Couple wanted for March armed robbery now in custody
June 28, 2018
HITTING THE BOOKS!
June 29, 2018
As a resident of Louisiana, I have come to love and cherish the state’s flag, as well as its seal, unique in all the nation for what it depicts.
A mother pelican is on a nest. She has torn flesh from her breast to feed the three chicks gathered beneath her. It is this understanding of the need to care for the most vulnerable in our state that rings and resonates throughout our history as a people.
A .45 percent sales tax — a vestige of a former temporary sales tax boost — will remain in place for seven years. As a result both higher education and health care will escape a worst-case scenario. Students will still be able to get assistance with their tuitions. This may not bring us to a better place in teams of human services delivery, and that will reflect in years to come as we founder along with Mississippi for last place in health and and wellness indicators throughout the nation.
The .45 percent renewal sets the states sales tax rate at 4.45 percent on July 1. Edwards wanted the legislature to find an additional $100 million but that was no to be Nonetheless he praised lawmakers for having “courage to compromiser.”
Among those who showed courage this legislative session was a son of the bayou, Sen. Norby Chabert who helped foster reasonable discussion on the matter through all three special sessions of the legislature.
He has noted — on the floor and in conversations — that Louisiana is not a den of financial irresponsibility or iniquity as regards shielding taxpayers from government’s fingers.
On the one hand, Terrebonne and Lafourche have the highest sales taxes in Louisiana. This is in part because when our people decide something needs to be done, they vote often to go ahead and do it. This was the case when voters heroically voted to tax themsalves for hurricane protection rather than wait on the actions of a hobbled federal government.
The pain of the sales tax is offset, in some ways, by the statewide tax structure. Louisiana and Alaska tied for first place in the earliness of Tax Freedom Day. That’s the day on which all working no longer relate to the payment of taxes, so far as the state is concerned, letting the rest of the money taxpayers earn be held by them.
The way Chabert sees it, the repeal, or more accurately, quasi-repeal, of the so-called Stelly Plan is what has affected Louisiana’s numbers in the biggest way. It will be up to future legislatures to fix all of this, but in his view the compromise is a start.
The Stelly Plan, approved by voters, mandated that the state sales taxes on food for home consumption, and sales tax on natural gas, electricity and water be lowered and then eliminated. The plan was unhinged n 2009 amid complaints from residents that they were being taxed too high.
“This left us with a fundamental hole of a half-billion and 700 million every year,” Chabert said. “Through 2015, 16 and 17 the range of oil had dropped. At $28 per barrel nobody is spending any money.”
Income taxes dropped as well as sales taxes as people became unemployed.
“So we had to raise the sales tax,” Chabert explained. “But we are still tied for the lowest total state federal and local tax burden in the country.”
There is a huge spending responsibility due to Medicaid, and that’s without counting expansion.
The state budget without Medicaid, Chabert notes, is considerably low.
We strive to do our best, and this past week the ability of the state’s legislature to produce a budget which also met the expectations of the governor shows that to some degree we are still being true to the lesson of the pelican. That the right thing was done in the end should be cause far pride rather than continued bickering, Making the right choice means we were true to the pelican. And that is a choice that cannot be faulted in the long run.
‘Both education care will escape a worst-case scenario.’
