Significant Policy Issue Facing Tennessee in 2002

¶ … tax cuts it the State of Tennessee faced in the year 2002. It uses 3 sources in MLA format. The issue of income tax has become the most significant for Tennessee in the recent years. After thousands of angry taxpayers upset claims at a plan to implement income tax the government has finally built the courage to address it. Tennessee is one of the only nine states without a state income tax.

After the protest last year, there exist a split opinion about the income tax rate and the many varied views how it should be implemented. Tennessee is one of the lowest earning states with the ranking of 44th in employment and earnings among the other states. A large number of Tennesseans view things very different from the protestors that storm Capitol in Nashville to intimidate legislators and disrupt peace.

While the Governor of Tennessee in 1999 was against the income tax and said that all income tax does is put burden on the people, while creating a way to finance the easy expansion of government. But later in the year he began to support income tax and the easy and endless expansion to government.

The tax supporters argue that the State needs to spend more on education and say that first rate education from preschool to college, is the best investment that they can make for the betterment of the future of Tennessee. Others argue that the problems of budget stem not from the taxpayers who send too little, but the problem is with the legislation's who spend too much and an income tax will not cure that.

The Issue It is true that Tennessee in the recent years have experienced shortage in the workforce, especially the well-trained workforce that is the most critical factor for a sustained economic growth. Education is the single most decisive factor and a skilled and well-trained workforce is essential for growth. The need for a quality research university helps to break new technological innovations, which further help, in bringing new companies and well-paying jobs.

Tennesseans realize that government is an essential partner if they hope to achieve these things The irony of the present situation is that before the State fall in the late 90's, the State was among the top earning in the union and boasted a triple A bond rating and was among the most well managed states in the union.

There are concrete reasons for opposing the income tax, instead of putting more burdens by punishing the work and hard earned with income tax it makes sense to let the work but rewarding by giving some tax relief to the people. The Tennessee tax system has become old and dysfunctional. The fact that it is incapable to provide the revenue to the state government. There is a real need to re-structure and maintain essential service to the expanding population in the state.

The problem is not the excessive spending but how it is spent -Tennessee has been the lowest tax payer among the all other states and rank at bottom in every category from education spending to over all service spending. Law makers have been in a fix for almost four years with the budget problems, with the foremost option for the problems is again the income tax, increasing of sales tax, there have been little emphasis on cutting the spending, except for a few who had expressed such views.

The problem has not been resolved as yet and none of the three proposals have been accepted by the majority of the past two general assemblies. Now the questions is how to solve such an issue. In the recent years Tennessee has been affected by floods and health issues which has put more pressure on the ordinary people, and a tax relief package was needed to provide incentives and to put the state back on its track.

A tax relief not only allows to save the hard-earned money but also provides for economic growth. During the recession after the Sept 11th incidents there was a considerable amount of job loss, but due to the tax relief in the midst of a recession 800,000 jobs were created. There has been a tax relief offered by the federal government and a ten-year tax relief, which is helping a lot of families while many have been supporting to make the tax, cuts permanent.

The president in his State of Union address called upon the Congress to make the tax cuts permanent. In the tax relief presented by president Bush, which benefits more than 372,000 Tennessee small business and entrepreneurs by reducing tax rates by making the research and development tax credit permanent. The reduction provides tax relief for roughly 1.9 million Tennessee citizens who pay taxes.

The education funding has been increased to more than $699 million to make local schools more equipped with all the facilities, a funding of more than $484 million and $48.6 million for housing and water resources projects respectively have been provided by the President. Under the President's proposal a couple filing jointly with two dependents would experience a $1,902 reduction in their taxes. The president has vowed to give part of the surplus back to the taxpayers.

The outcome of the relief has been tremendous and it has been estimated that a family will be able to ad $1,902 every year to their family budget. This significant boost in the money will be used in education, debt pay off, help the child to send to college etc. Conclusion The relief effort has proven to be very beneficial for the citizens of Tennessee and the effects of the relief have started to appear.

The only thing required now is to make these tax reliefs permanent so that the effects have its full impact on the economy and the state can.