“The State is a gang of thieves writ large.”
— Murray Rothbard
“The thing we thought about with the overtime tax, I think the fiscal note was like $34 million; today, it's more than $230 million. If it goes a full cycle, it would be over half a billion dollars; that's for the full term. I don't know what we're going to do. We're going to look at that and try to make sure that we do it with a conservative effort.”
—Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter
Pop Quiz!
There are three basic ways of attaining wealth – production, trade or predation.
Now, ask yourself, which one of these three ways does the state government attain its wealth?
You already know the answer.
The Alabama Legislature almost did the right thing in 2023 when they removed the tax on overtime workers – almost.
Unfortunately, they did not have the spine to go all the way with permanent tax relief for hard working Alabamians, as they included a sunset provision that will now expire in June 2025.
Why? Because according to Alabama’s so-called conservative government, your money is not your money, i.e., the hard-earned fruits of your labor are always subject to further taxation and confiscation.
Your money is only what the state government grants you permission to keep, no matter how hard you’ve worked for it – or what plans you may have for your future and that of your children.
Indeed, when a sunset was added to the overtime tax cut in 2023, it showed GOP leadership in Alabama was concerned with cutting taxes too much.
Such a concern is hardly conservative by the standards of common working people, but the Goat Hill GOP doesn’t seem to care. It took a Democrat, House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (Huntsville), to propose meaningful tax relief for hard-working people in the state – all as Alabama’s Republican leaders were saying, “Slow down! Not so fast, shugga! That’s our money!”
That Republicans in Alabama seem to think their plans for state government should be privileged over their citizens’ own personal plans is just another sad example of exploiting the working man while hiding behind the tenuous collective “we” of government. Government (including the government of Alabama) is swift to break the working man’s leg only to then hand him a crutch while having the gall to call it a public service. No public service, no matter how noble in intentions, should ever be funded on the backs of the hardest-working people in society – unless you desire to disincentivize hard work while encouraging dependency on the very institutions providing the so-called service.
Pardon me, but preying upon Alabama’s hardest workers seems like a gangsterish way of providing public services. It’s almost as though this system is designed to hold the taxpayers of Alabama hostage while the taxtakers of Alabama (and there are many who make a comfortable living by taking taxes in this state) skim money off the top – all while providing lackluster results with the money they have (lawfully and legitimately) stolen.
If that is what it means to be a conservative in Alabama, then I am not a conservative. Spare us lectures on fiscal prudence or Chesterton’s fence. At best, y’all are just risk-averse and want to minimize complaints. At worst, y’all lack vision and courage. Either way, fiscal prudence in this conservative state has strangely meant a one-way ratchet growing the size of Alabama’s government.
If Ledbetter and the rest of the GOP leadership in this state are so worried about losing “over half a billion dollars” in tax revenue after granting overtime workers the privilege of keeping their own hard-earned money for a year, what do you think the hardest working people in Alabama feel about the government robbing over $500 million out of their wallets?
If the policy of no taxes on overtime work is not made permanent, the state government is essentially saying, “Let’s remind working people that their money is only what we allow them to keep.”
Instead, Alabama’s GOP supermajority should follow President Trump’s lead and make no taxes on overtime permanent for hard-working Alabamians. Then, to make up for any potential revenue shortfall, they might even follow the president’s lead again and cut spending in a far too bloated and inefficient state government.
Cutting taxes and cutting spending may not be “conservative” by Goat Hill standards, but it makes common sense to the working people of Alabama.
Unfortunately, the gang of thieves in Montgomery seems more eager to protect entrenched interests and failing institutions than to simply respect the right of the hardest-working Alabamians to keep the fruits of their labor.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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