Louisiana child care funds not targeted by feds

Louisiana will not be affected by a federal child care funding freeze the Trump administration announced last week. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Patrick Wall explains how crucial the federal dollars are to the Pelican State: 

Louisiana uses the federal money to support its Child Care Assistance Program, which helps low-income parents pay for child care while they work or attend school or job training. The program, which also gets $78 million in state funds, gave more than 28,000 children access to child care services last fiscal year, state officials said. More than 7,000 additional eligible children were on the program’s waitlist this fall. …  “If we don’t have early care and education, then parents can’t work,” [Rochelle Wilcox] said. “We are the workforce that powers the rest of the workforce.”

Megabill excludes poorest families from family tax credit expansions

The federal megabill will leave behind millions of working families this tax filing season, according to a new issue brief from Invest in Louisiana’s Paul Bruan. The new law includes nominal increases to the Child Tax Credit and other programs intended to defray the cost of raising children. But these increases exclude millions of children because their families don’t make enough money to qualify:

“The Child Tax Credit is one of the best policy tools we have for reducing child poverty and making sure kids have the resources they need to succeed,” Braun said. “Excluding the neediest families from this benefit was the wrong decision – one that Congress should correct.” 

Are “sin taxes” fair?

States charge “sin taxes” on tobacco, alcohol and gambling as a way to raise money and discourage certain behaviors. Governing’s Alan Ehrenhalt examines how effective and reliable these taxes are at generating consistent revenue: 

Illinois took in about $3.5 billion from its sin taxes in the last fiscal year. But the state’s total budget came to $55 billion. So sin taxes in Illinois are more than a drop in the bucket, but they aren’t going to bail the state out of its fiscal trouble. It’s also dangerous for a state to depend on sin tax money to finance the things it needs to do. Sin tax revenue is volatile and based on a narrow spectrum of activity, and relying on it too much can cause serious fiscal problems down the road.

Sin taxes also raise important questions of fairness: 

There’s no question that sin taxes are regressive taxes: They impose more hardship on working-class sinners than on the affluent. Rich New Yorkers can shell out $18 for a pack of cigarettes, if they can’t help themselves from doing that. But blue-collar workers who smoke must either devote a significant share of their incomes to tobacco or else give up smoking altogether. I realize that a decline in tobacco use is a healthy thing, but it is imposing a significant lifestyle penalty on the poor, while allowing others to escape it.

America’s steady decline in quality of life

The United States ranks 32 – out of 171 countries – in terms of quality of life, according to the most recent edition of the Social Progress Index. The country now ranks lower on all 12 of the index’s measurements than it did in 2011. The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof explains how America lost its way: 

“The U.S. won the Cold War by being an economic superpower and a social progress superpower,” Green added. “Over the last 30 years, America has simply let go, in terms of social progress.” … The United States does a fine job generating economic growth, but it lags at translating that G.D.P. growth into the things we most care about.

And how the country can get back on track:

Part of the answer may be investments in human capital — in children, education and lifting skill levels. That’s everything from early childhood initiatives to vocational training, from drug treatment to community colleges. Our relentless decline in our international standing should be an alarm bell in the night. We are not the nation we think we are, and we should shake off this complacency unless we’re comfortable with our patriotic boast becoming, “We’re No. 32!”

Number of the Day

50.7% – Percentage of inbound migration into Louisiana in 2025, which ranked 29th nationally. (Source: United Van Lines)