Today it is with great disappointment that I must report that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team did not meet the required signature count to place our two initiatives for constitutional amendments on the November general election ballot. While the team met the first goal of securing signatures from at least five percent of registered voters in 38 counties, the team fell short of the second requirement of securing signatures from ten percent of the registered voters statewide.

I would like to express my gratitude to the many volunteers who worked tirelessly with determination and self-sacrifice in order to put these two ballot initiatives on the November ballot. In order to meet the second requirement, these volunteer petition circulators needed to acquire a total of 123,190 valid signatures. That is a nearly impossible feat to accomplish without paid circulators. The last time that an all-volunteer team managed to place a ballot initiative on the ballot for the general election was back in 1966!

The fact that our volunteer circulators met the first requirement of securing valid signatures from five percent of registered voters in more than 38 counties represents an enormous accomplishment for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team and the volunteer circulators who did the work. This fact alone ought to show the most ardent skeptics of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax how much Nebraskans are suffering under the current tax code and why it needs to be changed. There is no question that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team would have met both constitutional requirements for the two petition drives with the help of paid circulators. Moreover, had the county assessors published their 2024 valuation increases in March instead of in June, I believe we would have met both constitutional requirements with our team of volunteer circulators.

What is most disappointing is that Nebraskans will have to continue to live and work under our state’s broken tax system. Going forward, we will continue to allow government leaders to pick winners and losers through TIF financing and the ImagiNE Nebraska Act. Nebraska will also continue to lose more population to other states. Nebraska will continue to suffer from brain-drain as our graduating college students choose to settle down in other states, our retirees move to more tax friendly states, and farmers and ranchers are forced to either sell their properties or file for bankruptcy because they can no longer afford to pay their property taxes.

The EPIC Option Consumption Tax team is not the only loser today. Those groups who spread misinformation about the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, such as the State Chamber of Commerce, the League of Municipalities, Farm Bureau, the Open Sky Institute, No New Taxes Nebraska and even U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts have suffered irreparable damage to their reputations. These organizations and individuals helped spread the false propaganda that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax would require a rate of 22 percent and result in a $5.5 billion deficit to the State of Nebraska despite clear and indisputable evidence to the contrary.

Despite this enormous loss, I and the other members of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team remain optimistic about the future of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. It is inevitable that Nebraska will move in the direction of a consumption tax. Although the team failed to get the ball into the endzone this year, we successfully moved the ball down the field and into the red zone. I believe we are now within scoring distance. I say this because the plan that Gov. Pillen has been floating for property tax relief looks an awful lot like EPIC light. Much like the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, the Governor now wants to fund all public schools through the state.

The EPIC Option Consumption Tax team is not going away. The team will regroup and explore their options for the future. Nebraska still has a serious tax problem, which the Governor and State Senators can no longer ignore. Whatever becomes the plan, it cannot be a simple tax shift; instead, it must reduce the overall tax burden that Nebraskans face.