Despite the desperate need for pre-K funding, lawmakers sank their teeth into a nice, juicy capital gains tax cut for the rich this session. Fighting to keep state coffers adequately filled with tax dollars feels like announcing the tired refrain- “eat your vegetables!” at a fast food restaurant. There is a severe need to maintain funding, but broccoli is broccoli, taxes are taxes, and neither can compete with short term gratification. So here we are, closing out the fiscal session with more unhealthy tax cuts.

Earlier this session, Governor Hutchinson’s Middle Class Tax Relief Act scaled back some of the 2013 tax cuts to capital gains income, or money made from investments like selling stocks or real estate. This was a great move for tax fairness in Arkansas because tax cuts to capital gains generally only benefit wealthy people, but this headway was short-lived.  That brief progress was undone by restoring the old 50 percent break on capital gains (the Governor’s plan reduced the break to only a 40 percent exemption on capital gains income) as well as a shameful exemption on all capital gains income over $10 million.

This is the type of change that will benefit only a handful of the state’s wealthiest taxpayers. Keep in mind that in Arkansas the poorest folks already have an unfair tax burden, paying twice the rate in taxes as the wealthiest (as a share of their income). While millions go back into the pockets of the wealthy, other important investments like libraries, community health centers, the Department of Youth Services and Juvenile Justice saw budget cuts this session. When kids have unmet needs because of lack of funding to pre-K centers and child welfare programs, it is hard to imagine someone who deserves a tax break less than those who already make more than $10 million a year.

The effects of these choices are felt immediately. That sluggish feeling you get when you’ve washed down your burger and fries with a tax cut for millionaires, that’s the economy getting short of breath. That’s businesses choosing states who’ve invested in educating their workforce instead of tax cuts for the rich. That’s libraries closing their doors. That’s pre-K centers scraping by. That’s less support for families who fall on hard times. That’s state employees going without paid maternity leave. We need to start thinking about ways to protect investments in programs that serve vulnerable children and families, ways to raise new revenue, or at least ways to prevent new tax cuts. Taxes are a moral issue, and, well, you are what you eat.