In days gone by, the
Democrat-turned-Republican often fronted efforts to expand government spending
with commensurate tax increases as part of that. Whether for convenience sake
and/or genuine ideological change, as Louisiana began electing legislators more
compatible with their own worldviews and that worldview itself began to deemphasize
populism, Alario became more conservative/reformist in his voting habits (in
this term, his Louisiana Legislature Log
voting score has crept up over 60, right about at the GOP Senate average).
And now he is throwing
cold water onto House efforts, backed by some of its majority Republicans
and party leadership, to raise
taxes, most of these for at least a few years, as a budgetary solution by
expressing a preference that the Senate will seek temporary means by which to
balance the budget – implying suspensions of existing tax breaks would comprise
the bulk of any revenue enhancements. As Alario’s greatest skill is herding
lawmakers in a particular direction, chances are good it is this way at this
time the Senate will head and thereby pressure the House to do the same.
For that reason, whether the end
result comes because of personal conviction on his part is questionable. But
that end result, which likely would take the form of permanent tax changes only
in areas where the activity being taxed directly affects a certain government
expenditure – such as on cigarettes related to Medicaid expenditures – or where
taxing activities do not seem to encourage cost-effective economic growth –
such as tax credits for solar installations or movie-making – would prevent
longer-term tax increases divorced from the context of government spending.
Besides utilizing his own personal charms
on his colleagues, Alario’s option also has other supports. Gov. Bobby
Jindal continues to threaten vetoes of tax increases, with few of the
non-temporary measures drawing the necessary majorities in the House for
overrides. While the Legislature
could try to play chicken with the governor, with the ultimate threat of
him having to deal with the fallout of an unbalanced budget, if one chamber
shows significantly less enthusiasm for a staring contest, Jindal will prevail
where otherwise he might not.
Yet perhaps even stronger impetus
for Alario’s course of action comes from the fact that all of the House’s
actions on the non-temporary tax increases required that same two-thirds vote that
most did not achieve, in fairly obvious violation of the Constitution. Already,
the prominent and deep-pocketed Louisiana
Association for Business and Industry has made noises about that with an implicit
threat to sue the Legislature if those bills became law utilizing the
current votes. It was joined in this opinion by Treasurer John
Kennedy. Suffice to say, a number of incumbents running for reelection would
rather avoid a scenario not only where LABI advertises to the electorate that they
voted for tax increases, but also that there exists an open court case out
there maintaining they foisted these on the public illegally. And undoubtedly
other interest groups as well would join in the lambasting, which would not do
anybody’s reelection chances any good.
So the question becomes whether
House members want to hang themselves out to dry with repeated votes for tax
hikes – for original legislation and veto overrides – that may not succeed
constitutionally both in process and in substance. Better than take that risk,
they may wish to proceed on keeping only the permanent measures mentioned above,
which appear to enjoy decent to wide public support and can get two-thirds
margins among legislators as a result, load up on temporary hikes, that as
resolutions only need simple majorities to pass and cut out the governor’s
involvement, and, hopefully, also consider strategies to enhance
revenues that put more of the burden on the users of services.
Smaller government may be a result
of this, but so much is occurring in the breach at the moment that, just as
with the House’s revenue-raising frenzy that displayed little coordination and
much irrationality, cutting spending also could come off more as butchery than
surgical with little heed to prioritization and genuine need assessment.
Therefore, it seems more effort would come in jacking up revenues than by
curtailing spending, but, as Alario suggests, with next year a fresh governor
and set of legislators, with gubernatorial candidates all pledging to follow
history and declare a special session, on this occasion especially dedicated to
fiscal affairs, immediately after inauguration, that may be a better time to
institute changes (even though a plan
to do it now is out there in the public domain).
That’s a lot better deal for
conservatives seeking right-sized government than in swallowing a half-baked
tax increase, which at this point would be the largest in the state’s history. Hopefully,
enough of that impulse exists in the Legislature to make this choice instead of
it continuing on the House’s current trajectory. Thereby making the somewhat-embattled Alario a new best friend of theirs, although perhaps not for life.
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