While Louisianans – and the rest of America – awaits the final results in the presidential race on Wednesday, Louisiana legislators will convene for a special session aimed at overhauling the state’s tax code and constitution. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Clancy DuBos breaks down the competing arguments heading into the 20-day convening and previews potential landmines that could derail it.
Change is scary. Tax exemptions and other tax breaks don’t happen by accident. Lawmakers and governors grant them at the request of powerful special interests, in the cause of political self-preservation, or both. (Gov. Jeff) Landry is asking a lot of lawmakers, who will be inundated with warnings, promises and predictions if they dare to defy the tyranny of Louisiana’s old fiscal habits.
The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Stephanie Riegel reports on the effort by property developers and preservationists to protect a tax credit for historic buildings, and the larger, looming battle over tax exemptions, deductions and credits.
Landry and his allies have argued that coupled with their other reforms, the end to those breaks will make the state more competitive, bring jobs and boost the economy. Now, as state lawmakers prepare to take up the plan in a special legislative session that begins Wednesday, a flood of interest groups have started to organize to preserve their incentives, including the odd-couple pairing of real estate developers and preservationists who have joined forced to oppose ending the historic tax credit program.
The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Tyler Bridges has a profile on state Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson, the Landry administration’s point-person on their tax overhaul effort.
Make your voice heard on Election Day
Millions of Americans will head to the polls on Tuesday. In Louisiana, voters will cast ballots for president, Congress, an amendment to the state constitution and local races. The past four years have been among the most politically divisive in modern U.S. history. A Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate editorial reminds us to cherish our right to vote by respecting the process and results:
Whatever the outcome, we urge all citizens and patriots to be patient and accept the results with equanimity. The ugly images of Jan. 6, 2021 should act as a warning —violence has no place in our politics. One of America’s great achievements is managing the peaceful transfer of power. We have seen countries around the globe descend into chaos after a disputed vote. So we should insist that all leaders respect the will of the people. The fact remains, whether you are Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, we are Americans.
What presidential tax plans would mean for you
Tax Day isn’t for another 160 days. But the next president will have a significant opportunity to reshape the federal tax code. The Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer Weil breaks down how Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s tax policies would affect parents, homebuyers and owners, seniors, businesses, the middle class and the rich.
Harris: Harris would raise the top marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent. (The Trump tax cuts reduced the top rate to 37 percent, set to expire at the end of 2025.) For the ultra-wealthy — people with a net worth above $100 million — Harris proposes a novel 25 percent tax on unrealized gains. … Trump: Trump has promised to extend all of the tax cuts for individuals in his 2017 law, reducing revenue by an estimated $3.9 trillion over 10 years. In addition, he has proposed eliminating a cap on state and local income tax deductions enacted in his first term; experts estimate that 92 percent of the value of that move would go to the top 10 percent of earners.
How presidential race would affect workers
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are hoping that millions of American workers will cast ballots for them on Tuesday. But as the Washington Post’s Lauren Kaori Gurley explains, the candidates’ labor policies are in stark contrast to each other.
A Trump victory would likely result in the reversal of numerous policies enacted over the past four years aimed at making it easier for workers to join unions, labor experts say. If elected, Trump is also expected to try to loosen workplace safety rules, limit access to benefits and rights for workers in the gig economy and other low-wage sectors, and drop a ban on noncompete agreements that prevented workers who left their jobs from jumping to competitors. Meanwhile, Harris would continue the Biden-era labor agenda, experts say, considered one of the most pro-union in modern history.
ProPublica’s Eli Hager analyzed Trump’s first-term budgets to explain what a second term could mean for working-class Americans:
We found that while Trump was in the White House, he advanced an agenda across his administration that was designed to cut health care, food and housing programs and labor protections for poor and working-class Americans. “Trump proposed significantly deeper cuts to programs for low- and modest-income people than any other president ever has, including Reagan, by far,” said Robert Greenstein, a longtime federal poverty policy expert who recently published a paper for the Brookings Institution on Trump’s first-term budgets.
Number of the Day
974,656 – Number of Louisianans who cast ballots during early voting for the Nov. 5 election, a state record. (Source: Louisiana Secretary of State)