TOPS has been spared. Prisoners will remain in jail. People on food stamps will continue to eat. LSU football will go on.
Baton Rouge … we have a state budget, writes Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball in his newest column.
“The dark clouds created by the fiscal shenanigans of former Gov. Bobby Jindal have lifted, declared House Democratic Caucus Chairman Robert Johnson after lawmakers mercifully reached a sales tax compromise that provides the actual dollars necessary to fund a previously approved budget,” Ball writes.
The columnist also wonders how many Ruth’s Chris steaks gave their lives during a bloody conflict that played out over two years-plus, seven special sessions, three regular legislative sessions and countless clandestine backroom sessions.
“What we do know in this political conflict between the blue and the red is that Democrats and Republicans took a break from pontificating and posturing for the next election long enough to find some measure of budgetary peace by taxing us to the tune of $463 million.”
The joy of this armistice, we’re told, is that the budget-saving renewal of a portion of an expiring temporary sales tax will last for seven years, until 2025.
Conveniently, he adds, the seven-year life of yet another temporary sales tax means Edwards, even if he’s elected to a second term in 2019, won’t have to fight this particular battle again.
“Still, it’s an interesting concession given the number one goal of most state Republican officials is to get the Democratic Edwards out of the governor’s mansion by early 2020,”
Ball says the latest temporary, budget-saving sales tax expires just about the time Republicans could have an even tighter stranglehold on the state after the next round of redistricting following the 2020 census.
“Also, let’s not forget this budget is balanced on the back of President Donald J. Trump’s federal tax plan, which not only gives the richest among us a huuuuge tax cut but also has the unintentional consequence of generating an extra $300 million in annual revenue for Louisiana’s treasury.”
But it’s not over, he says, because in the end, the genesis of this fight—the need for long-term tax and budget reform—remains unresolved.
Read the full column. Send comments to editor@businessreport.com.
