Today, the allegedly Republican Louisiana House of Representatives voted to raise taxes by nearly $700 million. This was actually short of their $900 million goal.

House wrapping up. Passed 11 tax bills, generating about $670M, falling short of $937M goal. #lalege

— Melinda Deslatte (@MelindaDeslatte) May 7, 2015

Now to be fair, some of the bills passed were actually not bad ideas. HB 218 by Rep. Chris Broadwater (R-Hammond), which eliminated the ability of businesses to apply net operating losses to previous years in exchange for a chance to apply it in future years. This stops the state from paying out refunds to those businesses. I also don’t have much of a problem with HB 402 by Rep. Julie Stokes (R-Kenner) which changed the eligibility requirements for Louisianians to claim credit on income tax paid to other states on their Louisiana income tax.

Other than that, everything else that passed today was pretty much awful. Here’s what all the Louisiana House passed:

• HB 624 by Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) which raised taxes on corporations.
• HB 629 by Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) which raised taxes on corporations and individuals.
• HB 635 by Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) which reduced all tax rebates, which translates to tax increases on businesses and individuals.
• HB 805 by Rep. Bryan Adams (R-Gretna) which reduced the refund on the inventory tax by 25%, resulting in a tax increase for businesses.
• HB 829 by Rep. Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette) put new limitations on the film tax credit program and set a $200 million annual cap on it. But it did not address the real problem with the program, which is the fact that film tax credits can be sold to people outside of the film industry. Until that is fixed, it will continue to be an incentive for corruption.
• HB 779 by Rep. Erich Ponti (R-Baton Rouge) would put new limits on the solar tax credit program. That program should’ve been completely eliminated.
• HB 549 by Rep. Major Thibault (R-New Roads) imposes higher severance taxes on those who engage in fracking. This should make the anti-fracking mob in St. Tammany happy.
• HB 119 by Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Bogalusa) imposes a 36 cent per pack increase in the cigarette tax.
• HCR 8 by Rep.  Jack Montoucet (D-Crowley) raises business utility taxes by 25%.

The big losers today were Louisiana taxpayers and businesses. The big winners today were Louisiana’s neighbors, especially Texas.

Scott will have more on those who voted for these tax hikes, but today the Republicans who voted for these higher taxes broke their trust with Louisiana’s voters. We vote Republican because we expect the party to stand for fiscal responsibility. Instead of proposing reforms to state government, they come back with nearly $700 million in tax increases. This is embarrassing and a sad day for conservatives.