This is an opinion column.

Taxing groceries is like taxing air—which is why most states don’t do it.

You gotta breathe. You gotta eat. They’re necessities, not choices. They’re always, not options.

Without either, you die—which is why most states don’t levy taxes on food.

Alabama does, of course. Since 1939, the state’s levied an additional four percent on top of local taxes, which can jack a family upwards of 10 percent. Just to eat.

We’re one of 13 states that tax food—one of only three that do so at the state’s full tax rate, without any specific food exemptions or credits. (Mississippi, our kindred neighbor, and South Dakota are the other no-mercy states.)

Like most taxes, the food tax bites deeper for low-income families, though no one’s happy about it. Which is why folks who’d sooner have a food fight than agree on anything are lockstep in trying to persuade lawmakers, as they head into the next legislative session this week, to fast. Or at least go on a diet. A food tax diet.

I abhor political labels, as I often share—efforts to place each of us (especially them) in a big ole box that ignores our nuances, influences, and experiences. Ignores the journey that shapes our views, insights, and perspectives.

For today’s purposes, let’s just agree that on most issues Alabama Arise and the Alabama Policy Institute (API) are in different big ole boxes. On far different aisles, grocery or otherwise. Yet on the food-tax debate, they’re pushing the same cart in pursuit of a deal with state legislators that would provide Alabama taxpayers with relief at the grocery check-out.

Their motivations most certainly differ—API abhors taxes, period; AA seeks to ease the unfair burden on low-income families.

Indeed, just this week retailers nationwide, according to The New York Times, were tentative in their projections for the first quarter, citing spending patterns by low-income shoppers still ripped by inflation and being more scrutinizing about what they buy.

We care less about their why than when. When Alabama will get its paws out of our pantry.

RELATED: ‘Untax our food’ – Alabama could renew interest in grocery tax repeal as food prices soar

It was given a shot in March 2017 when then-Gov. Robert Bentley created The Grocery Tax Task Force to study the feasibility of dropping the 4 percent tax. The group was supposed to offer thoughts by June 1 that year, but—do you need a reminder of how that went?

Bentley was soon shamed out of office and in July his successor, Kay Ivey, dumped the Grocery Tax Task Force—and 18 others—like outdated milk. The group most likely never even met.

Hardly any politician touts the grocery tax as a good thing, but they’re addicted to it like full-sugared Coke. Addicted to the $500 million annually it produces for the state’s Education Trust Fund. Addicted and at a loss—or too lazy—on how to sharpen their pencils and discern how to replace the tax.

So, too often, they just ignore it. As they’ve done for more than eight decades.

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Please, our lawmakers always find money for what they want (See: more prisons), less so for what Alabamians need (See: expanded Medicaid).

I could be wrong, but I sincerely hope not: Collectively—as odd as the political pairing may be— Alabama Arise and the API just might be able to work with this group of legislators to successfully pare this cost on a staple all Alabamians need.

One that does not need to be taxed.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

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Roy S. Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts: “Unjustifiable,” co-hosted with John Archibald. His column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Reach him at [email protected], follow him at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj