David White of the Birmingham News penned an article about Alabama’s low tax burden that illustrated just how dumb the intelligencia at the News thinks its readers are.

Alabama’s state, county and city governments collected $2,782 in taxes per person that year, according to a review of the Census Bureau’s most recent report on state and local taxes and the bureau’s state population estimates for July 2006.

The 50-state median for state and local taxes collected per person was $3,700. It was more in 25 states and less in 25 states.

Come back next week when Mr. White enlightens us on the mystical mathematical calculation known as the mean.  (Actually, it is quite nice.)  I couldn’t quickly find the grade in which concepts like mean, median, and mode are taught in Alabama schools, but Nashville teaches them in the fifth grade.  Seriously, does the News really think its readers don’t understand fifth grade math?  (Don’t answer that question.)

But the mathematical wizardy doesn’t end there…

Alabama’s state and local governments collected $12.8 billion in taxes in fiscal 2006, which for most state governments ended June 30, 2006, and for Alabama ended Sept. 30, 2006. They collected $918 less in taxes per person than the median.  If they had collected the median amount, they would have had an additional $4.2 billion.

The first person to exercise the abstract concept known as division to calculate the approximate number of people in Alabama using available information gets a free kazoo.  It was kind of White to do the rigorous math involved to calculate the difference between $3,700 and $2,782.  That was a real head scratcher.  If you were one of the select few who correctly solved the aforementioned division problem then you could multiply that result by the $918 per person difference to arrive at the $4.2 billion figure.  I know, this is high level stuff.

Among neighboring states in fiscal 2006, Florida collected $3,693 in state and local taxes per person, 26th highest among the 50 states. Georgia collected $3,321, ranking 35th. Tennessee collected $2,838, ranking 48th. Mississippi collected $2,822, ranking 49th.

Alabama’s state and local governments that year would have collected an extra $4.2 billion in taxes if they had collected the same amount per person as Florida, and an extra $184 million if they had collected the same amount per person as Mississippi.

More math!  Is this White guy some kind of a sadist?

Then White brought us this startling revelation:

Brad Moody, a political scientist at Auburn University at Montgomery, said lower taxes often lead to lower levels of government services.

Thanks for the insightful analysis.  I don’t think I could have come to that conclusion without considerable outside assistance.

“Part of the problem here is, the people who most need state services are the people who have less impact on state politics - people whose kids are eligible for the children’s health insurance program, who need Medicaid services, who are in prison, who are going to lousy public schools,” Moody said.

If only those dummies would vote!  (Of course, some of the felons can’t.)  Moody does touch on one of the principle weaknesses of a democracy (albeit one that is thankfully minimized by poor participation among some, including the groups he specified): people using the ballot box as a means of instructing the government to use the threat of force to take property from another group of people and redistributing it to them.

The Census Bureau’s state and local tax totals are not a perfect measure of the tax burden on individuals, since the totals also include taxes and fees paid by companies, such as corporate income taxes and severance taxes on oil and coal.

And just who do you think ultimately bears the burden of those corporate taxes?  (Hint: real people!)

Alabama had the 40th highest average income per person among the 50 states in fiscal 2006, according to Census Bureau estimates. So Alabamians on average have less money to pay in taxes than people in wealthier states, such as Connecticut and Maryland.

At this point I have to wonder whether White was just excited to be learning about such seemingly common sense concepts or was cursing profusely that his management makes him explain things like having a lower income means you have less money to pay in taxes.  It also means we have less money to buy gas, groceries, health care, and those little fake bullet hole stickers for bumpers.  If Alabama raised our taxes we would have even less for all of those things.

Measuring state and local tax collections per person as a percentage of average income can adjust for income differences when comparing people’s tax burdens.

You don’t say!  Tell me more.

Alabama ranked 46th of the 50 states in state and local tax collections as a percentage of per capita income - 13.1 percent - for fiscal 2006.

Damn it.  If it weren’t for all those losers dragging down our average income we could take the cellar position, which is really the winner’s position, in this calculation as well.

New Hampshire had the lowest percentage, at 11.9 percent. Colorado, South Dakota and Tennessee also had lower percentages than Alabama.

The 50-state median was 15.45 percent.

There’s that pesky median again.  Consult the beginning of the article for an explanation.

Just think, if all of us would just get off our wallets and give the state more tax money we could fund a half way decent education system so that the state’s biggest paper wouldn’t have to write articles explaining what the median is so that the readers don’t think they’re reading a story about road construction.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 9:28 pm and is filed under Alabama, Media, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.