Legislators begin drawing battle lines over tax cut

Hold on, here comes another tax cut.

For the past four years, Utah's economy has been surging. And as sales, personal and corporate income rises, so does state tax revenue.

State spending — absent federal dollars — has jumped nearly a third in combined 2006 and 2007. That happened while legislators and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. gave record tax cuts, as well.

Huntsman, who faces re-election next year along with all 75 House members and half of the 29-member Senate, did not include a tax cut as part of his recommended 2008-09 budget of $11.7 billion.

Lawmakers come into general session in four weeks and will set the 2008-09 budget before adjourning in March. Already House Republicans are calling for a $90 million tax cut next year. Senate Republicans have also said they want to give a property tax break but haven't put a number to it yet.

Huntsman, facing a united Republican legislative majority wanting some kind of tax cuts, has already tossed in the towel. He says he will work with his party colleagues to come up with a fair budget that still sees record spending on public education, significant teacher raises, some kind of new program to encourage health insurance for the uninsured and new air quality efforts.

I found one part of the recent tax-cut jockeying interesting.

In the past couple of years, GOP senators have declined to name a tax cut number before — or even early on — in the 45-day general session.

House Republicans would caucus and come up with an amount before the session. And that number was the high mark.

As the veto-proof GOP majority then drafted its various state department budgets, it was the House Republicans on the side of the taxpayer, wanting higher tax cuts, versus the GOP Senate and Huntsman, who wanted smaller tax cuts.

It was an uncomfortable political position for many Republican senators, who felt they had been outmaneuvered by GOP House leaders. And, later, it allowed House Republicans to brag to fiscally conservative GOP delegates that they tried to limit state spending, but that the governor and Senate Republicans just wouldn't go along.

Well, this year Senate GOP leaders weren't walking into that political trap again.

True, Senate Republicans met in caucus before House Republicans. And true, when they came out they said they wanted lower property taxes but didn't have a number.