Alabama

State legislative sessions are wrapping up, and final tax and budget packages are making their way to governors’ desks.

In Washington, Gov. Bob Ferguson and lawmakers decided to stop fooling around with one of the nation’s most upside-down tax codes and finally brought to life a new millionaires’ tax, the first new income tax created in a state since 1991.

The recent spike in gasoline prices is on pace to cost American drivers an extra $9.4 billion per month. Gas prices are up dramatically across the country, but the South has been hit hardest and is on pace to pay $4.2 billion more per month.

As many state legislative sessions near or cross the halfway point, lawmakers are facing tough choices.

National Sausage Month isn’t until October, but now is the time of year when state lawmakers are really diving into their sausage-making processes, as separate legislative houses and oftentimes political parties send competing bills, budgets, and visions back and forth to grind out their differences.

State lawmakers are grappling with a range of challenges as their fiscal outlooks deteriorate, federal tax enforcement wanes (after the Trump administration cut the IRS workforce by 25 percent), and a rewritten federal tax code sends states scrambling to decide what changes they might want to make in their own codes.

State governors are beginning to lay out their top priorities as legislatures reconvene in statehouses around the country.

property tax debates are taking place throughout the nation.

State deductions for tips and overtime are not only ineffective at supporting working-class people, it will come at a substantial cost to state budgets.