The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and House Republicans have no budget plan except to screw over poor people in the special legislative session’s final hours.
Not that anyone is really surprised about this. Big business ponied up to the legislature to save its own barely-scratched skin. LABI, the big business lobby, would rather add another penny to the state’s sales tax than have its own industry share in the sacrifice.
Testifying before the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee Tuesday, Stephen Waguespack, who served in various leadership roles under then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, according to Louisiana Public Broadcasting, tried to argue sales taxes actually hurt businesses more than poor people.
Waguespack contended that “business and industry still bears 47 percent of burden of sales taxes,” according to the Monroe News-Star.
If the business lobby gets its way, Louisiana would have the highest combined state and local sales tax rate in the country, according to the Louisiana Budget Project. This high sales tax rate will disproportionately hurt poor people, who would pay a higher share of their income than wealthy people under any sales tax.
Louisiana faces its largest budget crisis in a generation, and LABI is hoping to skate by unnoticed. To them, sacrifice is only for poor people and college students.
House Republicans are letting them get away with it too. According to NOLA.com | The Times Picayune, a lobbyist said, “You’re underestimating the influence LABI has exerted during this session. Nothing happens, especially in the House, without their blessing.”
In 2013, a group of Republicans named themselves the
“Fiscal Hawks,” and allied themselves with House Democrats to stop the Jindal administration’s use of one-time money to patch budget gaps, according to The Lens, NOLA.
The news outlet said in return for aligning themselves with Fiscal Hawks, House Democrats “won more spending for teachers, schools and universities.”
One of the leaders of the Fiscal Hawks at the time was Cameron Henry, Republican Sen. David Vitter’s top pick for House speaker when he still had a shot of being governor, according to The Advocate. Now that Henry isn’t the Speaker of the House, he is free to troll Gov. John Bel Edwards at the expense of poor people and college students.
This time around the lines are clearly drawn: Monday, House Republicans refused to budge on raising the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which is the smallest in the nation according to the Louisiana Budget Project.
The EITC represents a boost for low-income families’ paychecks, making it “the single-most effective anti-poverty tool for children,” according to the Louisiana Budget Project. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, every dollar counts.
On the other hand, Republicans can’t give poor people a helping hand while their health care has been slashed these past seven years, but they are willing to defend the $7.9 billion in corporate tax exemptions the state doles out, according to NOLA.com | The Times Picayune.
If our state eliminated $900 million of the $7.9 billion in corporate tax exemptions our state gave away in 2015 according to a February 2016 Louisiana Legislative Auditor report, we would have solved our state budget without raising taxes at all. But corporate tax exemptions are sacred cows while poor people and college students are fair game.
The priorities of the two sides are clear. Louisiana Republicans and LABI are willing to hold the state hostage to keep their precious tax credits in tact while poor people live paycheck to paycheck.
With only today remaining in the special session, the state legislature needs to get its act together. Students and poor people suffered long enough under Jindal, and they’ll likely continue to struggle at the expense of the super rich.
The poor have given more than their fair share of sacrifice. Business must pay up too.
Michael Beyer is a 22-year-old political science senior from New Orleans, Louisiana.