In three weeks here in Kentucky we’ll choose a governor. Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear is famous for giving tens of millions in tax breaks to the Ark Park, and he’s the guy I’m voting for without hesitation. It should tell you how bad his opponent, Republican David Williams, truly is. Here’s the Williams economic plan: Axe the Tax.
Republican gubernatorial nominee David Williams wants to eliminate state personal and corporate income taxes as part of his plan to create and retain jobs in Kentucky.
Williams’ plan, released Wednesday, also recommends several short-term tax suspensions designed to jump-start Kentucky’s job market and several changes in the law, including allowing voters to decide whether their counties should have a right-to-work law, which would allow an employee to opt out of joining a union.
The plan also would allow voters to decide whether their local governments should have to pay the prevailing wage for public works projects.
Revenue problem? Why, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Knocking out some $3.8 billion in yearly revenue (more than 10%) doesn’t seem to bother the Axe Man much. What will the state do in the meantime?
Williams did not explicitly say how he would make up for revenue if income taxes are eliminated, but his plan calls for a commission of economic and tax experts to come up with a new state and local tax structure that would receive an up-or-down vote in the legislature.
He has no clue. When your entire economic plan is “eliminate the state income tax and wait until A Wild Jobs Appears and throw a Pokeball at it” it seems people aren’t taking it very seriously at all around here as Williams has been forced to complain it’s the media’s fault why he’s losing by 30 points. The again, maybe it’s because that “new state and local tax structure” will of course fall directly on working class families in the form of his new “consumption tax”.
Williams would replace the state’s personal and corporate income taxes with a broader consumption tax of some sort. He says of this proposal, “If you tax consumption, people will make discerning choices about consumption and you will encourage productivity.”
Consumption taxes as a substitute for income taxes is backwards tax policy at its worst and is catastrophic for middle- and low- income families. In fact, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that the impact of a similar proposal in 2009 was disastrous: the poorest 20 percent of Kentuckians would have seen their taxes rise by $136 on average, while the richest one percent would have received an average tax cut of $40,910.
But Williams has managed one thing, however: he’s made me want to get up early in three weeks and go vote for Dinosaur Steve. Who said Kentucky Republicans can’t accomplish things?
kindness
Mmmm….Bronto ribs. Why let Fred Flintstone have all the fun?
Zifnab
He says words, but they clearly do not mean anything. Show me one business – show me ONE business – that benefits from reduced consumption of their product. ONE. I’m really eager to see this business that makes money when they have fewer customers and lower sales.
This God damn voodoo economics keeps haunting us. Keynes must be just spinning in his grave.
MeDrewNotYou
That statement was super-effective!
Calouste
It’s also quite an accomplishment to be 30% behind in a state-wide race in a state that went for your party by 16% in the last Presidential election.
sal
I’m more surprised that Kentucky isn’t a right to work, non prevailing wage state already.
MeDrewNotYou
Also too,do Republicans even understand their own ideology?
If you tax something, you reduce the demand for it. Tax on consumption=reduced consumption. Even if they government spends too much, do they really think consumers do too?
PeakVT
“If you tax consumption, people will make discerning choices about consumption and you will encourage productivity.”
The dog whistle is loud with this one.
Spaghetti Lee
Dinosaur Steve Versus The Axe Man
Wasn’t that the title of an Axe Cop comic?
And as long as I’m being a nerd, that Pokemon joke fills me with glee.
dr. bloor
@Calouste: @Calouste:
Even more remarkable is that he’s losing by that margin in a state that sent Rand Paul to the Senate. Kentuckians seem to have very specific tastes when it comes to raging, self-serving stupidity.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Wut?
People will buy less stuff, therefore we’ll make more stuff? Am I reading that correctly?
Mr Stagger Lee
Is there any place to invoke Raylan Givens or Boyd Crowder here?
FlipYrWhig
@PeakVT: That’s pretty much where I went too. It’s kind of a conservative version of a Sin Tax: tax consumption, so people will be judicious about their consumption of Bad Stuff, and because they’re no longer rotting their minds and bodies with Bad Stuff, they’ll be more “productive.” Not “productive” in economic terms, mind you, but in moral ones.
gaz
@Mr Stagger Lee:
LOL!
(Walton Goggins was absolutely great in this series, IMO)
But I think both these candidates are probably closer to Dewey Crowe
Yevgraf
Having had the opportunity to cross swords with David Williams in an adversarial setting in a courtroom and having previously run around in GOP circles, it is fair to say that he is not beloved even among his own caucus, primarily because of his personality. “Burkesville Bully” is an earned moniker.
Ironically, I still don’t understand what his wife saw in him. I found her to be a charming woman and a competent family judge – no accounting for taste, I suppose.
TenguPhule
So Herpes over AIDS.
Sad that this is what the choice is reduced to.
Worse that this is actually good news.
Lev
@sal: Might be the reason why Democrats routinely hold power there, even if the state is hopeless on a presidential level.
NobodySpecial
Perhaps you folks could export some of those Republicans to China.
Martin
But that’s an average tax cut of $20,387! See, everybody win!
/wingnut statistician
The Other Chuck
@Martin:
Actually you have to divide the top cut by 20 to get it per-capita, but that’s still over a thousand in tax breaks for *everybody*, amirite?
Meanwhile, the poorest 20% are sharpening their knives and thinking up creative ways to divide up the 1% 20 ways…
robertdsc-PowerBook
The phrase “Dinosaur Steve” has me in stitches. I hope he wins on that alone. LOL.
SiubhanDuinne
@TenguPhule:
Remember Louisiana Governor race between David Duke and Edwin Edwards? The catch phrase was “Vote for the Crook. It’s Important.”
jake the snake
I remember what my brother told me about the 1964 presidential election. “Johnson is a crook, but Goldwater is nuts.” He also told me that JFK’s campaign slogan should have been, “In yout guts, you know he’s nuts.
The sad thing is, Goldwater would be one of the sanest Republicans now.
Luthe
I can see this working juuuuust fine, at least until it runs into the Davis-Bacon Act. Of course, the good folks who would vote against prevailing wages are also the ones who don’t believe in the federal government, so they won’t care when the federal money dries up since they aren’t paying prevailing wages.
jefft452
@jake the snake: “…JFK’s campaign slogan should have been, “In yout guts, you know he’s nuts”
Assuming you made a typo and meant LBJ, it was – unofficialy at least
It was the standard reply to AuH2O’s “in your heart, you know he’s right”
Mack Lyons
Amazing how nearly every single Republican tax strategy manages to kick the working class in the balls. But I guess ordinary Kentuckians are overdue for a round of character-building struggles and sacrifice.
@FlipYrWhig: Ah, “moral productivity.” Because you aren’t being “productive” unless you’re living the hard-nosed life of a “proud and independent” American, too proud to ask for help and receiving none in return.
Paul in KY
Thank God Williams is on top of ticket & not Farmer.
Actually, Farmer seems to have been unintentionally trying to torpedo the chances of his ticket, IMO.