As a longtime transparency advocate who believes that citizen review is critical to good government, I'm at a complete loss to understand how anyone can support Issue 1--the proposal to add a new sales tax permanently in the Arkansas Constitution that would simultaneously increase your taxes while removing citizen oversight of a multibillion-dollar bureaucracy.
Eight years ago the Legislature and governor imposed a new "temporary" tax on Arkansans to fund highways that was explicitly designed to expire in 10 years. I wasn't a fan then, because I've too often seen allegedly temporary taxes become permanent. Sure enough, now that the previously imposed undue tax burden is soon to be lifted off the backs of hardworking Arkansans, the elites are telling us that we need a new tax to replace it.
Further, they're telling us that the new tax needs to be permanent. And, if that were not enough, to these tax advocates, this new and permanent tax must also be embedded in the Constitution--like a fundamental right--apparently because, in their view, either our elected officials are not competent to do their job of allocating your tax dollars or, even worse, that we, the taxpayers, are not to be trusted in voting for representatives to "do what's right."
Putting a permanent tax in the Constitution undemocratically empowers a handful of today's politicians and special-interest groups, like the national trucking industry, to line their pockets while permanently subjugating Arkansans into the unforeseeable future. This turns our system of government on its head.
Constitutions are designed to limit the otherwise inevitable overreach of government, not permanently indenture citizens to the state. Well, that's true for constitutions in free societies, at least. Ordering Arkansans to pay a constitutionally mandated tax that goes to unelected bureaucrats, without any possibility of oversight through our elected officials, is reminiscent of Soviet control, not Western democracy.
A radio commercial for Issue 1 lauds it as a vote for improved highways. Unsurprisingly, not one sentence in the entire advertisement mentions even the idea that Issue 1 is a tax. A pro-Issue 1 lobbying website called "Vote for Roads" goes even further, stating "Issue 1 will accomplish all of this without raising taxes!"
These are lies. The pro-Issue 1 website, in fact, directly links to the Arkansas Department of Transportation website that openly concedes that Issue 1 does raise taxes, stating that it will "extend the current ½-cent sales tax that is set to expire in June 2023."
As we see, pro-Issue 1 lobbyists are lying, and lying poorly at that.
Supporters of Issue 1 simply are treating voters as children and telling us that a vote for Issue 1 is a vote for free candy--not to mention unicorns and rainbows. Even if Issue 1 were a good idea--and it's not--when its advocates lie to us, they don't deserve our votes.
Others shilling for Issue 1 try a more subtle, but equally deceitful, argument--falsely proclaiming that making permanent in the Constitution a tax otherwise both promised and designed to expire in two years is not a "new" tax. I gather these folks would argue that when you trade in your clunker for a brand new Cadillac, you're not getting a "new" car because you continue to have "a" vehicle--not to mention that you have a new loan to pay off.
I could go on, but there are some arguments so absurd that repeating them best serves to demonstrate their sheer folly. Again, Issue 1 proponents are lying to us.
I naïvely once believed that political disputes were about competing philosophies of how government should and does operate. The debate over Issue 1 makes clear, however, that at least some political arguments center on attempts to deceive the public as to simple facts. That's sad.
Those supporting Issue 1 are trying to fool us as they seek to fill their pockets with our money. Don't be a fool; vote no on Issue 1.
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Robert Steinbuch, professor of law at the Bowen Law School, is co-author of "The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act," now in its sixth edition. His opinions are his own.