Last week, ThinkProgress documented conservative efforts in twelve states to shift the tax burden onto the middle class even while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy. In three states, conservatives are going even further, proposing massive estate tax cuts for millionaires even as income inequality is at its worse since the 1920s. Here are the details:

MAINE: Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage’s (I) tax reform package would raise the state’s estate tax exemption from $1 million to $2 million — allowing four hundred of the state’s wealthiest estates to escape taxation. At the same time, the tax plan would raise property taxes on middle class Mainers while freezing healthcare funding for working parents, cutting money for schools, and raising the retirement age for public workers. Republican legislators want to go even further, and are currently considering eliminating the estate tax altogether.

OHIO: In January, House Speaker William Batchelder (R) called Gov. John Kasich’s (R) proposal to completely eliminate the estate tax one of the Republican-controlled legislature’s “top priorities.” But already the bill has garnered strong opposition from local governments, who depend on estate tax revenue and are already concerned state spending cuts. Even while finding room for estate tax reductions, Kasich’s proposed budget cuts 25 percent of funding for local schools, $427 million for nursing homes, $1 million for food banks, $12 million from children’s hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs.

NEW JERSEY: In his 2011 budget proposal, Gov. Chris Christie called for raising the state’s estate tax exemption from $675,000 to $1 million even while proposing cuts to the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates for working poor families. And last year Christie vetoed a bill passed by the Legislature that would have raised taxes on the state’s millionaires to help fund property tax relief for Main Street.

Last December, the federal government set the precedent for estate tax cuts when the bi-partisan tax deal signed by President Obama cut the estate tax rate to its second lowest level since 1931.

– Kevin Donohoe

Potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R) earlier this month endorsed giving multinational corporations a huge tax break by allowing them to bring money they have stashed offshore back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower tax rate. Usually, money brought back to the U.S. is subject to the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

A group of multinational corporations have launched a quiet lobbying campaign to try ginning up interest in this idea, which is known as a tax repatriation holiday. In addition to Romney, they seem to have won another convert in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who supported a tax holiday during a speech yesterday on his “pro-growth economic plan“:

We must make America competitive again by lowering the corporate tax rate to at least 25% – equal to our competitors. And we will do it as part of fundamental tax reform, which will minimize the impact on government revenues.

Forging consensus on this type of fundamental tax reform will take time, so in the meantime I propose that we allow U.S. multinational companies to bring back almost $1.2 trillion in overseas profits at a lower tax so they can invest in our economy here at home.

Both the corporations themselves and the Republicans supporting a tax holiday claim that allowing companies to repatriate billions of dollars at an extremely low tax rate will spur domestic investment and job creation. However, in 2004 Congress approved a repatriation holiday; it resulted in corporate executives lining their own pockets, not investing in new jobs.

Kristen Forbes, who was on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers when the last repatriation holiday was approved, said that it “didn’t accomplish the stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the US.’’ In fact, the holiday encouraged corporations to stash more money overseas, because they figured they could sucker Congress into consistently approving tax holidays.

The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have, thus far, been opposed to the idea of a repatriation holiday occurring outside of comprehensive corporate tax reform. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said that approving another tax holiday “makes a farce out of the whole system.” Even Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who is usually adamantly opposed to fair corporate taxation, said of a repatriation holiday, “probably from an accounting and tax standpoint, that’s not a good way to go.”

Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) has played a leading role in the Republican assault on workers’ rights, pursuing a bill to strip his state’s public employees of collective bargaining rights. But he has also been actively pushing his state’s assets into the hands of private corporations, with his main job creation plan being the formation of JobsOhio, a private entity that will be tasked with coaxing business into the Buckeye state. Similar schemes have not worked in other states, but Kasich has plowed forward nonetheless

Part of Kasich’s plan for financing his new, privatized development agency (of which he will be chairman) includes leasing the state’s liquor stores to JobsOhio, which will then use the money to run its operations. Kasich claims that this will work because Ohioans are increasing their alcohol consumption:

The success of Gov. John Kasich’s plan to recruit new business to Ohio will hinge heavily on just how much Ohioans drink alcohol. Kasich last week unveiled his state budget proposal, which includes a plan to lease the state’s liquor distribution operation — which of late has drawn record profits — and use the cash to fund his private economic development machine.

“Over the years people drink more. It’s just a natural revenue stream,” Kasich said last Tuesday while outlining his proposal, drawing a smattering of laughter from reporters. “So, everybody wanted to buy it. Everybody was interested in it.”

Whether Ohio’s best “natural” asset is its booze intake is up for debate. But all jokes about Ohio’s increasing drunkenness aside, a deeper look at the numbers indicates that Ohio is getting the short end of the stick on this deal. As Ohio Budget Watch found, Kasich’s plan involves the state selling about $7 billion in expected revenue from state liquor stores to JobsOhio for just $1.5 billion:

Profits on liquor sales generate $228 million for the state of Ohio every year. JobsOhio is set to take over liquor sales oversight and own that revenue stream. They, in turn, will sell 30 years worth of that revenue — worth around $6.8 billion — to a group of investors (recruited by a Wall Street firm, who will of course take a cut) in return for a lump sum payment to the state. According to the administration, they expect to receive about $1.5 billion in return for this $6+ billion in state revenue.

And because JobsOhio doesn’t actually have any money to pay even the $1.5 billion, it will “turn to Wall Street to issue bonds to finance the deal.” As Plunderbund noted, “Wall Street, which obviously expects a return on its investment, won’t finance the deal unless Ohio (i.e. Kasich) is willing to allow them to essentially buy a twenty to thirty year revenue stream for pennies on the dollar.” Thus, Kasich is selling his state’s liquor stores at fire-sale prices, even as it faces billions in deficits.