Graham letter: Moyle’s tax plan

Calculating how much money my family would receive under Rep. Mike Moyle’s tax plan calls to mind the response of the butler in the film “Trading Places” when the Duke brothers made a show of giving him a paltry Christmas bonus: “Maybe I’ll go to the movies ... by myself.”

Moyle’s token tax relief is too microscopic to do Idahoans any real good or to grow our economy. It’s past time for Idaho to have a simplified pro-growth tax code. Only one of our neighbors has both a sales tax and an income tax like we do, and Utah has a single income tax rate. We have a seven-bracket monstrosity while we have a loophole-ridden sales tax.

Rather than passing a massive 9 percent increase in spending and a miserly tax cut as “the conservative Legislature” is doing, we should see an effort to pass pro-growth tax reform that would simplify our code and make our state more economically competitive. Instead, for the past 23 years, Idaho Republicans holding both the Legislature and the governor’s mansion have practiced crony capitalism instead of making needed changes to make our tax code truly friendly to middle class families and small businesses.

This story was originally published February 8, 2017 at 6:34 PM with the headline "Graham letter: Moyle’s tax plan."