Don’t
let the rhetoric of the House Republicans in Baton Rouge dominating the
headlines of the news media fool you. While House members loudly advocate
they are protecting the residents of this state from more taxes, their real
agenda behind the scenes in the latest special session is to yet again protect
the businesses represented by the LABI, petroleum, gas and chemical lobbyists
from any changes in the corporate tax codes.
State lawmakers over the years at the request of the LABI
and other lobbyists have been overly generous in increasing business tax
subsidies under the banner of attracting new businesses to Louisiana. Over time
a tax break here and a tax break there have accumulated and increased the
burden on the state budget. Examination of the tax breaks for six major
programs alone indicated an increase from $207 million in 2004 to over $1.08
billion by 2014.
According to the Department of Revenue, through March of
this year the state has paid out $152 million more to corporations than it had
collected in corporate income and franchise taxes. State officials have projected that corporate
tax collections will reach $359 million through June 30. That would require a
$511 million turnaround over the next three months. Obviously, this seems
unlikely to occur.
While no one is claiming that large numbers of
corporations are violating the law to avoid paying taxes, what has happened is
these tax codes are significantly negatively impacting our state budget, and
our legislators have refused to even cursory review the tax codes. They
are simply taboo.
However, I can’t fault Stephen Waguespack, president of
the LABI for his behind the scenes high-jacking of this latest special session,
for he is just doing his job. Obviously the threats of ‘toe the line’ or else
risk a possible LABI supported anti-re-election campaign is just too much for
our esteemed House legislators to stomach. They haven’t the spine for
it.
If you’re tempted to congratulate your representatives on
the fine job they’ve done protecting you from new taxes, while reducing funding
for state services, please understand that this budget mess could be solved
with a fiscally responsible restructuring of the state corporate tax system coupled
with a reduction in the sales tax. That is, if our Baton Rouge folks
could break free from their indentured servant mentality to their lobbyist
masters.
I say we give kudos to the LABI, oil, chemical and gas
lobbyists in strong-arming yet again the House of Representatives in the Baton
Rouge special session about to conclude with no fiscal solution in sight.
However the sad truth is, those elected to protect the citizens
of this state have chosen yet again the easier path, total capitulation.
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