Right Minded Online

My, how the times have changed. Bob Rochelle has signed an anti-income tax pledge as part of his effort to assure the voters across Mae Beavers’ senate district that the six years he spent advocating a state income tax are gone with the wind.

Let’s begin with the text of Bob Rochelle’s pledge:

“The income tax is a dead issue. If it comes up again, I will use my expertise in the legislature to make sure it doesn’t pass without a vote of the people. I am signing this pledge because I will kill an income tax if it comes up in the legislature and is not submitted to a vote of the people.”

Don’t be fooled by that first sentence. Income tax advocates typically declare the income tax dead before an election in order to disarm voters. Only after they are safely elected does the income tax come alive again. Remember, the last time Bob Rochelle ran for the Senate (1998) he told the voters he opposed a state income tax. Eight years later, Bob Rochelle is again running for the Senate in opposition to a state income tax. Between those two campaign years, Bob Rochelle was the state’s most passionate, prolific, persistent, and consistent advocate for a state income tax while serving as a member of the Senate and, later, the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission.

Also, consider that there is a bill filed in the Tennessee General Assembly (HB2120) cleverly disguised as the “Tennessee Investment and Economic Development Act” that would implement a graduated income tax on Tennesseans. The bill is sponsored by Mike Kernell, a Memphis Democrat.

With respect to HB2120, Representative Stacey Campfield, a Knoxville Republican, recently noted on his website that “All it needed was a willing senator to carry it and it could have been crammed through during the last session. The gov[ernor] has said he will not push an income tax, but he will not fight against one either. … Now he has endorsed Bob Rochelle. The father of the income tax. The language in H[B]2120 will be introduced again in the next session, because it is introduced in every session ‘just in case.’ This year we could have a gov[ernor] who will not stand in the way of it and, if Rochelle returns, a senator who loves the idea and will carry [it] in the senate. … Rochelle has a reputation of saying and doing anything he can to get what he wants. He was known as a bully in the senate who abused and punished those who dare[d] dissent his view.”

Therefore, the best way to ensure the income tax remains dead is to deny Bob Rochelle a seat in the Senate.

Second, Bob Rochelle wants the voters to know that he will not let a state income tax pass without a vote of the people. This is vintage Bob Rochelle.

During his last term in the Senate (1999-2003), Bob Rochelle tried to pass an income tax that was indeed attached to a vote by the people, only the vote would come AFTER the income tax was implemented. In his pledge, Bob Rochelle says nothing about the vote of the people coming BEFORE the income tax. Remember, Bob Rochelle is an attorney, so you have to parse every single word. His “pledge” leaves him a loophole through which he could propose the same legislation he proposed before — an income tax that is linked to a vote of the people — although he cleverly avoids disclosing which would come first.

Third is the hypocrisy of the pledge itself. During the income tax war that marked Bob Rochelle’s last term in office, authentic income tax opponents signed the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” promising to “vigorously oppose and vote against a state income tax” and “actively oppose and vote against any and all efforts to impose any tax on the wages or earnings of the people of Tennessee.”

That was an anti-income tax pledge with actual teeth. The hypocrisy is that then-Senator Bob Rochelle, who was also a member of the Senate Ethics Committee, raised ethical concerns about members of the Tennessee General Assembly signing such a pledge.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press on August 14, 2001, Rochelle remarked “People expect your positions to evolve. If the Senate is to be the deliberative body that decides issues on the merits, that goal is not promoted by making up your mind and signing pledges before you even get there.”

Just as Bob Rochelle was for an income tax before he decided to challenge Mae Beavers for her senate seat, he was opposed to senators signing pledges. Now, the former senator has done what he criticized others for doing just a few years ago. Not only has his position on pledges “evolved,” Bob Rochelle’s position on the income tax is in such a constant state of flux (against it, for it, against it) that it is impossible to know how long his current income tax opposition will last. You know how the saying goes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.