Aug. 18--Step inside any shoe place, department store or big box retailer and you see plenty of new merchandise and a fair number of customers hunting for back-to-school bargains.

They're browsing, not buying.

This is Connecticut's sales tax amnesty week, meaning shoppers can buy clothes and footwear priced up to $300 without paying a dime of the state's 6 percent sales tax. That's $6 in your pocket for every $100 spent. So why aren't shoppers buying?

The National Retail Federation likes the idea of tax amnesty because once a customer makes a tax-free purchase, "that often encourages additional sales," says Kathy Grannis, a spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation. "Those customers often invest in other merchandise, which is taxed." The average family is expected to spend $548.72 on back-to-school clothes and supplies, according to the NRF, which is a 7.7 percent drop from last year.

If you believe the state Office of Fiscal Analysis' review of lost tax revenue for this seven-day shoppapalooza from 2004, which is the last time it looked at this subject, Connecticut is projected to forgo $3.3 million. That's on top of the $386 million drop in sales tax collections, due to a decline in consumer spending. That's a lot of money to give up, especially in this economy.

In the big scheme of things, the state's kitty needs this moola more than we individual taxpayers do. Connecticut is one of only two states (the other being Pennsylvania) that still

lack a budget. Connecticut state lawmakers who wanted to bag the weeklong sales tax holiday were right. We should deep-six it. Perhaps, we should all send the state Department of Revenue Services a check for the sales tax we feel guilty about saving for deposit in the general fund. Yeah, right. As if that's going to happen. Obviously, this may not win them popularity points, but when our state lawmakers get back in session, they should KO sales tax amnesty weeks altogether. Our state can't afford them. Sales tax holidays first came into vogue more than a dozen years ago in New York, when the Empire state was flush with surpluses. It's a different story now. Budget shortfalls have opened in 48 states for fiscal 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which projects the gap between state revenues and spending has swelled to $165 billion, about 24 percent of their collective budgets.

Meanwhile, 20 states and the District of Columbia have sales tax holidays. But with fiscal spending being so tight this year, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois and the District of Columbia canceled theirs outright for this summer. That was smart.