Despite Gov. John Bel Edwards’ pledge throughout his campaign to govern from the center and include everyone at the proverbial table, his first move out of the gate did little to inspire confidence from those on the conservative side of the spectrum, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel.
“The governor’s proposal for dealing with the state’s revenue crisis consists of some cuts—a 10% reduction to statutory dedications—and nearly 20 revenue-raising measures,” Riegel writes in her latest column.
Given the magnitude of the state’s budget shortfalls for this year and next—$750 million and nearly $2 billion, respectively—some sort of tax increases are coming, Riegel says.
“There is no choice,” she writes. “But Edwards made a serious misstep and lost much-needed goodwill from those on the other side of the aisle by first proposing ways to raise gobs more money before suggesting specific ways to curb spending.”
Cutting the state budget is never easy, Riegel acknowledges, and there have been a lot of reductions already to various departments and programs over the past few years.
“But to suggest state spending has been cut to the bone is an overstatement,” she writes.
Riegel says there are still plenty of places to cut and innovative ways to balance the budget that do not entail raising all the new taxes proposed last month.
“At least, that is the opinion of those far more knowledgeable on the subject than I,” she writes, pointing to a report the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana recently presented to the Edwards administration.
“PAR recommends the governor identify the key categories for filling the revenue shortfall and propose goals for reaching the fiscal targets for each one. PAR makes it look and sound easy, giving a simplified example of a fiscal framework that would close next year’s projected $1.9 billion budget gap,” Riegel writes. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it spreads the pain. More importantly, between the spending cuts and freed dedications, PAR’s fiscal framework identifies some $750 million that doesn’t come from new or higher taxes. That’s more than the administration has come up with so far.”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
