In a report released this week, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities casts a critical eye on the Bayou State’s continuing fiscal policy of levying income taxes on poor and working-poor families, concluding the policy “runs counter to decades of efforts by policymakers across the political spectrum to help families work their way out of poverty.”
The federal government and a majority of U.S. states have eliminated income taxes on the poorest families.
Among the findings in the report:
Louisiana was one of 11 states in which a single-parent family of three living at the poverty line still owed state income taxes. The poverty line for a family of three in 2010 was $17,374.
Louisiana was also one of 15 states in which a two-parent family of four living at the poverty line still owed income taxes. The poverty line for a family of four in 2010 was $22,314.
Louisiana is among 22 states where a family of three living just above the poverty line (125 percent of poverty, or $21,718 per year) pays income taxes, and one of 23 states that tax families of four earning 125 percent of the poverty line ($27,893).
Read the full report here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Making "rich" people pay income tax while exempting "poor" people from the same taxing system does not treat people equally and fairly. It is also the essence of class warfare.
Many years ago, the La State Supreme Court ruled that non-property owners were entitled to vote on property taxes. If I didn't own property, of course I would be likely to vote for more property taxes. (And more bread, and more circuses)
Same with income taxes. Best to just get rid of income taxes, and figure out another way to confiscate peoples monies and waste it.