested in what happens to a fetus than a newborn baby. Government can play a role here, and Hosemann is right to see that.
It’s hard to tell how these issues will play out when the 2023 legislative session starts in less than two weeks. Hosemann and Gunn have had nearly a year to find common ground, but from what the two are saying lately, it doesn’t look like they were successful.
In the end, the Senate can kill anything from the House that it doesn’t like, and vice versa. Were something to pass that Reeves disliked, he could veto it, and it is hard to envision a Republican-majority Legislature overriding a governor from its own party.
The wild card is that elections are upon us. That gives lawmakers more of an incentive to show voters they’re doing something. We will soon find out just what it is.
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