Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Featuring the first REALLY BAD BILL OF THE SESSION.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Today’s Opening Session is merely ceremonial. Swearing-in of the Senators and the Reps, followed by receptions, and pictures with families and friends.
For all you legislative newbies out there, welcome! We cover every legislative session day with a pre-game show and, where applicable, a post-game wrap-up. The Delaware General Assembly is in session for about 50 days between now and June 30. Here is this year’s legislative calendar. The General Assembly meets from Tuesday through Thursday. The House conducts committee meetings on Wednesdays, with no significant legislative business on the floor. There is a 6-week break for Joint Finance (Budget) hearings that covers all of February and the first week of March. The Bond Bill Committee will meet from March 21-25, General Assembly not in session. There’s a two-week Easter break in April. Then a two-week budget markup the last two weeks of May. This year’s session is scheduled to end on Friday, June 30.
The House will waste no time in starting committee meetings this Wednesday. More on them tomorrow.
However, there has already been a House pre-file of bills. At first glance, Rep. Bill Bush appears determined to bust the budget before legislators get their bearings. Here’s that first REALLY BAD BILL OF THE SESSION. Wanna blow a hole in what’s available to spend? This bill does it, to the tune of about $115 mill annually. I understand that this is about 4% of the likely budget. The bill reduces the realty transfer tax. Bush tried to sneak this bill through at the end of last session, but it couldn’t withstand the disinfectant of sunlight. (Personal to Sen. Pinkney and Rep. Moore: You might want to reconsider your sponsorships of this bill.) You just know that Gov. ‘Budget Smoothing’ Carney loves this bill. Less for Democratic priorities for our Chamber of Commerce lackey. Bush has several other bills designed to give tax breaks to all those Suxco interlopers from elsewhere. But, all in good time, my friends. Can’t give it all away in one post.
BTW, it looks like Michael Smith is gonna channel his inner Rethug this time around. He’s introduced some really silly bills already. But this one is clearly designed to do one thing: To further starve public education. Hey, the Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves. They gave him a free pass.
That should be enough to help us ease into session. Back tomorrow with the first committee meetings of the year.
Someone might want to tell Mike that this will impact the charter schools he loves so dearly as they get funds from the districts whose kids they enroll.
well…38% of Suxco budget is covered by Real Estate Xfer tax. I guess they can always hike excises taxes on cigarettes. That seems to be an endless source of revenue.
all “vice” taxes should be raised as well as legalizing pot and prostitution and taxing them. and raise taxes on gambling. And the transfer tax should also be raised. Yea, it sucks for those who have lived here forever but the out of towners are coming here for one reason – taxes. Another $4k on their transfer tax is made up in 6 months of tax free shopping and low state/county/school taxes.
Sussex should not always be named as the reason some less-than-progressive legislators proposed bad legislation. Representative Bush is from Kent County. I doubt he cares much about Sussex. I have never heard anything about his being down here-though I guess he goes to the beach on occasion.
As to reducing the real estate transfer tax, I believe both newly-elected Democrats from Sussex oppose reducing that tax, and have proposed ALLOCATING some of that tax for affordable housing, public transportation and environmental protections.
I mentioned the ‘Suxco interlopers’ b/c Bush has two bills designed to give breaks to retirees who have recently moved to Delaware–an inordinate number of whom are settling in Sussex County. Why we as a State are so obsessed with luring retirees here is beyond me.
We’ll talk about those bills tom’w as they are scheduled for committee consideration.
I don’t know why any democrats are on the RTT bill? Reducing revenue by $115m for New Jersey residents to buy their retirement beach house in Rehoboth for a few dollars less? It’s not enough that they will be paying some of the lowest property taxes in the country, now they need a reduction in the transfer tax? All so they can come to Delaware and vote against school referendums? Even if they didn’t understand the impact of the bill, Bill Bush being the sponsor should have caused them to think twice.
Would you mind including the bill numbers in the text of your posts? That would make it much easier for people to find the posts in the future when searching.
I usually do. I linked to the two I mentioned this morning. Also linked to the entire pre-file.
But on committee days and when bills are being considered on an Agenda, I link to the bills by bill #–which is what I’ll do tomorrow.
Because God forbid the state won’t be able to rob people of as much of their money
Taxation is theft, right? You’ve really want to live in a low tax paradise like Somalia, right? You are very smart.
Libertarian baby brain strikes again!
You mean, like, when we throw millions at corporations free of FOIA?
Haven’t seen your righteous indignation about that.
The effin State/Governor/Sec of State/Sec of Finance aid and abet the wealthiest corporations in the world to rob Delaware taxpayers. Why don’t you call Carney, Geisenberger and Bullock with your grievance. John Kowalko
They have to get the money from somewhere. The issue is where they’ll get it from. The real estate transfer tax is a dreadful way to do it because you only collect if/when a property is sold. The equitable way to do it is to raise the money through an annual tax, like the one on property. It also would do away with fluctuations in income caused by the strength/weakness of the real estate market.
We should scrap the county-by-county property tax in favor of a statewide property tax. Instead of a combination of state funds and local property taxes, the statewide property tax would be used to fund education. The state already picks up 60%, so we’re more than halfway there. With all the money thrown into the same pot we can do away with the equalization formulas that steer some money from rich districts to poor ones.
This will never happen, because NIMBY, but it would be both more logical and more equitable than how we do it now.
As with most regressive taxes the poor and middle class suffer most from the transfer tax. While a few bucks matter little to a $500,000 plus buyer the transfer remaining at 4%, with 2% paid by the buyer this adds $1,250 to the already difficult to raise cash for a buyer of a modest $250,000 home. Returning the tax to 3% makes sense. Even at the original 3% it is the largest state tax of its kind in the nation. It kind of shoots a hole in the whole “No sales tax” narrative.
No, it doesn’t shoot a hole in it. As I noted, the money has to come from somewhere, and occasionally that somewhere is Delaware citizens.
We also have low property tax rates, and instead of raising them on everyone our genius lawmakers decided they’d raise it on just a few per year instead. It’s not just regressive, it’s unfair — stay in your house for 50 years and you pay nothing.
INCREASE THE PROPERTY TAX. Make it statewide so, say, Indian River doesn’t get to live large off its expensive tax base while Laurel sucks hind tit.
This would also eliminate the idiot argument that people will move to lower-tax states to avoid income tax. Yeah? Go ahead. Unless you take your house with you, we’re taxing it.
Yeah, I’m with Joe Connor on this one (though I know his occupation lol). I’m normally not one in favor of tax cuts, especially in a low-tax state like Delaware, but sales taxes unless they’re on luxury goods are regressive. Delaware saw the largest rent increase of any state in America in 2021. It might not be a bad idea to give people looking to buy here a little more breathing room and thereby free up a little space for renters. Of course, it would be nice to make up for the lost revenue by taxing our wealthiest citizens instead of having a top tax bracket of $60,000…
If you’re not gonna make up the revenue, you’re gonna cut vital services. In this case, to the tune of $115 mill.
So, unless someone has a better idea that can get passed (maybe there’s hope for an additional higher tax bracket), you’re just lopping off 4% of available revenue. Which, absent an alternative, is a terrible idea, IMO.
Cutting vital services is a terrible idea and the revenue should absolutely be made up for. But let me also be clear: getting 16% of our state’s revenue from taxing a very scarce asset (Delaware has the 8th lowest rental vacancy rate in the country at 3.7%, the statistics are different for ownership but vacation homes throw that off–not that taxing vacation homes would be a terrible idea!) that is the greatest source of generational wealth for most middle-class people is also a terrible idea. Especially given that we have a right-wing Trump appointee running the Fed who continues to jack up interest rates, making it harder and harder for regular people to afford a down payment.
Spot on regarding top tax bracket of 60K which is potential solution number 1 to replacing revenue from making a transfer tax reduction to the 2017 level. Yes, I have sold homes for 35 years and I understand that my brethren want a straight reduction of the tax to benefit our more well-heeled clientele. A more equitable solution would be to set 3% on transactions recorded at 400K and under. These 2 ideas would more than plug the revenue hole.