Repeal of the state grocery sales tax would be disastrous for Idaho education and infrastructure already reeling from woefully inadequate funding.
In his Jan. 13 column, Bryan Smith suggested that he and I support the repeal of the grocery tax. He stated that the “$630 million budget surplus” justifies the repeal. I called Bryan last week to discuss the grocery tax and an issue I care deeply about: publicly funded early childhood education at long last in Idaho. At least we talked. I hope we eventually agree on an issue for the benefit of all Idahoans, but a repeal of the grocery tax isn’t one of them.
“Budget surplus” is an egregious misnomer. There is anything but a surplus for starved Idaho programs including, prominently, education and infrastructure. We hear the broken record: Idaho is dead last of all states in per-student funding of education. Pay for teachers hasn’t bounced back from 2008 Great Recession cuts and is 20% below the national average. Idaho is only one of four states providing zero funding for early childhood education. That is tragic because of its role in improving the chances of success for at-risk children, whose numbers are growing in parallel with rising income inequality. Idaho provides zero supplemental funding for the successful federal school readiness program Head Start, despite 2,000 lower-income Idaho families being on the program’s waiting list to enroll their children. Chronic underfunding has cut Idaho higher education into the marrow.
Funding of Idaho’s infrastructure also is a disgrace. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave Idaho roads a C minus rating and bridges a D because of lack of maintenance, including $2 billion in needed repairs of 1,520 bridges. The Idaho Department of Transportation found that 284 bridges are structurally deficient, and 900 are beyond their life span of 50 to 60 years. The longer these repairs are put off, the costlier they become. Gov. Little’s 2021 budget proposal marks progress: $206 million from the general fund for transportation infrastructure.
Repeal of the grocery tax would drain the general fund by $105 million annually, according to the Idaho State Tax Commission. The tax would no longer be collected from out-of-state shoppers, significant when tourism picks back up. Though the grocery tax is often labeled as regressive, the wealthy spend far more on groceries than lower-income people, making most of the grocery tax paid by higher-income residents and nonresidents. But, most importantly, repeal of the tax would brutally impact education because it is primarily funded through the sales tax, accounting for 42% of the general fund. Adjusted for inflation, each of us pays 25% less in taxes today for education than in 1980, which we pay for many times over in the towering social costs of underfunding education and undereducating our workforce.
When the Legislature resumes equitable, uniform and stable funding of education, such as through the property tax formula in place until 2006, I will happily join Bryan Smith to support repealing the grocery tax. But until then, its repeal would be dire for Idaho education and infrastructure, the Idaho economy and Idahoans collectively.
Pat Tucker is the chair of the Bonneville County Democratic Central Committee.