Delaware

The Vote Tracker is a joint project between Delaware Liberal and the Progressive Democrats for Delaware (PDD). Each week we will be keeping track of how our General Assembly votes…

State Representative Bryon Short was on Facebook over the weekend highlighting this study that argues that Delaware has the best tax system in America, in that it is the least regressive (i.e. taxes the poor and lower and middle classes of income earners more than the top earners). I thought to myself, how the hell could that be? Someone early $60,000 pays the same tax rate as someone making $6 million under the state income tax scheme. What I was forgetting is the "no sales tax." Sales and other consumption taxes are very regressive because they fall most disproportionately on the poor. And that is the sole reason we are the least regressive tax system in America. What the report ignores is how regressive our income tax structure is. And there is something Democrats in the General Assembly can do about that.

While the General Assembly awaits Governor Markell's State of the State address this Thursday, we already know what won't be in the governor's speech: There will be no proposed income tax increase; there will be no proposed gas tax increase.  We know that Jack's millionaire buds have convinced him that they would suffer if they had to pay even a penny more to fund government. So, Jack has already announced that he won't be asking the wealthy to sacrifice.  And, in a gesture that is, um, ungubernatorial, Markell has whined that, since the General Assembly turned its collective noses up at his gas tax proposal last year, he won't propose anything to close the gap in the state's infrastructure budget.  He'll just wait for the General Assembly to come up with...something. If only he'd take that approach with public education.  His legacy grows more undistinguished by the day. Perhaps this is the week that Alex Pires gets his customized banking legislation passed. If not, then next week will be the week It's already passed the House unanimously. As Nancy Willing pointed out, this bill was introduced at the behest of Alex Pires, and it will only benefit Pires' bank. The article further points out that this may not be the first time that Pires has had undue influence on the General Assembly.  Let me point out the obvious: If you or I were disadvantaged by some 'arcane' statute, do you think we could get the Speaker to sponsor it, fast-track it, and get it through the General Assembly within a week or two?  And just because the Bank Commissioner, who largely does the bidding of the banks, says it's 'arcane', is it really arcane?  Or is it just an impediment to a connected businessman who doesn't want to wait in line and rarely does?  Whether the bill deserves passage on its merits is hardly the point.  The point is that representative government does not represent most of us.  But it DOES represent people with lots of clout, regardless of how they accumulated it. Which is why Alex Pires will get his banking bill.