Senate should scrap flawed tax bill, create ‘BRAC’

THE SENATE USED to pride itself on being the deliberative body, the body that took a long-term view, understood the implications of its actions and rejected bad ideas, no matter how popular they were.

But after weeks of demands that they just do something, even if it’s wrong, senators voted overwhelmingly Thursday to do just that — something wrong.

The Senate’s property tax relief plan is less bad than the House’s plan — in the sense that driving 60 mph through crowded city streets is less bad than driving 100 mph. But there’s nothing good about the plan.

It does not make our tax system more stable. While the shift is smaller than in the House, it still makes our system less stable, by relying more heavily than we already do on the most unreliable tax, the sales tax.

It does not make our tax system fairer, by addressing such obvious flaws as the special sales tax break for expensive cars or the higher tax on renters or the special subsidy for undeveloped prime real estate. It actually increases the luxury car break and widens the gap between property taxes on homeowners and renters.

It does not offer significant tax relief to that small portion of homeowners who truly cannot afford to pay their taxes and are threatened with losing their homes. At most, their taxes would be cut a quarter.

It does not address the school funding inequities that threaten the future of our entire state by making it impossible for some school districts to provide their students with the education they need to become productive workers and taxpayers.

It doesn’t even give negotiators the tools to craft a smart tax plan in a House-Senate conference committee, as many House members had hoped. By using a higher sales tax to eliminate county operating taxes on homes and letting local voters eliminate additional property taxes, senators made it impossible for the conference committee to settle on what senators had been saying for the better part of a year was the only responsible option: replacing school property taxes with a statewide funding source.

For months now, we’ve been urging first the House and then the Senate to pass a comprehensive tax reform package that provides property tax relief for people who actually need it and addresses the real problems with our tax system and our school funding system. The House wouldn’t even consider such a thing, and on Thursday, after three weeks of sometimes-noble efforts, the Senate finally gave up, and demonstrated that even our deliberative body is fully incapable of making difficult decisions on taxes.

At this point, we can no longer hope for a responsible tax reform package this session. The temptation is great to urge no action at all. But there is still one way to move forward instead of backward. When the Senate meets Monday, it should scrap its tax swap plan and instead create a BRAC-style commission to spend the rest of this year putting together a comprehensive tax reform package for the 2007 General Assembly to adopt or reject, on an up-or-down vote with no amendments.

This isn’t how government is supposed to work. But when it comes to taxes, our Legislature has demonstrated that it cannot work responsibly. Lawmakers must still make the decision, but perhaps they’ll make a better one if someone else shows them how.