The House didn’t go for a complete makeover of Louisiana’s tax base Thursday. Instead they just trimmed off some split ends.
“We’ve got a lot of tough votes ahead of us. We’ve got a lot of difficult votes ahead of us. It’s going to be an interesting day,” Speaker Chuck Kleckley said, in his pep talk before the full House began grappling with bills for raising state revenues Thursday.
He urged members to leave partisan politics behind.
“It’s my hope that we check our parties at the door.”
Ways and Means chairman Joel Robideaux urged members to tune out special interests, who were pushing their own agenda despite the bigger budget crisis.
“The business community said, ‘These instruments on the floor today are real bullets,’ suggesting, of course, that passage of these instruments would kill business,” Robideaux warned. “Well, I’m here to say, higher ed is asking for a stay of execution.”
Testing the temper of the body, the first bills voted on dealt with tax changes that won’t impact state revenues for a year or more. Appropriations chairman Jim Fannin applauded a bill that would limits tax breaks for fracking wells, for example.
“This is part of structurally fixing the budget as we move into years ahead,” Fannin said, just before lawmakers approved HB 549, 76-26.
Bogalusa Rep. Hal Ritchie scored a win, after years of sponsoring cigarette tax hike measures.
“Even though the number’s not where I want it, I think we should pass this bill,” Ritchie told the body. His bill to increase the state cigarette tax by 32 cents per pack was approved, 77-27.
A bill reducing business inventory tax refund checks by 25 percent passed. And a package of 3 bills by Monroe Rep. Katrina Jackson also found favor with a majority of House members.
Jackson’s bills make across-the board reductions to personal and corporate income tax rebates and credits.
“You trim by 20 percent so that all businesses still are able to take advantage of these rebates, by 80 percent,” Jackson stated.
‘So we’re just giving them a little haircut, and we are not making them bald,” Baton Rouge Rep. Regina Barrow added.
When they finally adjourned, the House had only passed $664-million of the $908-million they’d been aiming for, trying to avoid higher education’s trip to the guillotine.