Driving into the Neshoba County Fair gates for an inspection of what needed cleaning, washing, replacing, fixing, or receiving other attention at the Salter-Denley cabin, there was no doubt that this was a courthouse-to-statehouse election year in Mississippi.
Political signs dot the landscape from Philadelphia south to the fairgrounds. Inside the fairgrounds, political signs are already up from local beat races in Neshoba County to the marquee statewide races for governor and lieutenant governor.
Even more telling that it’s an election year is the fact that a month out from the opening of the state’s premier political stump at the fair’s Founder’s Square Pavilion, the talk is turning to grocery tax cuts proposals. This year, grocery taxes are the top-shelf issue because of Alabama’s decision to cut its grocery taxes.
Alabama lawmakers voted to reduce the state portion of their grocery taxes from 4% to 3% in September and if certain fiscal benchmarks are met in 2024, the state will cut their portion of the sales tax on food from 3% to 2%.
Where those facts get interesting is that Alabama has a combined state-local sales tax structure that produces an average 9.25% sales tax on groceries with some of the highest local sales taxes in the nation. That fact means that even with the state sales tax cut legislation there, most Alabamians will be paying more taxes for groceries than their Mississippi counterparts in the near term.
Mississippi only has very limited local sales taxes and those are optional and must be approved by voters in those local taxing districts. But just as local tax concerns impacted the long debate over grocery tax cuts in Alabama, they have historically made past grocery tax cut efforts political non-starters in Mississippi.
The state’s toughest battles over grocery sales taxes came during the administration of former Gov. Haley Barbour. Legislative efforts grew and intensified in 2006 with former Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck and the late State Sen. Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo, leading the charge.
But the leadership of the Mississippi Municipal League - the organization that represents the state's city governments – was opposed on grounds that grocery sales tax cuts would trigger local property tax increases.
Those opponents predicted dire fiscal straits for municipal taxpayers should the then-highest grocery tax in the nation be taken off the backs of Mississippi taxpayers. MML members worked feverishly behind the scenes at the Capitol to get lawmakers to “protect” cities by abandoning their support of a phased elimination of the sales tax on groceries.
Raising the state’s cigarette taxes was joined at the political hip to the grocery tax cut issue as well – and helped it fail. But that fails to tell the story of why there has not been an easy political path to reducing food taxes in Mississippi while corporate and personal income tax cuts have found easier traction.
In the state’s 82 counties, 15 counties pay the majority of individual income taxes. Based on FY 2020 numbers, taxpayers in those 15 counties paid $1,161.4 billion or 64 percent of the total $1.803 billion collected statewide:
Madison ($154.9 million), DeSoto ($146.3 million), Hinds ($138.4 million), Rankin ($128 million), Harrison ($116.6 million), Jackson ($88.8 million), Lee ($67.9 million), Forrest ($57.5 million), Lauderdale ($48.6 million), Lamar ($46.8 million), Lafayette ($45.5 million), Jones (34.1 million), Lowndes ($33.6 million), Warren ($27.5 million) and Oktibbeha ($26.9 million).
Except for Oktibbeha County, those 15 counties have also represented the counties that have been the most fertile ground for statewide Republican candidates in state and federal elections. Pearl River County, a GOP stronghold, is close behind Oktibbeha County at No. 16 on the list of highest state income taxes paid, according to the Mississippi Dept. of Revenue.
Given the GOP dominance of all eight elected statewide offices and both houses of the Mississippi Legislature by super majorities, it’s clear that income tax cuts are both more in keeping with Republican fiscal policies and more attractive to them in retail politics.
Stem-winding, roof-rattling political speeches at Neshoba, Jacinto and other state political stumps aside, those facts aren’t likely to realign in the 2023 elections.
22 comments:
I'm slow to figure this out but state elected leaders are no different than county elected leaders. Good capable respectable successful businessmen and women have better sense than to desire to put up with the egos ilk and process of politics. That's why voter turn out compared to the number of voters has fallen. Society is crumbling and accomplishing any real meaningful work is just static.
Eliminating grocery taxes will mean that those Mississippians who pay no income or property taxes (you know who they are) will pay virtually no state taxes at all.
No tax on those EBT cards used to purchase soda and other junk food to be consumed by the morbidly obese cows.
Sid Salter talks to three people a few weeks before the Neshoba County Fair and that's the political talk.
It'll never stop being funny that a GOP-run state is the biggest net recipient of federal welfare, mainly from responsible net-paying blue states, but somehow pretends it has a "surplus" that warrants cutting taxes to nearly nothing.
Meanwhile its roads, infrastructure, and education are literally the punchline of a joke, not just in rich states, but in neighboring poor states.
It's like a welfare recipient deciding he can take fewer hours on his minimum wage job because he bought his kids Hot Pockets with government money and has a few bucks left over, so why bother? He's been "responsible," after all.
A grocery tax based on BMI, that’s what I advocate. The more slim and fit — that is to say, healthy — a taxpayer makes himself, the lower his tax will be at the supermarket checkout.
Let's do this so fewer pull the wagon while more can ride.
Written while sitting on the steps of a $600,000 "cabin" drinking mint juleps. I won't waste my time reading. Thanks but no thanks.
A Fair Cabin is a badge of honor to some folks.
Congrats, you own a piece of s--t cabin in the middle of nowhere.
"Good capable respectable successful businessmen and women..."
I might have misunderstood 8:21, but if he meant that (quote) to describe elected officials at the county level, please advise where they exist.
In Madison County, for example, no Board Member for at least the past eight years has EVER run or managed a business. And that holds true for a majority of that Board for decades.
And in the Mississippi legislature, the same is true of the vast majority.
And these are the people responsible for multi-million-dollar budgets.
8:58 am, say what you will but this man allows comments. That says a lot about his character.
We can always count on thoughtful posts on JJ to bring out the hate in the racists. It's SO predictable.
Brandon Presley wants to cut or eliminate the state portion of car tags. What is that, like $15-$20 max? Presley simply isn't serious.
Dees, which comment above your own mentions race?
expensive vehicle tags don't seem to be a problem here in rankin county.
every redneck out there driving around in his 100,000$ 3/4 ton pickup has one of those black and white custom tags that one must pay a lot extra for
Did Bill just basically say that POC wont oppose a property tax increase to offset cheaper groceries?
I am black and I own a home. We are not unicorns for Gods sake.
Why do so many white Liberals just assume fiscal conservatism is mutually exclusive to black people's ideals? It's really insulting.
"Eliminating grocery taxes will mean that those Mississippians who pay no income or property taxes (you know who they are) will pay virtually no state taxes at all."
Except this isn't about the elimination of all sales tax. It's about the elimination of grocery tax.
Those who have never pulled the wagon don't pay income tax or grocery tax or municipal, county or school taxes. I reckon they pay nail, eyelash and Sally-Supply tax.
9:24 be careful you don't drop any of those cherries from your basket. If you think Mississippi being a "GOP state" is correlative to Mississippi being the biggest recipient of federal welfare, go do an analysis on residents who vote or identify as GOP vs. those who vote or identify as Democrat. Then look at the next column to see which ones receive the most federal welfare. And that surplus didn't happen as a result of Democrat policies so do try and align those facts.
7:03, I think you misunderstood the argument. We're not talking about individual welfare receipts, but rather the state-level appropriations MS gets.
Each year, somewhere between 44 and 47% of the appropriations coming out of the Mississippi legislature are paid for with federal funds. Only about $60 million of more than $10 billion goes to, e.g., TANF benefits.
Couple that with our extremely anemic tax collection, under-invested infrastructure (constantly requiring federal help), and failure to provide any state level social safety nets (exacerbating poverty and thus need), and it's entirely accurate to say the GOP policies of fake austerity rely on federal spending, which comes mainly from economically healthier, saner blue states.
Rich folks benefit much more from federal dollars than poor folks. Your the guys on welfare, poor folks get a bone while you get steak.
I just read that Tate County is among the top ten highest income counties in the state. That's startling. Even more startling is the cost of vehicle tags in Tate leads the state.
"Rich folks benefit much more from federal dollars than poor folks. Your the guys on welfare, poor folks get a bone while you get steak."
Please explain that comment.
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