Opinion | The trouble with political will

It’s so weird what the Alabama Legislature finds the political will to do. 

In fact, if you pay close attention, you might notice a pattern for the things that our lawmakers – the men and women you elect to do this stuff – find the political will to do. 

For example, despite it being wholly unpopular with Alabama voters, somehow, our politicians found the political will to pass a gas tax a few years ago. Because, well, we really needed to improve our roads and bridges and lay a bunch of broadband cable, and the only way to do that was to jack up the taxes on folks driving to work every day. 

Similarly, last session, our conservative legislators (because nary a Democrat voted for this) found the political will to steal $100 million annually (and upwards of a half-billion dollars per year when it’s fully implemented in a couple of years) of public school dollars to give to wealthy families so they can send their kids to private schools. It is a program, the Choose Act, that is incredibly unpopular among voters. Similar voucher programs have been shot down in every state where it has appeared on the ballot. But our lawmakers found the political will to just go ahead and pass it and never give you a say on it. 

It’s weird how that works – how in all of these other states, there are ballot initiatives all the time on major issues, such as the diverting of public school money or a new tax. But here in this state, our lawmakers just find the political will to do stuff, even stuff they know we’d hate. 

Or to not do stuff that they know we all want. 

Right now, there is no more popular issue in the Alabama political world than gambling. Nothing comes close. 

Polling on gambling is off the charts. No one – not even the biggest gambling opponents – will deny at this point that it is incredibly popular. Even the least popular components of gambling are multiple times more popular than almost every lawmaker serving in this state. 

The people want an education lottery. The people want casinos. The people want a gambling commission to clean up the ridiculous amount of “illegal gambling.” The people want sports wagering. 

And most of all, people – and I’m talking about around 90 percent of the people – want to be able to vote on a gambling initiative. They want to tell lawmakers what they want. They want an opportunity to have their voices heard on this issue. And they don’t want to wait. (Because if a bill doesn’t come up this session, there’s zero chance it comes up in an election year or in the year after a major election. That means at least three years before it would be approved and five years before it could be voted on and implemented.)

But, alas, there is no political will. 

The new Senate President Pro Tem said so this week. Sen. Garlan Gudger said the for-sure votes aren’t there in the senate to get a gambling bill passed, so he doesn’t see it coming up. There’s just no political will on that issue. 

You’ll recall that it was the senate that screwed up gambling last session. The House, led by Nathaniel Ledbetter, passed a very good, very lucrative (for the state) comprehensive gambling package that would have allowed voters the option to approve seven casino licenses, sports wagering, an education lottery and a gambling commission to crack down on illegal gaming. 

It was a very popular package with voters, and it was quite clear that if approved, the bill would have been approved by voters with ease. That alone – seeing that legislation is popular among their constituents – should have been enough to prompt lawmakers to get the bill approved and on the ballot. 

But you know what happened … the political will just wasn’t there in the senate. 

Dadgum political will. Are you starting to get the sense that “political will” is just an excuse to do whatever they want? 

Well, let me drive it home for you. 

There’s also another matter that’s going to be a big topic this legislative session, and it’s another topic that’s very important to voters. 

The overtime tax exemption. 

Sponsored by House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels last session, the exemption removes state taxes from all overtime pay. It passed the legislature without a single opposing vote, although Sen. Arthur Orr – who championed the unpopular Choose Act theft – tried to cap the exemption because he was suddenly worried about money coming out of the education budget. 

The program has been immensely successful and companies all across the state have taken advantage of it. Even President Donald Trump talked during the campaign of implementing a similar exemption at the federal level. 

It was so popular in Alabama that workers started racking up OT, more than tripling the expected hours. And now, you’re not going to believe this, but the exemption just might be too expensive. 

Yeah, even though those extra OT hours would have never happened without the incentive of the exemption, which means the state would have never collected the additional tax revenue, our lawmakers think it’s just too big of a hit on the education budget. We can’t afford it. 

Of course, the rich people get to keep their private school tax breaks. And they also get to keep the Rich People’s Income Tax Break of 2023, which reduced the state’s top marginal tax rate (the rate the wealthiest Alabamians pay) by half a percentage point.  

All of that also means there’s no way we can completely eliminate the grocery tax now. No way, no how. 

Sure, we can lop a cool half-billion off the education budget for rich people, while we simultaneously cut their income tax rate, but cutting the grocery bill for working folks or not taxing their overtime? Come on, you know the answer by now. 

Seems like voters need to find some political will.