Gov. Jeff Landry is ramping up efforts to sell his tax overhaul proposal to legislators and the public ahead of a planned special session in November. The governor’s plan calls for renewing expiring sales taxes and expanding the sales tax base, in exchange for steep cuts to income taxes for corporations and individuals, and the elimination of the corporate franchise tax. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Tyler Bridges reports that legislators are receptive to the governor’s sales pitch, but are demanding more details:
“I admire him for putting his head down and trying to run through this wall,” [Senate President Cameron] Henry said. “But members still have significant questions about the policy decisions he wants to make. He has a lot of work to do in October to get information to members.” … “One thing that has changed significantly since January is that the governor has taken tough questions from members not as an affront to him and his plan but as a way to get things better,” Henry said. “He’s really shifted his meetings to more of a listening tour than a telling tour.”
Former Senate President John Alario, a veteran of many tax debates during his 48 years in the Legislature, told Bridges that eliminating tax breaks and exemptions is often easier said than done.
Business interests hire lobbyists to protect their tax breaks, Alario noted, and “the ones who holler the most get the grease.”
The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Stephanie Grace explains how Landry’s plan could create future budget shortfalls.
There’s a theory that this new tax structure — along with the other proposed changes — would create so much growth that state’s ability the pay for essential needs wouldn’t be affected. But it could also result in less revenue overall. Making the temporary sales tax permanent would actually go a long way toward stabilizing the budget picture. The danger ahead, though, is that the state could wind up replacing one fiscal hazard with another.
Trump would add twice as much to national debt as Harris
Both major candidates for president are offering economic plans that would add considerably to America’s ballooning national debt. But former President Donald Trump’s proposals are twice as costly as those offered by Vice President Kamala Harris, according to new research from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The nonpartisan group estimates that Trump’s policies would add $7.5 trillion of debt, while Harris’ would add $3 trillion. The Washington Post’s Jacob Bogage reports:
Trump has called for extending his 2017 tax cuts, which would add more than $5 trillion over 10 years to the United States’ $35.7 trillion national debt, according to a study from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). His plan to end taxes on overtime wages, Social Security benefits and tips would add another $3.6 trillion in debt. And his call for a nationwide campaign to detain and deport undocumented immigrants would cost $350 billion. Trump says major new tariffs on imports would bring in enough revenue to offset all the tax cuts, but the study doesn’t support that claim, and many economists say the tariffs would also drive prices up for U.S. consumers.
A distributional analysis of Trump’s tax proposals by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show which income groups would see tax cuts and increases:
Taken together, these proposals would, on average, lead to a tax cut for the richest 5 percent of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups. If these proposals were in effect in 2026, the richest 1 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $36,300 and the next richest 4 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $7,200. All other groups would see a tax increase with the hike on the middle 20 percent at about $1,500 and the increase on the lowest-income 20 percent of Americans at about $800.
Concentrating pollution in Black communities
Last year, residents of St. James Parish sued their parish government over claims that officials intentionally concentrated polluting industrial facilities in Black neighborhoods while safeguarding white areas. The lawsuit, which is led by environmental justice and community groups, was dismissed for procedural reasons. The Lens’ Delaney Dryfoos reports that parish residents will be back in federal court on Monday seeking a reversal of last year’s ruling:
To illustrate that point, the lawsuit includes a timeline that traces heavy industry’s movement into St. James Parish back to 1958, before the parish had zoning or land use rules. Many of the early facilities were built within one mile of Mount Triumph Baptist Church, a historically Black community in the 5th District. That pattern became law in the 2014 Land Use Plan, which created buffer zones around plantations and majority-white Catholic churches, but not around the majority-Black Baptist churches. This also is discriminatory, the lawsuit contends, as is the parish’s ongoing practice of approving heavy industry upon the cemeteries of enslaved people – ancestors of plaintiffs in the case.
Reality check: A 2022 study from the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic found that majority-Black communities in Louisiana are exposed to far greater amounts of harmful pollution than their white counterparts.
Another dismal health ranking for Louisiana
Louisiana is the second-most unhealthy state in the nation, according to a new study by Wagner Reese. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Margaret Delaney reports:
The data looked at state rankings for air quality, diabetes rates, adult smoking rates, food insecurity rates and obesity rates. Louisiana was calculated as the second-most unhealthy state, followed by Mississippi. Louisiana ranked 46th in air quality, 47th in diabetes rates, 43rd in adult smoking rates, 48th in food insecurity rates and 47th in obesity rates, according to the study.
Number of the Day
41% – Percentage share of the cost of extending all of the expiring provisions of the 2017 Trump tax law that would go to people making over roughly $400,000 per year. (Source: Tax Policy Center via the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)