OPINION | EDITORIAL: Taxing questions

At the heart of Little Rock’s finances

H.L. Mencken said the only way a journalist should look at a politician is down their noses. That's easier said than done. Especially when the politician is a candid, cerebral, principled and even-handed genuine public servant. And in Arkansas, these qualities in a politician are not to be sneezed at.

Which brings us to Little Rock's mayor. Frank Scott seems to be exactly what the city needs. And the city needs to be rooting for him, too. For if he's in the job for the long term, it means the city is prospering.

Mayor Scott also seems to know when he can't push through just anything on the power of his considerable will. This week he opted to delay the city board's vote on his proposed tax increase. It was the right move.

Whether (1) delaying the thing indefinitely, (2) going full-speed ahead, or (3) making changes to better focus the tax, well, that's going to be Mayor Scott's decision as well. Here's hoping he doesn't choose Option Two.

The mayor proposes a 1 percentage-point sales tax, and after a smaller tax is let go, the new rate would increase the city tax by 0.625 percent. And the total tax residents pay for sales taxes would go to 9.625 percent when including state and county sales percentages. That's getting awfully close to what the church asks for in tithes.

Estimates show the tax proposal, if approved, would raise about $53 million a year in revenue.

(Some people say a sales tax is the most fair tax because a body only pays it when he spends money. We aren't those people. A sales tax is a regressive tax because upper, middle and poorer classes pay the same for products. That doesn't bother us as much as the sales tax is a hidden tax. Nobody ever says they bought $33.45 in gasoline and paid another $6.55 in taxes. They just say it took 40 bucks to fill up.)

Little Rock's city directors were scheduled to make a decision this past Tuesday night to send the package, "Rebuild the Rock," to voters on July 13. But the effort needs more study. And will get it.

Tens of millions of dollars would be raised and spent on everything from road resurfacing to the zoo to "targeted community development" to public safety. There is also a line item for funding early-childhood initiatives, which needs fleshing out. Because if the feds are going to spend billions on universal pre-K and subsidies for child care, why would the city spend millions?

The business community (read: the chamber) has posed questions to the mayor, as reported by our newsroom's Joseph Flaherty with an assist by the FOIA.

Usually when a city puts together a tax package, a clear majority of directors/aldermen/council members gather behind the mayor in a photo op of a press conference to announce the package is a choice between Morning Again For Our City and doomsday. Tellingly, there is opposition among city directors for Rebuild the Rock, and a few question marks among other directors.

Perhaps even before making arguments about hidden taxes, early childhood initiatives, and the dynamics of local political support, the matter of a sunset should be mentioned.

The chairman of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce sent the mayor an email with a list of questions about the tax package. (That's where FOIA helped our Joseph Flaherty.) Chairman John Burgess suggested the lack of a sunset date for the portion of the tax devoted to capital expenditures was "the biggest single issue with the proposal raised by our leadership group, and it's the single biggest issue that gets mentioned by those in our social networks."

The single biggest issue. It should be.

The mayor countered: "Our timeline for Little Rock's growth and greatness goes beyond 10 years." That is, a sunset of 10 years would cut money for the city, even though the local government will need it in the future.

Why not see how the money is spent for the next 10 years first? That's always the argument for sunset clauses: The government (and future mayors, and future city directors) should be made to earn a renewal.

The chairman spoke for a lot of us when in his email he told the mayor, "[W]e want to be supportive."

But . . . .

We want to be supportive, but this proposal is still iffy. It needs revisions.

And we'd start with a sunset. They're beautiful, and not just in the Arkansas evenings.

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