Estimates of Louisiana’s latest budget surplus grew to $500 million on Friday, news that adds further fuel to an ongoing debate among candidates for governor over the state’s financial stability and tax rates.Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, previously said he expected the leftover cash from the budget year that ended June 30 to top $300 million. With the state’s financial books finally closed Thursday night, Edwards’ chief budget adviser, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, told state lawmakers the surplus would reach around $500 million instead.
“This is very good news for the state, and it’s going to create an opportunity to invest further in some of the dramatic needs that we have in our infrastructure system,” Dardenne told the joint House and Senate budget committee.
The news falls in the final weeks of a hotly contested governor’s race, where Edwards’ Republican challengers on the Oct. 12 ballot—U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham and businessman Eddie Rispone—are criticizing the Democratic governor for supporting tax hikes.
Lawmakers disagreed about whether the half-billion-dollar surplus was the sign of a strong economy, the result of President Donald Trump’s tax changes or an indication that Louisiana residents are paying too much in taxes.
The surplus comes from higher-than-expected personal income and corporate tax collections, Dardenne said, not from the temporary sales tax that lawmakers and Edwards enacted last year. Dardenne and Democratic lawmakers suggested an improving Louisiana economy helped drive those larger tax collections.
Several Republican legislators resisted that idea, saying they didn’t see a booming economy in their districts. They credited the federal tax code rewrite enacted by Congress and signed by Trump for the increased tax collections. Dardenne agreed that the federal tax changes were at least a partial driver of the surplus. Read the full analysis from the Associated Press.Â
