A proposed constitutional amendment passed through the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday. Senate Joint Resolution 11 proposes an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would require a two-thirds vote of each chamber in order to increase the income tax or create a new income tax.
Democrat State Sen. Cindy Winckler said she doesn’t believe the proposal offers any protections for Iowa taxpayers.
“It puts more burden on sales tax and property tax, potential fees and fines of state government,” she said. “General fund revenues are not meeting expenditures. It’s not a good idea to take away tools that we currently have that we use very judiciously. Raising taxes is not a favorite thing for any of us, but we cannot hamstring ourselves and lead the public to believe that other taxes will not be raised to replace the revenue stream.”
Democrat State Sen. Herman Quirmbach said the amendment would enact “minority rule.” Quirmbach said Iowa doesn’t require a two-thirds majority vote to take away the right of people to control their own bodies, to take away someone’s “basic human civil rights,” or to even amend the constitution.
Quirmbach also noted the proposal isn’t a symmetric two-thirds vote in that it only applies the two-thirds requirement one way as a simple majority vote could still be used to cut income taxes.
“This is clearly way out of proportion to the other legislative requirements for passing bills or even passing constitutional amendments,” he said. “It is enacting minority rule and minority rule that is slanted in a particular direction with regard to this one issue.”
Finally, Quirmbach said Iowa is scheduled to run a $900 million deficit this year and Wall Street is predicting a 40-60 percent chance of a national recession later this year. In 2009, when we endured a recession, Iowa lost about 8 percent of its state revenues. That would take the state’s deficit up to $1.6 billion, Quirmbach claimed.
“You have a taxpayer relief fund that would sustain that deficit for no more than two years,” he said. “And when you talk about a taxpayer relief fund, let’s be honest about where that comes from — shortchanging public education relative to inflation over the last eight years.”
Quirmbach said lawmakers will have to face some hard questions “pretty soon,” and one of those questions, should the amendment pass, will be how high to increase the sales tax, which he said hampers working people and lower-income people the most.
The bill passed the committee 12-6, with all Republicans voting in support and all Democrats in opposition.
