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If you were listing characteristics of a well-designed tax system, what would you include? In today's Courier-Journal, Rep. Jim Wayne gives his list, and I think it's a good starting point:

Fairness. The tax code should promote justice, with every Kentuckian paying their fair share, including the wealthiest.

Adequacy. The revenue stream should be stable enough to support schools, social services, prisons, law enforcement, environmental protection and other programs and services people depend on.

Elasticity. Revenue should grow as the economy changes. If a certain section of our economy is expanding, as our service-based sector is, tax revenues should reflect that.

Simplicity. The system shouldn't be too complicated to understand. Taxes should be as low as possible — with everyone paying their fair share — and the tax base should be broad.

I've been yelling for months about the lack of leadership in Frankfort. Why? Because all the people in Frankfort know that our tax system fails ALL of these tests, and has for years -- and yet they have done nothing.

Here's what the cowardice in Frankfort has gotten us:

• Since 2000, Kentucky has spent $3.5 billion more from the General Fund than we have taken in.
• We have completely drained every back-up fund we have. The so-called Rainy Day Fund now has a balance of zero.
  
  
• Our middle class citizens pay twice as much in state and local taxes as our wealthiest (11% to 6.1%).
• Our universities are planning double-digit tuition increases, thus putting education further out of reach -- the very education we need to get more and better jobs to come to the state.

How can we begin to dig ourselves out of this hole? Here's a few opening ideas (more to come on this):

• Start taxing services. We have moved from a goods-and-manufacturing economy to a services-driven economy, yet our tax code has not kept up. We need to figure out how to tax services, which ones to tax, and how much. The persons providing those services will scream and holler -- we have to do it anyway.
• Make our tax system more progessive. Our top-end rate is capped at what was "rich" in the 1950s. It's time that Kentuckians at the upper end of our economy pay their fair share.
• Throw out every loophole we can find, including taking a long, hard look at our corporate tax incentives. There are profitable companies in this state that pay nothing in taxes, and in some cases won't pay for ten or twenty years. Sorry, folks -- in a time when we are rationing diapers for seniors on Medicaid, it's time to see what we're getting for those tax breaks.

This is just a beginning, of course; comprehensive tax reform is a long, hard slog. But we have to start.

The first step on that journey, though, may be getting some real leaders in Frankfort.