(This is really pretty nasty -- these guys are really doing everything possible to protect out-of-staters. - promoted by Matt Singer)
You may recall that Billings Gazette reporter Ed Kemmick attacked me for a piece in which I asserted that beneath all their rhetoric, Montana Republican legislators really were motivated to force an emergency special legislative session in order to block Democratic proposals to make sure the super-wealthy and large corporations actually pay the taxes they owe. Well, this weekend the Associated Press confirms exactly what I originally reported:
"The biggest sticking point in the tax cut bill for many Republicans are provisions aimed at increasing tax collections from nonresidents and corporations, and they passed amendments in the House Appropriations Committee cutting more than $12 million from the Department of Revenue's budget."
In other words, the Republican leadership in the Montana legislature has no problem with resident taxpayers paying higher taxes because out-of-state landowners and corporations are being allowed to get away with not paying what they owe. This, folks, is the war on the middle class at work.
The Great Falls Tribune gives us more details, reporting that Republicans offered "amendments rang[ing] from reducing the number of lawyers in the state Department of Revenue to cutting funding for a tax-gap analysis." And the Billings Gazette and the Daily Interlake gives us some details on exactly who is pulling the strings - it's Republican Reps. Scott "My Vote's For" Sales, Bob Lake and John Sonju.
The Interlake reports that Sonju and Sales are now working to stop property tax cuts for Montana residents because the tax cut bill includes provisions to make sure out-of-state corporations pay the taxes they owe:
"Sonju and Sales, R-Bozeman, both said the bill is laden with so much harmful tax policy that they would not support it even though it also contains tax relief provisions...'There's a lot of bad stuff in there and there's not a lot of tax relief,' Sales said. 'I'd rather not have paltry tax relief if it means we have to have this draconian tax policy with onerous regulations.'"
Meanwhile, the Gazette notes that Lake is behaving like a corporate lobbyist legislators clothing. He is using his committee chairmanship to try to force the Schweitzer administration to undermine the bipartisan deal it negotiated by eliminating tax enforcement provisions.
My favorite rationale in all of these stories is the one about Montana's surplus supposedly meaning that out-of-state corporations should be able to get away with tax evasion. One Republican lawmaker said he's "disturbed that we're talking about revenue enhancements when we have a surplus." Sonju said "Why are they penalizing businesses when we have a $1.3 billion surplus?" - as if tax collection is a "penalty." This logic is the equivalent of saying that because, say, overall crime rates are down, we shouldn't, say, make sure to constantly work to improve law enforcement. I mean, really - are we expected to believe that because Montana has a surplus from oil and gas royalties, that is a justification for continuing to let out-of-state corporations avoid paying their taxes, thus forcing resident Montanans' tax rates higher?
What we should all really be disturbed about is how the division between corporate lobbyist and Republican legislator is now blurring - it's hard to tell these people apart. I was in the Taxation Committee hearing on Thursday - it really was incredible. Republican legislators like Sonju and Lake commiserate and plot with corporate lobbyists as if the lobbyists are their best friends. And the results of these unseemly relationships is very obvious. These Republican lawmakers, at the request of their lobbyist buddies, are very deliberately trying to prevent Montana from collecting the taxes it is owed from out-of-state corporations, even if it means higher taxes for the Montana residents these legislators represent, even if it means killing bipartisan property tax relief. In a decade in politics, it's hard for me to remember seeing more committed and corrupt class warriors than this small group of right-wing legislators.
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