Nebraska
State Rundown 8/12: States Find Themselves in New Unemployment Pickle
• By ITEP Staff
Even in statehouses, many eyes remained on Congress and President Trump this week as state lawmakers advocated for needed federal fiscal relief and debated whether they can afford to join in on the president’s executive order requiring states to partially fund a new version of enhanced unemployment benefits that have otherwise expired.
State Rundown 8/6: States Fiscal Solutions Getting Bolder
• By ITEP Staff
This week, voters in Missouri approved Medicaid expansion, Nevada lawmakers moved to amend their Constitution to raise taxes on the state’s mining industry, and leaders in California and New York continued to push for needed revenues through tax increases on their richest households.
State Rundown 7/29: There is No Offseason During a Pandemic
• By ITEP Staff
As many of the country’s major professional sports leagues attempt to return to action amid concerns that the pandemic will find a way to ruin even the best-laid plans, state legislatures find themselves in a similar boat. Lawmakers would normally be enjoying their summer breaks at this time of year, but instead are returning to work in special sessions surrounded by plexiglass and uncertainty. Read on for information on ongoing sessions in states including California,…
State Rundown 7/22: The Heat Is On
• By ITEP Staff
Temperatures and tensions are high right now across the country as Congress debates its next pandemic response and states continue to sweat through difficult decisions. Nevada lawmakers, for example, just wrapped up a special session during which they came within one vote of a proposed tax increase but ultimately chose to balance their shortfall through only funding cuts. But advocates in many states, including California, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island are trying to…
State Rundown 7/8: Many State Legislatures Reconvene for Special or Resumed Sessions
• By ITEP Staff
Local leaders in the District of Columbia and Seattle, Washington, approved progressive tax changes to raise needed funding this week for priorities such as coronavirus relief, affordable housing, and mental health. Arizona advocates submitted signatures to place a high-income surcharge on the ballot for November. And as a number of states made decisions on how to use federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds, North Carolina decoupled from costly business tax cuts…
State Rundown 7/1: Happy New Year?
• By ITEP Staff
As ITEP analyst Kamolika Das wrote today, July 1 is typically the beginning of state fiscal years and “a point when one can take a step back and reflect on the wins and disappointments of the past state legislative sessions.” Not so in 2020, she writes, as uncertainty surrounding the virus, state revenues, and potential federal action give state lawmakers no such time to relax and reflect. Although most recent state actions, such as those…
State Rundown 6/11: Fiscal Debates Continue Amid Turmoil
• By ITEP Staff
As calls to defund the police demonstrate, state and local decisions about funding priorities and how those funds are raised are deeply embedded in racial justice issues. Tax justice is also a key component in advancing racial justice. Racial wealth disparities are the result of countless historic inequities and tax policy choices are certainly among […]
State Rundown 5/20: State Revenue Crisis Getting Clearer…and Scarier
• By ITEP Staff
State policymakers are navigating incredibly uncertain waters these days as they attempt to get a firmer grasp on the scale of their revenue crises, identify painful budget cuts they may have to make in response, and look for ways to raise tax revenues coming from the households and corporations still bringing in large incomes and profits amid the pandemic—all while hoping that additional federal aid and greater flexibility in how they can use federal CARES…
State Rundown 4/22: Earth Day Lessons from Pangea to Pandemic
• By ITEP Staff
In different ways, Earth Day and the COVID-19 pandemic convey a similar lesson: people around the world face shared struggles and disparate impacts, which they must work together to overcome through both emergency action and systemic change. In keeping with that lesson, state fiscal policy news this week was strikingly similar around the country, as states take account of the major threat posed by the pandemic to their budgets and attempt to grapple with its…
State Rundown 4/9: Pandemic’s Fiscal Effects Slowly Coming into Focus
• By ITEP Staff
The COVID-19 pandemic continued this week to wreak havoc on lives and communities around the world. The fiscal fallout of the virus in the states is growing as well, and beginning this week to come into sharper focus. This week’s Rundown brings together what we know of that slowly clarifying picture and how states are responding so far.
State Rundown 4/3: States Welcome Federal Aid, Seek Further Solutions
• By ITEP Staff
States and families got good news this week as Congress came together to pass major aid to help during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. But that bright spot came amid an onslaught of very difficult news about the public health crisis and the economic and fiscal fallout accompanying it. This week’s Rundown brings you the latest on these developments and state and local responses to them.
State Rundown 3/26: Pandemic’s Health and Fiscal Fallout Continues to Grow
• By ITEP Staff
This week’s Rundown brings you the most useful reading and resources about how states are affected by and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. These include: landing pages for the most up-to-date lists of state policy responses; ITEP’s own materials on state policy options and the federal response bills; insights on how a race-forward approach can improve these efforts at all levels; updates on state fiscal troubles and legislative postponements; and the developing picture of which…
State Rundown 3/19: Spring Is Here but States Brace for Long Winter
• By ITEP Staff
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt more and more aspects of life and cause greater and greater harms to public health and the economy, information is changing by the hour. State policymakers, if they are even able to convene, are wholly focused on how to respond to the crisis. The pandemic is certain to pose a series of fiscal challenges for states and their economies, and this week’s Rundown focuses on the most helpful…
State Rundown 3/11: Georgia Bucks Trend of Cautious Policymaking Amid Crises
• By ITEP Staff
With all eyes on the potential effects of the oil price war and COVID-19 coronavirus on lives, communities, and economies, Georgia House lawmakers this week crammed through a regressive and costly tax cut for the rich with essentially no debate, information, or transparency. Most states are proceeding much more responsibly, assessing the ramifications for their service provision needs and revenues to fund those needs.
State Rundown 3/4: Sun Shining on Progressive Tax Efforts This Week
• By ITEP Staff
Wisconsin’s expansion of a capital gains tax break for high-income households represents a dark spot on this week’s state fiscal news, and the growing threat of COVID-19 is casting an ominous shadow over all of it, but otherwise the picture is pleasantly sunny, featuring small steps forward for sound, progressive tax policy. An initiative to create a graduated income tax in Illinois, for example, got a vote of confidence from a major ratings agency, while…
State Rundown 2/27: Leaps Forward Needed for Tax Justice
• By ITEP Staff
This weekend’s Leap Day should be a welcome extra day for state lawmakers, advocates, and observers who care about tax and budget policy, as there is an overflow of proposals and information to digest. Most importantly, as emphasized in our “What We’re Reading” section, there are never enough days in a month to do justice to the importance of Black History Month and Black Futures Month. In state-specific debates, Oregon and Washington leaders are hoping…
State Rundown 2/20: Property Taxes and School Finance Take Center Stage
• By ITEP Staff
Property taxes and education funding are a major focus in state fiscal debates this week. California voters will soon vote on borrowing billions of dollars to fill just part of the funding hole created in large part by 1978’s anti-property-tax Proposition 13. Nebraska lawmakers are debating major school finance changes that some fear will create similar long-term fiscal issues. And Idaho and South Dakota leaders are looking to avoid that fate by reducing property taxes…
State Rundown 2/13: What’s Trendy in State Tax Debates This Year
• By ITEP Staff
We wrote earlier this week about Trends We’re Watching in 2020, and this week’s Rundown includes news on several of those trends. Maine lawmakers are considering a refundable credit for caregivers. Efforts to tax high-income households made news in Maryland, Oregon, and Washington. Grocery taxes are receiving scrutiny in Alabama, Idaho, and Tennessee. Tax cuts or shifts are being discussed in Arizona, Nebraska, and West Virginia. And Arizona, Maryland, and Nevada continue to seek funding…
Trends We’re Watching in 2020
• By ITEP Staff
State lawmakers have plenty to keep them busy on the tax policy front in 2020. Encouraging trends we’re watching this year include opportunities to enact and enhance refundable tax credits and increase the tax contributions of high-income households, each of which would improve tax equity and help to reduce income inequality.
State Itemized Deductions: Surveying the Landscape, Exploring Reforms
• By Carl Davis
State itemized deductions are generally patterned after federal law, though nearly every state makes significant changes to the menu of deductions available or the extent to which those deductions are allowed. This report summarizes the key details of each state’s itemized deduction policies and discusses various options for reforming those deductions with a focus on lessening their regressive impact and reducing their cost to state budgets.
State Rundown 1/30: Flip-Flops and Steady Marches in State Tax Debates
• By ITEP Staff
State tax and budget debates can turn on a dime sometimes, as in Utah this past week, where lawmakers unanimously repealed a tax package they had just approved in a special session last month. Delaware lawmakers are hoping to avoid the similarly abrupt end to their last effort to improve their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by crafting a bill that Gov. John Carney will have no reason to unexpectedly veto as he did two years ago. But at other times, these debates just can’t change fast…
State Rundown 1/22: “Only Light Can Do That”
• By ITEP Staff
This week as Americans celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s messages of resisting oppression and fighting for progress, state policymakers can look to some bright spots where tax and budget debates are bending toward justice. Among those highlights, Hawaii leaders are considering improvements to minimum wage policy, early childhood education, and affordable housing; Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is seeking to reduce sales taxes applied to food and restore the state’s grocery tax credit; and advocates in…
Why I’ve Joined the Fight for Tax Justice: Amy Hanauer
• By Amy Hanauer
After years of watching tax policy increasingly leave communities behind, at ITEP I’ll have the chance to work with local, state and national partners on policy solutions. I’m prepared to push for a tax system that can better deliver economic, climate and racial justice; for a public sector that can prepare our kids and our grid for 2020 and beyond; and for an America that works for all of us, whether we were born in…
State Rundown 1/15: State Tax Proposals Are All Over the Map
• By ITEP Staff
State tax and budget debates have arrived in a big way, with proposals from every part of the country and everywhere on the spectrum from good to bad tax policy. Just look to ARIZONA for a microcosm of nationwide debates, where education advocates have a plan to raise progressive taxes for school needs, Gov. Doug […]
State Rundown 1/8: States Need Clear Tax and Budget Policy Vision in 2020
• By ITEP Staff
Happy New Year readers! The Rundown is back to our usual weekly schedule as state legislative sessions and governors’ budgets and State of the State Addresses begin in earnest. Here’s to clear-eyed 20-20 vision guiding state tax and budget decisions in 2020! So far this year, the harm of Colorado’s TABOR policy and Alaska’s lack of an income tax are coming into focus in big ways. Utah advocates are hoping the benefit of hindsight will…
