Recently in Delaware Category

Few would envy the position most state lawmakers now find themselves in. Nearly every state is required to balance its budget each year and the vast majority of states face substantial budget deficits in the coming years. Those lawmakers will have to support either cuts in essential public services or increases in politically unpopular taxes -- and do so in the midst of a deepening recession.

Under these circumstances, the best way to eliminate state budget deficits is through tax increases on upper-income individuals and families, as such changes would reduce consumer demand the least. Three states in the northeast -- New York, Connecticut, and Delaware -- seem ready to do just that.

In the Empire State, Governor David Paterson and members of the legislative leadership this week reached agreement on a plan to close a $17.7 billion budget gap. The centerpiece of the plan is the addition of two new tax rates. A rate of 7.85 percent would apply to income in excess of $300,000 and a rate of 8.97 percent would apply to income above $500,000. While those changes would only be temporary in nature (lasting only through 2011) they are expected to bring in about $4 billion per year in revenue.

In the Nutmeg State, budget deficits are projected to total $8.7 billion over the next two years. In response, the Assembly's Finance Committee approved legislation that, among other changes, would add four new income tax brackets, with rates ranging from 6 percent to 7.95 percent, all affecting married Connecticuters with incomes over $250,000 annually (and single taxpayers with incomes above $132,500).

Finally, in the First State, Governor Jack Merkell has put forward a broad-ranging budget plan that would take the constructive step of raising Delaware's top income tax rate from 5.95 percent to 6.95 percent, the first income tax increase since 1974. Even though it would impose pay and benefit cuts on state employees and rely more heavily on gaming and excise tax revenue, this budget plan is a step forward on progressivity.

Budget negotiations are wrapping up this week in Delaware, and unlike most states, Delaware has taken an approach to remedying their $151 million budget shortfall that utilizes both spending cuts and tax increases. While many states seem content with purely slashing spending to balance the budget, (see this week's Digest articles on New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Florida) Delaware has chosen to scrape together some extra revenues to help save some of its public services.

Admittedly, the means the state has chosen to go about doing this aren't especially exciting. On the revenue side are minor increases in the gross-receipts tax, the state's share of slot machine revenues, the alcohol tax, registration fees for limited liability partnerships, and the possibility of a tax on medical providers. Clearly, the only overarching theme of these tax policy changes is that they are the only options on which Delaware budget negotiators managed to agree.

Noticeably missing from this hodge-podge of ideas is a bill filed in the Senate seeking to increase the state's top income tax rate from 5.95% to 7.95%. This change wouldn't have provided a tremendous amount of revenue, but the revenue it did raise would have been collected from those more fortunate Delawareans least vulnerable to the hardships caused by the recent economic slowdown.

The legislature should be credited for not falling victim to the anti-tax sentiment that has paralyzed many state budget-makers in the past months, but next time a budget shortfall surfaces, progressive income tax hikes should be considered as a more equitable and more sustainable way of filling the hole.

In many ways, Maryland's current debate over legalized gambling is depressingly familiar. Faced with a loophole-ridden and unfair tax system that cries out for progressive reform, some elected officials want to introduce thousands of slot machines as a politically palatable revenue-raising alternative. But Maryland offers an interesting, if bizarre, twist. Governor Martin O'Malley's administration is arguing that slot machines would make an excellent economic development tool for propping up the state's ailing horse-racing industry.

About the best one can say about the idea of providing tax subsidies for such a small and distinctly 19th-century industry is that it's less expensive than the more conventional smokestack-chasing other states continue to engage in. But Maryland isn't the first state that's had this idea -- and neighboring Delaware's experience has not exactly yielded dividends for that state's racing industry. And as an excellent Washington Post editorial explains, the environmental and economic policy goals the administration allegedly seeks to achieve with slots are a red herring.

The author of the O'Malley administration report that makes the economic development-based pitch for slots, Thomas Perez, claims that the introduction of slots in neighboring states has "revitalized the previously moribund horse racing industries in those states." Perez describes his report as "a fact finding tour of racetracks in Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania." Perez's research techniques included counting the number of Maryland license plates in a West Virginia parking lot -- but his time might have been better spent just asking West Virginia's Racing Commission chairman, who sees "no correlation... inverse, in fact" between their 1994 introduction of slots at racetracks and the current health of that state's racing industry.

People who follow tax issues know that cigarette taxes are regressive, meaning they take a larger percentage of a poor person's income than a wealthy person's income. This is generally true of other consumption taxes such as sales taxes and gasoline taxes because poor people consume a larger percentage of their income than wealthy people, who have the luxury of saving and investing a large percentage of their income.

So cigarette taxes are not the best way to raise revenues from a fairness perspective. But there seem to be situations in which the only tax increases politicians will tolerate are the unfair ones. The state legislature in Delaware wanted revenue to address health and school construction, and just raised $48 million by increasing cigarette taxes from 55 cents to $1.15 a pack. Raising progressive taxes (for example, state income taxes) would be a fairer alternative, but tobacco taxes may be a second-best option when lawmakers refuse to increase other taxes.

New Hampshire just enacted a budget that includes a cigarette tax increase of 28 cents to $1.08 a pack as well as several other regressive fee hikes. While this is unfortunate, the budget also expands children's health insurance by as many as 10,000 kids, which might be hard to do in tax phobic New Hampshire. In Connecticut, the legislature recently approved a budget that raises the cigarette tax 49 cents to $2 per pack in a compromise between Republican Governor Jodi Rell and the Democratic-controlled Assembly. (Rell had earlier suggested increasing income taxes but quickly changed her mind about that.)

Now members of Congress are eyeing an increase in the federal tobacco tax from 39 cents to $1 a pack to fund an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Some members of both parties on the Senate Finance Committee have come to a tentative agreement to raise $35 billion over 5 years (less than the $50 billion envisioned in the Senate budget passed several months ago). One can imagine many more progressive ways of raising federal revenues. But if the Senate lacks the leadership and courage to fight for more progressive funding sources, this may be the best chance to expand children's health care this year.

Over the past few weeks, three more states have taken steps towards helping low-wage workers and their families by means of the earned income tax credit (EITC). In Delaware, the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee recently approved a measure that would make the state's existing EITC refundable, meaning that individuals and families who owe less in personal income taxes than the value of their EITCs would receive refund checks to help offset other taxes and to make it easier to make ends meet. In Oregon, Republican and Democratic members of the House Revenue Committee have put forward a proposal that would raise that state's EITC from 5 percent of the federal EITC to 12 percent. As the Eugene Register-Guard observes this proposal would help to achieve a vital goal - eliminating income taxes on working families living in poverty in Oregon. Lastly, the Louisiana Senate has passed legislation that would create a state EITC equal to 5 percent of the federal EITC. This report from the Louisiana Budget Project details the positive impact that such a credit would have.

Once again, the public is learning that tax funded corporate economic incentives don't really work. In Oregon, right after Georgia-Pacific received a property tax break that will amount to $15 million over 15 years, the company turned around and announced that it was laying off 130 workers. Chuck Sheketoff over at the Oregon Center for Public Policy puts it the best, "[i]t's payoffs for layoffs". On the other side of the country, AAA Mid-Atlantic demanded that Delaware grant the company tax incentives if the state wanted them to move there. The twist? AAA Mid-Atlantic already made the decision to move to Delaware before they demanded the tax incentives - Delaware simply paid AAA Mid-Atlantic to do something it was already going to do. For a more in-depth analysis of AAA Mid-Atlantic's scheme, check out this report by New Jersey Policy Perspectives.

The recent shutdown of New Jersey casinos provided an opportunity for surrounding states to lure gamblers (and tax dollars) away from the Garden State. In Delaware, slot parlors saw an estimated increase of almost 20 percent in revenue. Nearby Pennsylvania has also legalized some forms of gambling and will also soon compete with New Jersey. As more and more states turn to casinos to generate tax dollars, states will probably find it more difficult to depend on revenue from this source. Instead of gambling on the future, lawmakers should focus on more reliable sources of funding. You can read ITEP's policy brief on gambling by clicking here.