Friday, Sept. 12, 2003 | 9:14 a.m.
THIS TIME Alabama's governor is fighting on God's side.
The last time we heard much about a governor of Alabama doing something newsworthy, it was George Wallace defying the federal government, the courts and any ink-ling of decency that might have coursed through his veins when he stood between Alabama's past -- the ugliness of segregation -- and a more promising future filled with hope for all of that state's citizens. If you recall, he did his standing on the schoolhouse steps while invoking the highest power as justification for his inhuman actions. He lost that battle, as well he should have.
In 2003 we have the picture of another Alabama governor, Bob Riley, also invoking his Christian education in order to point his constituents toward a path of righteousness and salvation. Or, at least, on a course of fiscal integrity and state solvency. His battle for the morality of a state distinguishes mightily from Wallace's fight.
Gov. Riley is a born-again Baptist. He is also a governor who has seen the light -- the one that has shown him the sea of red ink in which Alabama, like many of her sister states, is drowning and which only a significant tax increase can help solve. He is also a conservative Republican. Are you starting to get the picture?
In many ways, Alabama is not that different from Nevada. While we have temporarily solved our fiscal crisis by placing most of the burden on the backs of the people least able to handle the burden, Alabama voters had a chance earlier this week to do better than the Silver State.
Alabama's tax deficit was just under $900 million. Sound familiar? Gov. Riley has been pushing a plan that will revamp that state's income system, which he claims is unfairly placed on the poorest taxpayers in that state and which, thereby, creates a structural deficit when incomes are down or stagnant and jobs are in jeopardy. Sound familiar yet?
As a conservative Republican, Riley has been taking body shots from his own party leaders who, while they understand and accept the fact that only tax increases can save the day and the next decade or two, they are still unwilling to support his tax initiatives because they are not ready to throw away 20 years of Republican anti-tax ideology for "something like this." By the way, "something like this" is the fact that people who work and who are making just under $5,000 a year are paying income taxes. The national average for a starting threshold is over $19,000.
Gov. Kenny Guinn was unable to sell his tax package to a Legislature run amok in misplaced ideology, misplaced courage and misplaced respect for the constitutional concept of representative democracy. What is ironic is that in trying to instill some sense of decency and responsibility in the Legislature, Guinn used Alabama as the example of what Nevada did not and should not want to be.
If that Southern state was last in all the measures of a good quality of life, Nevada was not far behind. Gov. Guinn kept asking the citizens of this state if we were content to be just like Alabama or did we want to be a place where citizens could be proud to live because our quality of life was enviable, not laughable. The Legislature tried to answer the call but got hung up on the ignorance of ideology.
Where our governor missed the boat was in his failure to reach the people of Nevada where they live. We pride ourselves on being a God-fearing people, always trying to do what is right and living by the teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition. We would never go against the Supreme Authority when it comes to taxes. Kenny Guinn missed that opportunity.
That's where Gov. Riley differs. In a state that prides itself on knowing the one and only true word of God, Riley has given his constituents the only reason they need to vote to change the tax system and raise the revenues necessary to keep Alabama out of bankruptcy.
"According to our Christian ethics, we're supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor," said the born-again governor. "It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax." So sayeth Gov. Riley.
You don't need any more persuasive a reason to revamp a tax system and give relief to the poor than that. Do you?
So, with the real threat of prisons being emptied, schools being shuttered and a whole array of vital government services being halted because there is no money to pay the bills -- and in the face of the word from on high as delivered by a conservative Republican from a place much closer to Earth -- what do you think the good people of Alabama have done?
They voted to keep sticking it to the little guy. Because, as we have learned so well in Nevada, God has no place when it comes to our pocketbooks. All that talk about greed and avarice and watching out for the least among us? Pure poppycock.
That's because, when it comes to money, religious conservatives -- at least in Alabama -- thank God that they believe in the separation of church and state. So sayeth the facts.
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