Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely. This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).
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29.3.17
Except on roads, spending cuts wanted over tax hikes
The Louisiana public gives a green light to
somewhat higher gasoline taxes but appears skeptical of tax increases as a
general policy, according to a survey
that also indicates the people’s preference to cut state spending before
raising taxes in general.
Yesterday,
the Louisiana State University Public Policy Lab released the first installment
of its annual survey. Just over 1,000 respondents produced a margin of error of
a little over three percent, although the low response rate (which tends
to induce bias in measuring a select set of behaviors) and extended period
(a month long) over which it collected data presents a little caution
concerning whether the results capture accurately attitudes on the eve of the
2017 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature.
One thing clearly comes through from the rich
array of data presented: their reaffirmation of the tendency of Louisianans to
identify by perceived in-groups and out-groups and citizens’ willingness to
cast blame or foist solutions on out-group members. This resonates as a legacy
of the state’s populist political culture, which encourages a Manichean
worldview that see politics as a zero-sum game: policy must favor your group at
the expense of others alleged to get the better of you in order to even things
out, leading to countenance of government-led redistribution.
Thus, typical respondents, no matter how low their
income except in the case of the very highest earners, saw those not much above
their income levels as the “wealthier” whom they further maintained did not pay
their “fair share” in taxes. In another instance, participants were much more
likely to maintain that “corporations” did not pay enough than they did in the
case of “business.” They also exhibited healthy skepticism of the performance
of governing elites in general, where almost two-fifths felt more efficient government
attainable to the tune of at least 10 percent savings, reflecting the Gallic
tension of hostility towards how government runs the state yet their embrace of
it as a tool to bring their group benefits.
In more specific policy terms, the distrust of
government also comes through. In asking about six issue areas, majorities for
four – higher education, elementary and secondary education, health care, and
transportation – thought spending should increase and even would back higher
taxes for these. Spending for prisons and social welfare functions found lower
support with majorities preferring no greater spending, if not less, and no
more taxation for these.
But when asked generally about raising taxes as
opposed to reducing spending across government, about three-fifths preferred to
shrink government, not spend and tax more. Therefore, this leaves a governance
issue: how to target tax increases to boost spending in the preferred areas yet
manage reductions elsewhere.
In turn, this creates a largely insoluble problem,
for the nature of taxation makes it difficult to link relatively volatile
sources of it to specific functional areas. Sales and income taxes can
fluctuate quite a bit, so any linkage would have policy driven by the amounts
collected for the different categories, not by any assessment of genuine needs
rank ordered. One of the two relatively stable revenue sources, property taxes,
Louisiana policy-makers realistically also cannot use for this purpose given
its low level authorized
in the Constitution.
But the other, excise taxes, can work, in the case
of the gasoline tax and roads. The survey further amplified this in asking
about acceptance levels for various scenarios, concluding that majorities
supported up to a 20 cent per gallon increase, with bipartisan agreement up to
15 cents. This provides the poll’s only measured public support of an issue
which unambiguously asks for more spending and a dedicated tax increase
attached to it, data upon which policy-makers may seize to advance just that
next month.
The results also point to another potential policy
alteration. It turns out that the public likes least the current funding
strategy for the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, giving out partial
awards across the board when not funded fully. The people rather would see
qualifications hiked or a means test applied to award full amounts to fewer
recipients. Yet this seems less likely to gain traction than raising the gasoline
tax, as lawmakers adopted the strategy of giving everybody a haircut out of
fear to exclude some might cost them votes come reelection time, and that
sentiment among them unlikely has changed.
In the final analysis, out of this upcoming
session the public may acquiesce to increased spending on roads through higher
gas taxes, but prefers to see spending generally reduced otherwise, believing
in fact that a significant portion can come through efficiency gains. In particular,
these attitudes moot much of the agenda of Gov. John Bel Edwards and
give comfort to the one item, ironically, he
has resisted from personally backing.
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