A chortling Beebe-ite called me early today. No wonder. He’d read the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Mike Beebe, depicted by his Republican opponent last year as a unrepentant tax-and-spender, is hailed as a tax cutter, a model for Democrats everywhere. And a fellow named Mike Huckabee, desperately trying to shake the big-tax label being slapped on him regularly by the Club for Growth, gets the back of the WSJ’s influential-with-conservative-Republicans hand. ‘Tis rich.

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe may not be a man from Hope, but the newly elected Democrat is becoming a voice for tax relief within his party.

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Last year he campaigned on cutting in half his state’s 6% sales tax on groceries. Last week he made good on the promise by striking a deal with a reluctant Democratic legislature. His compromise also repeals income taxes on the poor and cuts sales taxes that manufacturers pay on their utility bills. All told, taxpayers will save $319 million over two years, or what the Governor calls “the largest tax decrease in the history of the state.”

The Arkansas Policy Foundation estimates that a family of four will save $234 a year on grocery bills alone, a significant savings in a state where the average taxpayer shells out $3,088 a year in state and local taxes. And it’s all the better that the Governor also resisted the legislature’s impulse to lard up the state’s tax code with tax credits.

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The Tax Foundation reports that Arkansas is the 27th most taxed state in the nation with a heavier tax burden than neighboring Texas and Tennessee, neither of which has an income tax and rank 44th and 47th. The state is expected to have an $840 million surplus this year and could therefore afford additional cuts in its 6% general sales tax and 7% tax on income over $30,100. The state’s last Governor — potential Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — is best known for losing 100 pounds while in office. That Mr. Beebe is turning his attention instead to curbing the state’s appetite is a sign of progress.

James Boulder, a letter to the editor is required. Pronto.

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