Maybe, it’s because I don’t follow state politics nearly as much as national politics, but it seems to me that two (out of the four) amendments have been dominating the news in the past month. The first and second amendments on Tuesday’s ballots are about abortion and the appointment of judges, respectively. What I haven’t heard much about is the third amendment, which calls for a constitutional ban on any state income tax in the state of Tennessee.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I’m not some liberal undergrad commie that loves income taxes as much as his Che Guevara T-shirt. No, I’m a moderate, and I actually support the state not having an income tax, for many of the same reasons that Republicans do. What I’m going to explain is why having a constitutional ban on a tax such as this is a terrible idea, maybe not for us, or even our children, but for potential generations in the future.

My first problem with this amendment, and all of the amendments for that matter, is that they are terribly worded. The language used in these amendments conjures up images of a 9-year-old lawyer. It’s that bad. This isn’t a huge issue legally, but it is certainly concerning to me as a voter that our government officials lack the capacity to write legislation that is not only legally competent, but also easy to understand for the laymen or all voters that are not well versed on tax policy (i.e. most Tennessee voters).

Let’s take a look at some of the language in this amendment. “Notwithstanding the authority to tax privileges or any other authority set forth in this Constitution, the Legislature shall not levy, authorize or otherwise permit any state or local tax upon payroll or earned personal income or any state or local tax measured by payroll or earned personal income…” You get my point.

A lack of state income tax has shown to have a positive impact on Tennessee’s economy, at least from a business aspect; even if it means paying one of the highest sales taxes in the country. While our lack of income tax and high sales tax has been criticized as being unfair to citizens earning lower incomes — a perfectly valid criticism — it is clear that the policy attracts more businesses to the state. Whether this means more jobs and a higher standard of living for Tennesseans is up for debate, but just because a lack of a state income may be a good idea now does not mean it’s a good idea for the future.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone that would describe government, state or federal, as efficient and effective in all areas of governance. Even Democrats would agree there is a great deal of government waste, and lots of room for improvement in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. So, why in the world would anyone want to make it harder for government to do its job, when it’s apparently so tough already?

Government should be as flexible as possible when faced with unforeseen problems. There’s not a single politician in this state that can to tell you what the revenue situation will be in Tennessee in 25 years. So it doesn’t make sense for us to limit ourselves in our sources of revenue, regardless of your political ideology, when we don’t know what might happen down the road.

A prohibition of a state income tax is just asking for trouble, and although it doesn’t make it impossible to ever have an income tax in Tennessee, it certainly makes it more difficult, and do we really want to make our state legislator’s jobs any harder? I mean, they already seem pretty preoccupied with how a bunch of college students are using their own money. They don’t have time to think about things like tax policy or sensible governance.

Thomas Carpenter is a junior in classics. He can be reached at [email protected].