Tolbert: Who Is More Like Mike On Taxes?
by September 26, 2013 5:04 pm 85 views
My Stephens Media column this week looks at the gubernatorial race between the two presumptive nominees – Democrat Mike Ross and Republican Asa Hutchinson. As I note, the Ross campaign has one main theme – much like the old Gatorade ads – Ross wants to be like Mike… Beebe, not Jordan. As a public service, I even put together this campaign ad for him.
I examine in my column which candidate more closely resembles the candidate Mike Beebe, who ran for governor in 2006. You may recall, Beebe went out on a limb in 2006 with a bold tax relief proposal – the gradual, but eventual elimination of the grocery tax. He followed through with this promise by chipping away at it and passing the final piece this year. He made this commitment not knowing how he would find the funds, but with the courage to tackle a promise his predecessors, including Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, was unwilling to do.
Ross, by contrast, seems to be unwilling to make such bold commitments. Instead, he has said that he wants to make small targeted tax cuts, and only if there are surplus funds in the budget to provide for them.
“If we have a surplus and we can afford tax cuts, I will support tax cuts, but they’re going to be very targeted,” Ross told the Political Animals Club of Little Rock last month. “They’re going to be targeted at helping working families that will spend that money, put it back in the economy, create jobs. Or they’re going to be targeted at industry and people that will create jobs.”
His likely Republican opponent, Asa Hutchinson, has an opposing view. He is campaigning on his desire to cut the state income tax.
“If we are going to compete nationally and grow industry in this state, we have got to have a more competitive income tax. Right now a millionaire in New York City is in a lower state income tax bracket than someone making $35,000 a year in Arkansas. That’s wrong and we have got to be more competitive,” Hutchinson to the club in July.
But unlike last time around when he called for eliminating the grocery tax all at once, Hutchinson instead is following Beebe’s lead to lower state income taxes gradually.
“Gov. Beebe has set the mark for how you can do that without adversely impacting services and the essential responsibilities of our state toward education, prisons, and providing a safety net for our citizens,” said Hutchinson. “The answer is, you do it gradually with economic growth and you trigger it so it does not adversely affect what we need to do as a state. He did that with the sales tax on groceries. We can tackle the income tax the same way.”
While neither candidate has gotten into specifics, a contrast is already forming. Ross seems to be advocating pragmatism while Hutchinson wants to see bold income tax relief phased in over time.
On taxes, it makes you wonder which candidate is more like Mike.