Say Anything Blog

The North Dakota Policy Council has rebutted the George Soros-sponsored Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report opposing state ballot measure 2 (my response to the report is here).

Here’s an excerpt:

The argument goes that the state can “afford” Measure 2 right now because of high oil prices and high agriculture commodity prices but that if it passes the state will “lose” over $400 million of dollars of revenue. When the economy slows and our schools will lose electricity.

The fact is that the $400 million that CBPP mentioned is money that is not currently appropriated to spend. It’s not money that was supposed to go to schools or other programs. It’s money that the state has never had to spend. In other words, it’s a surplus. Passing Measure 2 would be as if the state never had the money.

The second argument goes that the income tax is the wrong tax to cut. They make the case that the state should cut property taxes or the state sales tax. Here again, the left (and many on the right for that matter) believes that the state can actually cut property taxes.

That last point about property taxes is particularly apt.  Governor Hoeven’s administration has been trying in vain to propose a plan from the state level that would ease local property taxes, but so far all they’ve managed to do is make the state’s tax code more complicated through a confusing property tax buy-down scheme.  Ultimately, property tax reform has to come from the local level.  And that’s not going to happen until North Dakotans start holding the local officials responsible for the spending that’s driving high property taxes accountable.

Here’s another interesting point about the tax cuts debate in North Dakota: Both candidates for Governor, including incumbent Republican John Hoeven and Democrat challenger Tim Mathern, have proposed tax cuts that are far costlier than Measure 2 would be.  Mathern’s plan, in fact, has tax rate cuts as high as 75% which are significantly higher than the 50% proposed by Measure 2.

So it’s hilarious for the CBPP to descend on North Dakota from Washington DC and suggest that the state doesn’t need income tax relief when clearly our candidates for Governor from both parties know which way the political winds are blowing.