That's the message Rep. Dennis Lake, the House Revenue and Taxation Committee chairman, sent the Senate by shelving without a hearing its measure calling for an annual review of existing sales tax exemptions.

Some Senate Republicans and the Legislature's Democrats complain existing exemptions benefit narrow slices of the economy but aren't suited to growing the state's future economy. Those cries, especially among Democrats, have grown louder this year, as Idaho's tax revenue shrinks with the dismal economy.

Lake, R-Blackfoot, said Idaho has reviewed exemptions before -- in 2007, 2003, 2002 and 1994 -- without managing to dump any.

In fact, it's gone the other way. The House approved an exemption on homeless shelters' purchases earlier this year, but it died in the Senate.

"We don't need another review. Bring me a bill that's got 18 co-sponsors -- let's not just talk about it," Lake said Thursday. [Read the full article]

Iowa Democrats announced plans Thursday to slash $115 million in spending on state tax credits and increase oversight on programs that remain.

Lawmakers are taking a closer look at the state's tax credit system after alleged abuses in the tax credit program for filmmakers were uncovered last fall.

"We will be proposing a set of reforms that will take tax credit spending off of automatic pilot," said Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, head of the tax-writing Senate Ways and Means Committee. "We have listened to the public's anger at abuses and we are responding with historic reforms that will reduce Iowa's tax credit liability by more than $115 million."

The package unveiled by Democrats would suspend for two years the tax credit aimed at bringing moviemakers to Iowa, slash $65 million from business tax credits and refocus a tax credit for research. [Read the full article]

A broad coalition of Wisconsin business and labor officials, mayors, environmentalists and others urged the Legislature on Thursday to approve regional transit systems to ease congestion, improve transportation and create jobs.

Gov. Jim Doyle and lawmakers are trying to find a plan they can agree on that would pay for commuter-rail and bus service in Milwaukee, Kenosha and Racine counties. Other proposals considered Thursday by the Assembly's Transportation Committee would allow for regional transit authorities statewide and specifically in La Crosse County in western Wisconsin and the Fox Cities in the northeastern part of the state.

The plans rely on raising sales taxes a half cent per dollar to pay for transit. Much of the conflict comes in the details over how the transit authorities would be organized and operated, although Republican critics, especially in the Milwaukee area, have opposed raising taxes to pay for it. [Read the full article]

With Gov. Pat Quinn telling Illinois lawmakers to choose between higher income taxes or deep education cuts, either choice could have dire consequences for schools, businesses and taxpayers.

In schools, Quinn's proposed $1.3 billion education cut could mean massive teacher layoffs, ballooning class sizes and the loss of extracurricular activities.

For businesses, a bump in the income tax rate could force them to cut jobs to save money to meet the heavier tax burden.

And for taxpayers, it will mean forking over more dough without any exemptions to shield poor and working-class families from higher tax bills.

Quinn contends the state has to raise taxes to prevent deep education cuts that would further damage struggling school districts because it's losing federal stimulus money. But Quinn could look elsewhere to make the cuts and that has Republicans accusing him of engaging in scare tactics.

"There's a fork in the road in Illinois. [Read the full article]