Louisiana workers and independent business owners have been subjected to a torrent of self-serving political spin, hyperbole, minutia, and urban myths that cumulatively have been labeled as discussions about “Louisiana Tax Reform.” Now on October 15, 2024, the Louisiana taxpayer has been subjected to weeks of public meetings, with loads of Commissioners, government administrators and politically connected experts decrying how Louisiana’s taxpayer are under-taxed, and State government is starving for more and more resources.
Joining this chorus of well placed and well paid government operatives who live off taxpayer largesse, were the usual suspects that have expertly identified the best ways to raise more taxes on the taxpaying citizens of Louisiana, to make sure that the new administration (and its sycophantic legislators) protect all the fluff, fraud and frivolous spending, contracting and regulatory bureaucracies that Huey Long’s legatees have built. All the usual political lap dogs, connected pit bulls and other government parasitic have marched to Baton Rouge and plead their case crying for MORE, MORE, MORE TAXES, AND NEVER A SINGLE DOLLAR CUT..
All the “Stakeholders” who have any interest in receiving the largesse from public tax revenues has been invited to Baton Rouge to explain importance and financial need for more tax revenue. In contrast, the is one obvious “stakeholder” who has not only not been consulted – but in fact who has been intentionally excluded – from “Tax Reform” discussions in Baton Rouge.
That is the Louisiana Taxpayer.
The new administration and legislators do not care to know the Taxpayers’ position on “Tax Relief,” their economic judgment on the best solution to our weak economy, their financial plight and their need for tax relief. They have excluded all information and concern for the LOUISIANA TAXPAYERS. This is not right, and it must stop.
If the spokesmen for the LOUISIANA TAXPAYER were given the opportunity to be considered and heard in Baton Rouge, they would prove with scientific certainty, (1) with the records of the Louisiana businesses shutter, (2) the pictures of the thousands of Louisiana children and grand-children who have been forced to “out-migrate” to Texas, Tennessee, and Florida, and (3) the family prospects being lost every day to the cost of taxpayer fuel being heaped on the State’s rapacious demands for more and more taxes.
The Taxpayers know that they never intended to elect new leadership to get more taxes on their shoulders, nor to allow the new administration to shuffle around the pre-existing excessive tax burden in Louisiana from one family to another. The Louisiana taxpayer voted for economic hope, based on the immediate enactment of substantial “TAX BURDEN RELIEF.”
More specifically, the taxpaying voters, who have stayed their course with Louisiana, and who have kept the faith in Louisiana, elected the new administration, and new legislative majorities, with the promise that the new leadership would promptly enact “TAX BURDEN RELIEF” through the “REPEAL OF INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAXES” a/k/a “REPEAL IIT NOW”.
The promised “Tax Burden Relief” was centered on the repeal of Individual Income Taxes because it has always worked to supercharge the economy wherever it was adopted. We know the booming States of Texas, Tennessee and Florida have repealed IIT.
The spokesmen for the Louisiana Taxpayer will remind the new leadership that “REPEAL IIT NOW” is the only proven supercharger to a State economy. The policy of “REPEAL IIT NOW” is the proven cure for Louisiana’s decade long “out migration” and resulting economic sinkhole. The taxpayers elected the new leadership to “REPEAL IIT NOW”, and then to use their judgment to manage this new economic structure in Louisiana as they have in Texas, Tennessee and Florida.
All the States that have repealed individual income taxes, have been blessed with resulting growth of prosperity that will replenish any revenues lost in the short run. The only question now is whether our Louisiana leaders as a group have the vision and backbone of Texas, Tennessee and Florida, and whether our individual legislators have the clear vision of Governor Greg Abbott and Governor Ron DeSantis.
Lastly, the Spokesmen for the forgotten taxpayers, would remind the new administration, and the new legislature that they were elected in 2023 by a landslide, and that each of them can be replaced just as easily.
Remember your bible lessons. Someone, in another day, said to the Government: “Set My People Free!!!”
It is time for Louisiana’s government to “ENACT TAX RELIEF” and “REPEAL IIT NOW.” This single action will throw off Louisiana’s chains of slavery to Baton Rouge’s political dynasty. Surely, Louisiana has already experienced at least three plagues from out-migration, the loss of prosperity, and the loss of future opportunities, and the worst loss of family members to foreign lands.
To the new Administration and new Legislature: “Set My People Free!!!” REPEAL IIT NOW!!!
Paul L. Hurd, President
Louisiana Excellence, Inc., Contact paul@louisianaexcel.org
A non-profit dedicated to Louisiana Prosperity through lower tax burdens.