Last in Taxes. First in Poor-mouth

By now you've heard or read Dave White's story from The Sunday Birmingham News. Alabama individuals and Businesses pay the lowest taxes in America. Not among the lowest. Not really low. The lowest.

And in doing so, we end up constantly on the edge of shutting down.

• In doing so, we cause teachers to pay a penny to make a copy at school.
• In doing so, we contribute to Alabama's high rate of infant mortality.
• In doing so, we help keep Alabama 7th in America for the percentage of Senior Citizens living in poverty.
• In doing so we continue to rank between 42nd and 47th in High School Graduation Rate.
• And in doing so, we continue to provide the third lowest unemployment benefits in America.

Nobody likes paying taxes, and it would be just as egregious to be the highest taxed state (Alaska) as it is to to be at the bottom. To defend our "lowest" ranking, you have to argue that we are somehow smarter than all those other states. That failing to build enough prisons to hold the people we want thrown in jail is somehow smart. That allowing roads and bridges to deteriorate is somehow acceptable. That not financing Mass Transit to reduce the number of cars (Alabama ranks at the top of states where one person rides in a car to work each day) is the best way to move forward.

Alabama has about the lowest property taxes in America...forest land is taxed at 10% of "current use", so a piece of property with trees on it near a major shopping district is taxed the same as a similar lot in the middle of nowhere. Companies and individuals with vast land holdings pay minimal taxes on it.

Nobody likes paying taxes, but when the level of services sinks to the point that your child's teacher has to pay to use the copier, and parents have to send toilet paper to their kid's school because the Education Budget has been cut (again)...isn't it time to rethink our priorities?

Increasing taxes isn't the answer to every problem facing the state. But it is a start.