{"id":276,"date":"2007-02-10T11:26:18","date_gmt":"2007-02-10T17:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/02\/10\/half-a-loaf\/"},"modified":"2007-02-10T17:37:37","modified_gmt":"2007-02-10T23:37:37","slug":"half-a-loaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/02\/half-a-loaf\/","title":{"rendered":"Half a Loaf"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK. Maybe it is a brilliant political maneuver, new Gov. Mike Beebe’s vow to cut the sales tax on groceries in Arkansas. It has given him several advantages.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the state is among the poorest in the Union, and reducing even an inherently unfair tax will tax what feeble services Arkansas manages to offer: education, highways, law enforcement and on down the line. Everyone eats approximately the same, and thus a value-added tax on food costs the lower-income person more than the higher-income person. (Yes, Spam is cheaper than steak, especially USDA Choice, locally raised grass-fed cow, but the point remains.) Everyone is accustomed to sales tax on virtually everything. Here, the state takes 6 percent and localities take a bit on top of that. No one has starved for want of 6 to 9 pennies for a dollar loaf of day-old bread; no one will eat better for 3 extra cents, especially without a stable revenue replacement.<\/p>\n

First, Beebe won last November, with the grocery tax cut prominent in his campaign. A Democrat promising a tax cut. Voters believed him, and he’s carrying it through. The bill he eventually presented was to halve the tax on grocery items to 3 percent. This prevents the complexity faced by those states that have altogether killed the food tax, which is defining what’s a non-taxed grocery item and what’s a taxable prepared food item.<\/p>\n

Friday, the state House approved<\/a> the 3 percent tax on a 99-0 vote. Previously, the state Senate approved the cut 35-0. Let’s hope that the other significant bills, say on school reform and biofuels, pass with as much enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Second, no matter what happens, the statehouse veteran (Beebe was a legislator then Arkansas attorney general), can say he was following the will of the people, as was every member of the General Assembly.<\/p>\n

Third, Beebe will have a focus for the remainder of his four-year term when the state starts coming up short financially. You’d hate for the guy to ask at the end of 2008, what do I do for the next couple of years? Shorting the state treasury gives him a multifaceted project. Hey, it’s like what Iraq has done for George W. Bush. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK. Maybe it is a brilliant political maneuver, new Gov. Mike Beebe’s vow to cut the sales tax on groceries in Arkansas. It has given him several advantages. Meanwhile, the state is among the poorest in the Union, and reducing even an inherently unfair tax will tax what feeble services Arkansas manages to offer: education, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":262,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/01\/cast-bread-upon-the-voters\/","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":0},"title":"Cast bread upon the voters","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's not fair to blow up a quotation of a state legislator, even adding context to show that he or she probably did mean it the way it sounded. But when remarks fall into your lap, courtesy of alert journalists, who can resist? I have written previously about opposing the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":240,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/10\/tax-the-poor\/","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":1},"title":"Tax the Poor","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"October 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Replace the grocery tax; don't repeal it. (This is an Arkansas Brick.) It's not too late to put in your 6 cents' worth -- that's the amount of state sales tax in Arkansas, before municipalities add on theirs. Nothing can happen until the Legislature convenes in January, but various state\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":360,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/09\/no-gaming-without-representation\/","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":2},"title":"No Gaming Without Representation","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.\" -- \"Gordon Gekko,\" Wall Street, as quoted in imdb.com Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock If \"greed is good,\" as the fictional financier Gordon Gekko\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":231,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/09\/no-pox-on-this-tax\/","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":3},"title":"No Pox on This Tax","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A pox of this tax, or a tax of this pox, (twist of Falstaff's line of Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 2) We should, as these editorials all attest, vote \"yes\" to all four of Fayetteville's tiny tax increases. Northwest Arkansas Times, and the Demzette. Should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":281,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/02\/cut-wont-buy-a-cup\/","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":4},"title":"Cut Won’t Buy a Cup","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We have yet another charity that we can help for pennies a day. Yes, friends for just over $1 a week, you can feed an Arkansas legislator's soul. He or she will feel satisfied now and for two more years, for having fulfilled a campaign promise. You can keep the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1575,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/09\/school-tax-tables\/","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":5},"title":"School Tax Tables","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No More Foolin' for Schoolin' Brick by current policy does not give political endorsements. Now that the Fayetteville School District's high school plan is set for a public vote, in about 10 days, all I should do is create a nice neutral analysis. Yawn. Better: Just lay out some facts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}