Surprise, surprise : Gruel tax back on Georgia agenda

There was never the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell that this hellish proposal was ever really going away. It's back, with the proverbial (and maybe literal) vengeance.

It's the most conscienceless and unconscionable tax "reform" dodge since Alabama's "current use" loophole for big landowners, and probably worse: the legislation, unveiled again this summer, to cut state income taxes, pay for the cut by raising the sales tax, and -- of course -- put the latter back on food (from which, in a brief spasm of humanitarian enlightenment, it was lifted some 20 years ago).

Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta, said the plan is a way of "shifting power away from the state and toward the kitchen table."

Honest to God, he said that. About a plan to tax food.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Black is White, Truth is what we say it is.

Granted, I'm no economist, but here's something I never understood: If tax cuts (as we've been told ever since the miracle of Reaganomics) are the magic beans of economic growth, why do they need to be "paid for" at all?

Why don't we just cut taxes across the board -- sales tax, property tax, income tax, all of it -- and let the rising tide of perpetual tax-free prosperity lift all our little boats right up there with the yachts? Could it possibly be because the people crunching the numbers know perfectly well it's utter crapola? Perish the thought.

But putting that kind of construction on it gives this whole thing way too much credit. There's no Laffer Curve or "supply side" argument being offered here. This is a simple case of the politically powerful doing something that benefits them and their allies and their benefactors, simply because they can. It brings to mind the definitive line from an American classic: "Catch-22 says we can do whatever you can't stop us from doing." It also suggests the most notorious passage from Georgia author James Dickey's most famous work: "There was no need to justify or rationalize anything; they were going to do what they wanted to."

What this is -- and it's not a debatable ambiguity, a philosophical difference, or a matter of perspective, but arithmetic -- is a downward shift of the tax burden, and an upward redistribution of wealth. People with more will pay less, and people with less will pay more. Period.

But wait (as they used to say on the old WTCG when it still sold Ginsu knives and Pocket Fisherman and Party Ring) -- there's more.

In order to cover more of the budget hole created by cutting income taxes, including those of some pretty wealthy people (taxing groceries, including the humble food of the working poor, obviously won't cover that), the plan calls for eliminating some tax credits and exemptions for things like making homes handicapped-accessible, home care for family members, dependent care, foster child adoption, workplace child care, clean energy, and disaster assistance.

The public-spiritedness of this thing just has a warm glow about it, don't you think?

I have a feeling they're going to get this monstrosity through the legislature this time around. Georgia families well off enough to pay substantial state income tax (right now it's 6 percent) will get "relief" (though not at the grocery store). Working families too poor to pay much in income tax but most of what they earn in basic necessities will take a painful hit in the food they put on that newly "empowered" kitchen table.

And the Honorables responsible for it all can pat each other on the back come Sunday morning, and congratulate themselves on what good Christians they are.

Dusty Nix, 706-571-8528; dnix@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Surprise, surprise : Gruel tax back on Georgia agenda ."