For Jaksha, capping taxes and spending has been a 40-year campaign, marked by more losses than victories. But I'd have to say they have really taken the leadership. They loaned me the attorney to draft the petition, and of course, they've raised the money for the campaign. The opposition group reported raising about one-quarter as much, with the teachers' union its main source of funds. That is not sustainable.
Businesses look at our budgets and taxes and decide to go elsewhere.
The budget has been growing at a compounded rate of almost 10 percent a year, jumping 12 percent in the current biennium. But opponents of 413 say much of the increase has come as a result of a bipartisan decision to shift some of the burden of school financing off local property taxes and onto the more rapidly growing state income and sales tax base. Education is by far the biggest item in the budget and, in the past decade, the state share of overall education spending rose from 24 percent to almost 50 percent. But property taxes, after inflation, also rose slightly, leaving Nebraska in the middle of national rankings of per capita tax burdens, though higher than some neighboring states. It allows the legislature to suspend it for emergencies and to adjust it upward for unfunded federal mandates.