OpenSky's Idiocy
Update: I added an additional graph at the bottom.
As I took note of what the Nebraska Republican Central Committee (https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/01/27/nebraska-gop-fight-with-delegation-spills-over-into-its-endorsements/) did in rejecting Republican incumbents on the Federal level, I was drawn to the fact, the Nebraska Democrat Party was doing the same with State Senator Mike McDonnell (https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/02/01/douglas-county-democrats-withdraw-support-from-sen-mike-mcdonnell/). So which party is doing more idiotic things?
I was stunned to read C. David Kotok, the former chief political reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, a lifelong registered independent, blaming Jane Kleeb for the decline in the Nebraska Democrat Party (https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/02/13/nebraska-democratic-party-keeps-finding-ways-to-shrink/). Kudos for Kotok for seeing the obvious.
However, most people could pick up on this, but not so much with the OpenSky Policy Institute, which is a lot like Paul Krugman or Robert Reich who are not economists but labor policy advocates.
Recently, OpenSky had a webinar presentation. You have to search for it because they conceal their YouTube channel, but there is a webinar.
The topic was Nebraska Governor Pillen’s effort to shift taxation away from property taxes to the sales tax. OpenSky had Richard Auxier of the Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center pontificate on taxation when he clearly did not understand economics. In fact, he admits he is not an economist!
To add to the problem, he confuses property taxes with land taxation as advocated by Henry George. There are large differences between the taxes, and economists may like a land tax, but not property taxes. Economists do not like property taxes, but don’t bother explaining it to Auxier!
Some of the debate mentioned “border bleed” on increased sales tax but how does that happen when you order from Amazon Prime, DoorDash, and Uber and have no car to begin with? The digital economy was blatantly ignored. The discussion also focused on regressive taxation. In fact, this appears to be the main concern of the discussion as OpenSky posted this to X social media.
Notice the image mentions TEP? That is the Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy. Yet if you go to their site on Nebraska (https://itep.org/whopays/nebraska-who-pays-7th-edition/) this image appears clearly showing property taxes are regressive. In part, this is because of exemptions in the property tax.
Property taxes are regressive! But the worst parts about property taxes are mill levies, property evaluations and the taxation of unrealized asset gains.
Oh, and for those who think foods should be exempt from the sales tax or consumption tax, those exemptions made such taxation regressive. Please notice, the percentage differences are still greater in the property tax image above.
