Louisiana’s GOP legislators as a whole continue
to bend towards the breaking point in their special session called to retain
oversized government.
Having a week ago defeated
by the narrowest of margins a measure to remove deductibility of a good
chunk of federal excess itemized deductions from state income taxes, the same House Ways and
Means Committee forwarded by the narrowest margin a somewhat-similar bill
yesterday. These differ in that the newest version, HB 38 by
state Rep. Malinda
White, after changes specifies full coverage of mortgage interest and charitable
deductions, makes the lack of deductibility last only 24 months, and
potentially could revere the increase if enough revenue in the $125 million
range each year came from other sources and thereby would allow those filers otherwise
limited by the bill to carry forward and claim the entire deduction at least
two tax years down the road.
Both Chairman Democrat Neil Abramson
and Vice Chairman Republican Jim Morris
switched votes from the previous occasion, having formulated the compromise
version from the original that began basically identical with the predecessor
measure. GOP State Rep. Julie Stokes,
always on the hunt to grow government as a price for her conception of tax
simplification, switched from an affirmative vote on last week’s efforts
because of the temporary nature of the tax.
Stuck pigs squeal. And often, when you have one as
thin-skinned as Louisiana’s Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.
One might think that having spent his collegiate
years at West Point and then several more as a commissioned Army officer would
toughen you up. Then again, persons who lack self-introspection in military
service can become too comfortable with barking out orders met by absolute
obedience, so if others question and even criticize your dictates, arrogant
lashing out at them occurs.
Edwards’ tendencies on this account compound
because he knows a majority of Louisiana’s center-right electorate disagrees
with him on a majority of issues, so his visceral reactions to criticism of his
policy serve as attempts to deflect from the complaints’ merits that hit home. No
critique from elected officials escapes him and he will respond with disdain
and vitriol.
If that’s the best Louisiana Senate leaders and
Gov. John Bel Edwards
can do, then clearly the Louisiana House of Representatives leadership is
winning the battle of wills over the size of government, irrespective of the
hypocrisy involved.
Yesterday, Senate
leaders had a hissy fit over the House’s reluctance to pass through
anything but small tax increases needed to fuel Edwards’ desired size of
Louisiana government, that the governor claims requires $450 million more in
hikes. With Edwards already having grabbed as hostages the sick and college
students, by saying previously he would close the shortfall by shuttering
hospitals and slashing tuition reimbursements rather than make small cuts to
many much lower priority functions, Senate Revenue and
Fiscal Affairs Committee chairman state Sen. JP Morrell corralled some Girl Scouts, scholastic
sports boosters, and many more by announcing he would not move on HB 51 by
state Rep. Jim
Morris to remove sales tax on items sold by them until the House coughed up
more bills increasing more taxes. In the waning moments of the first special
session of the year, Act 25,
alleged inadvertently by many legislators, taxed these items and many others
that now Morris’ bill seeks to undo.
Of course Morrell, undoubtedly with the blessing
of Edwards and Sen. Pres. John Alario,
in doing so employs the same sitzkrieg
strategy as did state Rep. Neil Abramson,
chairman of the House
Ways and Means Committee, concerning the state’s capital outlay bill at the
conclusion of the regular session – a move roundly
criticized by the likes of Edwards, Alario, and Morrell. The irony and
hypocrisy of Morrell’s move at present seems to escape him.
Well, that didn’t last long – capital budgeting reform
from Gov. John Bel
Edwards or legislative independence on that issue. More interesting is why
and the consequences.
After a semi-comical
interlude that found a delayed capital outlay budget head towards approval,
the resolution of that dispute demonstrates nothing has changed in a process
that over-promises and under-delivers. The resulting product for next fiscal
year still shares with all of its predecessors oversubscription of projects
that surrenders power to the governor.
Typically, legislators lard up this budget with
much more spending than the state’s debt capacity will allow. This they do to
create the impression to constituents back home that they bring home sufficient
amounts of bacon. Even if they know possibly a decade will pass before it
receives any money – and may never as the list changes annually or
circumstances may moot the need – having a project out there with an attached
dollar figure becomes a prop to wave in front of voters come election day.
Yesterday Louisianans dodged a potential tax increase, despite the attempt of an overeager Republican lawmaker to put a fig
leaf of respectability on it, but remain in the woods on the issue.
HB 11 by
state Rep. Rob
Shadoin, a backer
of Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards in last year’s elections, with this bill carried Edwards’
desire to raise revenue by limiting deductibility on individual state income
taxes federal income tax deductions in excess of the standard. When fully
ramped up in future years, this would separate from individual taxpayers an
extra more than $132 million annually.
This garnered skepticism from Republicans on the House Ways and
Means Committee who, if not wanting to see anybody’s taxes go up after
about $2 billion worth of hikes over the past 12 months, at least wanted
revenue neutrality as part of larger tax simplification. This means that in the
near term any tax code adjustments would not change revenue flows coming into
state government, although the simpler code over a few years would create greater
incentives for economic development that would bring higher revenues stemming
from the economic growth it triggered than without the change.
Monday the Louisiana Legislature closed out
another regular session, amid a sanctimonious attempt by the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
Administration to resist
using tens of millions of dollars in available funding for spending it
claims has high priority in favor of future efforts during the just-commenced
special session to raise taxes.
After careful reading of the Constitution and
statute, and with the concurrence of Republican state Treasurer John
Kennedy who in the past came to the same conclusion independently, Republican
House Speaker Taylor
Barras will wish to have included in the budget, and forwarded a resolution
to Kennedy to confirm, that the amount will flow into the Bond Security and
Redemption Fund from dedicated sources, freeing a like amount for use in
operating expenses. Most non-self-generated revenue sources in the state must
flow into the BSRF, a device to collect funds prior to their distributions to
their assigned accounts, to ensure that sufficient capital exists for debt
payments.
In essence, at the end of the regular session the
House identified $74 million in spending attached to relatively lower-priority
functions of state government and instead of passing it through the BSRF to its
designed destinations would shunt it to debt service. That would add that
amount of available cash otherwise allocated for repaying debt to the general
fund for spending elsewhere.
Perhaps more than the expected dosages of hypocrisy
and schoolmarm sanctimony present in Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ address
to the 2016 Second Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature, a hint
of desperation stood out. As it should, for no doubt Edwards feels the
situation slipping away from him after the results of the just-concluded
regular session.
As has become typical in his communications
regarding policy, Edwards in these commits the follies of which he accuses his
political opponents or alleges he avoids. He claimed his budget, emerging
largely intact from the regular session process, represented a breath of honest
air into a process he accused in the past of being otherwise, even as he argued
it cut “critical services” and thereby demanded this addendum session to gather
more revenues through tax increases.
Yet a nontrivial chunk of the budget, relative to
its single largest expenditure, Medicaid, he built upon questionable numbers derived from unsustainable assumptions through calculations kept from the public. And who in their right mind can call paying the tuition for
below-average students to attend college, the most
generous such program in the country so watered down that it acts as an
entitlement rather than a driver of excellence, a “critical service?” There’s
nothing honest about a budget built upon these, among other, mischaracterizations.
Although still five months out from the election,
state Treasurer John Kennedy’s
position relative to capturing the U.S. Senate continues to improve at his
opponents’ expense.
While a Southern Media Opinion and Research poll in late May
used a sample on the small side, Republican Kennedy’s lead over his opponents
made the larger margin of error resulting from that essentially irrelevant;
with 32 percent of the intended vote, he led the next highest receiver Republican
Rep. Charles Boustany by 22
points, followed by Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell at 9 percent,
Republican Rep. John Fleming with 5
percent, Republican former Senate candidate retiree Rob Maness at 4 percent, Democrat former
lieutenant governor candidate trial lawyer Caroline Fayard with 4 percent, no
party former legislator Troy Hebert at 2 percent, and Public Service
Commissioner Eric Skrmetta (who technically has not announced running but did
form an exploratory committee) with 1 percent. 32 percent of voters voiced no
opinion, and apparently declared candidate and former Republican Rep. Joseph Cao did not figure in the
questions.
That undecided total disproportionately seemed a
function of more liberal voters dithering over Campbell and Fayard. 42 percent
of Democrats expressed indecisions, as did 52 percent of blacks. By contrast,
GOP identifiers and whites had undecided rates at half these.
