Should the parents of children attending private or parochial schools get a tax break on tuition? Should the minimum required car insurance coverage be increased 250%? Should businesses be treated the same as individuals and not have to pay a sales tax on utilities?
If you answered yes to the above, you are in line with the Legislature, but neither opinion matters because the governor vetoed bills to do just that.
Sure, legislators could override the governor’s pen on any bill by a two-thirds vote if they call themselves into a veto session next month, but don’t count on it. Most lawmakers have seen enough of the State Capitol this year and not enough of the campaign trail. Some Republicans will push for the veto session but will likely have as much success as they did in blocking Democrats from spending all $32 billion available to them in the regular session.
That doesn’t mean those issues will go away. Instead, the gubernatorial vetoes cast them in high relief, making them perfect for candidates for governor to debate as campaign issues, once they get around to talking about issues. After all, most of the senators and representatives who passed the bills by large majorities will return to one chamber or the other. The only completely different piece will be the next governor. Would he do any differently than Blanco on these matters?
No state offers private school vouchers, and SB 45 by Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Grosse Tete, wouldn’t either. Instead, it would have granted a 50% income tax deduction on non-public school tuition, up to $5,000. The governor and teacher groups saw in the so-labeled “back-door vouchers” the first steps toward a greater undermining of public education, which, they argue, is not supported enough as it is.
By shifting modest but more widespread benefits to the upper and middle classes, the vetoed bill differed in approach from last year’s failed effort by the Archdiocese of New Orleans to allocate a limited number of $3,000 vouchers to low-income families seeking to get out of failing schools.
Still, both approaches raise the question: Should state government offer any financial support to families of private school students? There’s a gubernatorial forum question framed for asking.
Insurance was expected to be among the most controversial issues of the session, but not car insurance. Yet the Legislature approved one of the biggest changes in years by passing a bill by Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, to raise Louisiana’s lowest-in-the-nation minimum policies from $10,000 to $25,000 for vehicular damage and injury to one person, and from $20,000 to $50,000 for injuries to multiple persons.
Though signing the bill would increase protection, the governor was more concerned about increasing insurance rates, already fourth highest in the country, by 30% to 40%, on top of skyrocketing property insurance costs.
What will the next governor do should the same bill lands on his desk?
If, as economic developers say, Louisiana needs to be friendlier to business, should Blanco have vetoed the one bill that gave a tax break to every business in the state? HB 505 by Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, would have saved all firms $68 million, starting next year, by cutting 1% from the sales tax on utilities (the other 2.3% sales tax rolls off in 2009). Blanco reasoned that since the next governor will have to find a way to make up for the tax break, he should decide if he wants it. Not her, who doesn’t feel she owes anything to the business lobby after it tried to block her spending plans the past year.
Will the candidates for governor find it in their hearts and in their budgets to be business-friendlier? For all three questions on which this governor and this Legislature disagreed, those who would be governor could save the next Legislature some time and breath by saying where he stands now.
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