Rep. Bob Bergren has posted over at Montana Statehouse about the bills he's sponsoring to shut down tax cheats. As you probably read, these bills -- which target the out-of-staters whose tax evasion rates are (alarmingly) high -- were shot down by House Republicans who know for whom they work (hint: it ain't you or me).
This is the sort of stuff that literally kills me. You want to lower taxes? Fine. First, make sure everyone is paying where they're supposed to be and then let's talk about where we should cut. But when a huge chunk of out-of-staters simply aren't paying their taxes -- to the tune of $60 million a year -- don't tell me about the plight of the well-heeled.
I'm a believer as much as anyone that if government is going to take in revenue, they need to make clear where it is going, fight inefficiency, and constantly look for ways to improve service and lower costs. (I believe the same of corporations and their customers and think the business world succeeds as often/rarely as the public sector realm.) But the first step on the revenue side is cracking down on cheats. What's so hard about that?
