Doug,
You made me so upset that I wanted to throw my cell phone through my windshield and I could not get to you on the phone before coming to work.
Governor Huntsman understood one thing that you and certain members of our legislature do not. "Good tax policy attracts business." And when the economy was working, so was this policy. You can not cave simply because there is a revenue shortfall. If you do, you will delay the recovery. This list of states that has a sales tax on groceries is a very, very short one. Having this tax at all puts us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to being an attractive state for business. Right now, only Alabama and Mississippi have a full sales tax on food without some sort of tax credit back to lower income families. That is not the company that a state like Utah needs to keep.
Speaking of giving a credit to lower income families, it would be more cost effective to the state not to collect the money in the first place. Since the number of families that would fall into this range is low. We could see how well this is working in Idaho.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1230
You mentioned that you and Dee do not notice the decrease because your nest is empty. Me and my family have. As have many families. And our income tax did not go down with Huntsman's reforms, it went up considerably. If you roll back the tax on food, you have to roll back the income tax reform as well to be fair. I was OK with the income tax increase knowing that with a lower sales tax on food, our family was coming out a little ahead.
If our state legislators need more revenue, then there are other ways to raise it that are more fiscally sound. I support switching the gas tax to a percent of the sale rather than a per gallon tax. I support toll roads, especially on roads like the Bicentennial Highway by Lake Powell or other roads that are generally used by tourists and not by commuters. I support higher tuition at our colleges and universities as the tuition at our universities is very generous compared to nearby states. (The U is about half of the University of Colorado, for example). I support a higher tax on cigarettes and alcohol. I support a higher hotel tax and a higher restraunt tax. We can even have a higher tax on new cars that burn gasoline. All of these are better taxes than a regressive tax on groceries. Finally, how about simply increasing the general sales tax rate?
-Ben Hunt
Clearfield
For tuition rate comparison:
http://www.colorado.edu/about/ataglance.html
http://fbs.admin.utah.edu/index.php/fsr/
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