Sweatpants are giving way to shorts, mosquitoes are slowly coming back and crawfish is back on the menu. It’s springtime in Louisiana, and that means it’s time again for the regular session of the Louisiana Legislature.
Going into the session, much attention has been on the quiet tension between Gov. Jeff Landry, the populist firebrand, and Senate President Cameron Henry, more of a measured, fiscally-conscious type. The latter has steadily emerged as one of the few foils for a governor who has largely been otherwise able to impose his will upon his supermajority party.
This rare relationship between a legislative leader and governor from the same party was quickly seen when Henry flatly shut down any movement on Landry’s attempt to abolish the state income tax, though he didn’t rule out further reductions in the rate.
Henry also expressed significant reservations about proposed expansions to Landry’s LA GATOR program, which established savings accounts for parents that allowed state funds to be put toward private education.
I am genuinely grateful that there are still Cameron Henrys left within the Louisiana GOP. In an era of dominant demagogues, it is increasingly comforting to know that there are still sensible people with at least one hand on a lever of power.
However, this session is looking like it will ultimately, yet again, be much of the same: legislation that further harms the worst-off in the state whilst helping only a select few.
The aforementioned tax debate is the clearest example of this. Last year, Landry already secured a major personal victory through the passage of his tax reform, which replaced the previous bracket system with a flat 3% income tax and a 5.5% corporate tax.
This ultimately amounted to a tax increase on the poorest and a tax cut on the rich, along with further choking the public by increasing the already high sales tax.
Now, Landry wants to go even further, abolishing the income tax entirely, a move which will leave a gaping hole in the budget that will inevitably be filled by either further rocketing up the price at the cash register or astronomically raising property taxes like our western neighbors.
While Henry pushes back on that, he still has expressed interest in a smaller tax cut this year, which would still exacerbate budgetary issues facing the state.
Even with a smaller tax cut, with how much the state income tax provides for services, tax increases in other areas may not be enough to patch up the budget without cuts. As the state deficit balloons, it makes little sense to toss out effective revenue generation sources.
Well, it makes little sense if you actually care about delivering functional services to your people.
The debate over Landry’s flagship education policy, the LA GATOR program, is similarly a distraction from the fundamental fact that the Louisiana GOP is continuing to abandon public schools in favor of a program which mostly supports religious private schools.
The program is an expansion of the voucher program, started under former Gov. Bobby Jindal, which provides parents with a state savings account to pursue education outside of the public system. While designed to be a quick fix to Louisiana’s failing school system, often ranked amongst the worst in the nation, the program has largely failed to significantly improve educational outcomes for students.
Even when students aren’t being funneled into schools which may be worse than the public schools they are coming from, they are still forced to choose between failing schools or subjecting themselves to a religious education, as essentially all significant private secondary education is in Baton Rouge.
Advocates of this program hail it as giving choice back to parents. However, choice requires that multiple viable, distinct options be available. Under current Louisiana policy, public schools cannot logistically compete with many top private school options in resources. Instead of making them a viable option, Landry just wants to keep ballooning LA GATOR, funneling money and children into religious education under the guise of secular policy.
Yet, all debate on this has been centered on how much it will affect the deficit. Nobody within the GOP has proposed any action toward supporting the public school system, only desires to scale back LA GATOR because it’s “unsustainable financially.”
So it goes in the Legislature. Half populist sycophancy, half stuffy penny-pinching conservatives. While I hope that eventually a true fighter for policies that serve the worst-off in society emerges, that day seems far in the future.
Gordon Crawford is a 20-year-old political science major from Gonzales, La.
