Opponents were quick to criticize Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposal to eliminate Louisiana’s personal and corporate income tax and replace the roughly $3 billion in lost revenue by hiking the state’s sales tax.
State Rep. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat from Amite who recently announced his intention to run for governor in 2015, pounced on the plan, calling it “the largest middle class tax increase in state history.”
More from Edwards:
While the Governor’s office was light on details, the only clear thing about Governor Jindal’s proposal is that it will raise taxes on most Louisiana families, Louisiana workers, and Louisiana small businesses in order to give tax breaks to out of state corporations and the wealthy. Louisiana retailers will be especially hurt.
When something smells this bad from the start, it should be rejected outright. The plan is so bad the Governor’s office has had to resort to expanding the welfare state in an effort to make it work.
The Louisiana Budget Project is also throwing water on the plan. The Baton Rouge nonprofit analyzes tax and budget policy and their effect on low-income families. LBP Director Jan Moller issued the following statement soon after details of Jindal’s plan were made public:
Eliminating Louisiana’s income tax and raising the sales tax would jeopardize our state’s economy while raising taxes on the middle-class and low-income families. The plan just shifts who pays taxes, and a tax shift is not tax reform.
The governor’s proposal won’t help small businesses create new jobs in Louisiana, but it will make it harder for Louisiana to invest in things that boost the economy and attract businesses, such as good schools and universities that provide a skilled workforce.
And, it will only make worse the state’s chronic revenue problems, which have resulted in five straight years of mid-year budget cuts.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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