With the state economy struggling, and tens of thousands of Louisianans moving out of state, businesses and families need tax and budget reform—to give them an incentive to come to, and remain in, Louisiana.
A successful series of across-the-board tax reforms, touching all layers of the tax code—corporate and individual, and sales and income taxes—will promote growth and expand opportunity. Our state deserves a 21st century tax code that encourages growth and taxes individuals and businesses transparently and fairly. Tax reform can spark an economic revolution in Louisiana—if only lawmakers take the initiative to act, and act boldly.
Along with our tax code, our budget process in Louisiana also needs to be reformed. Over the past several years, Louisiana has lurched from budget crisis to budget crisis, with lawmakers gathering for costly special sessions to patch together yet another stopgap solution. But after years of short-term thinking, policy-makers must now embrace a more comprehensive, holistic approach, to prevent the conditions that created the crises in the first place. Coupled with constitutional reforms that will give lawmakers more flexibility to manage the entire state budget, rather than just small portions of it, improvements to the budget process will modernize the state’s practices—bringing long-needed fiscal stability.
Pelican Institute reform plan would flatten personal and corporate taxes, boost jobs in first year. Baton Rouge — As candidates for Louisiana governor debate the future of the state, a new poll shows Louisiana voters strongly support phasing out the state’s income tax while ushering in fiscal responsibility. Today, the Pelican Institute has released a...
Louisiana’s Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, the committee of state lawmakers that meets throughout the year to approve state budget-related items, recently met to review the latest five-year budgetary projections. As expected, it doesn’t look good, but it’s important to understand why. Projections FY 2023 FY 2024 FY 2025 FY 2026 FY 2027 Revenues...
Does your candidate support jobs and opportunities in Louisiana? Election Day 2023 is fast approaching. Join us in asking candidates if they support transformational change for Louisiana. Use our candidate questionnaire as a resource.
Key Point: Louisiana’s labor market shows improvement on the surface but there are underlying problems because of poor public policies which can be overcome with the Pelican Institute’s “Comeback Agenda.” Louisiana’s Labor Market: Table 1 shows Louisiana’s labor market information over time until the latest data for May 2023 which was released this month by...
Louisiana’s 2023 Regular Legislative Session ended on June 8th with a bang. Amid much arguing and a lot of untransparent, last-minute maneuvering, the Legislature passed a big-spending budget that busted through its own limits on spending extra taxpayer dollars (also known as the “spending cap” or the “expenditure limit”). When the dust settled, the legislature...
$250,000 for marching band uniforms? $50,000 to cut grass? $125,000 to repair a historic barn? These are the kinds of projects that the Louisiana legislature is cramming into the budget–and they’re mortgaging our children’s future to do it. Louisiana’s legislature is at a crossroads. Each member must decide whether to set Louisiana on a course...
There’s much discussion in Baton Rouge about how to best allocate scarce taxpayer money that’s overflowing the state’s coffers. A problem with $3 billion in the state’s savings accounts is that everyone has their hands out to receive some of it. But the ones who should be remembered first are the taxpayers. In this discussion,...
You may have heard that the state of Louisiana is facing a “fiscal cliff” and this is why the Legislature shouldn’t reduce the taxes Louisianans pay to fund the government. This claim is based on assumptions that the state’s tax collections will decline dramatically from the expiration of the “temporary” sales tax rate hike of...
The Louisiana legislature is debating our state’s budget — how much to spend, how much to save, and whether to return money to hardworking taxpayers. On one side of the debate are the Big Spenders, who want to blow through $2.7 billion in even more spending. On the other side are the Smart Savers, who...
It’s like clockwork. Every time lawmakers in Baton Rouge start down the path of providing tax relief to help Louisiana families make ends meet and grow the state’s economy, you can count on the status quo crowd to scream “Fiscal cliff!” But is it real? The short answer: No! (But it’s complicated.) It’s easy to...
Over the last few years, there has been a much larger influx of taxpayer revenues than usual. Since fiscal year 21, lawmakers have had access to $5.5 billion in excess and surplus funds (money over and above the amount needed to run government operations). $1 billion was in FY 21, $2.4 billion in FY 22,...
Recently, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released its 16th edition of the annual report titled “Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index.” The report ranks the economic competitiveness of each state, and once again, Louisiana is found to be last. Louisiana ranks dead last in economic performance, which measures the state’s performance...