The Perplexing Row Between Jeff Landry And Blake Miguez

Until yesterday, it was understood throughout Louisiana that state senator Blake Miguez was about as closely aligned with Gov. Jeff Landry as it’s possible for a pair of politicians to be.

Turns out that understanding is faulty.

This week, the legislature is wrestling with a tax reform package suggested by Landry that we’ve talked about quite a bit at The Hayride. It’s more good than bad, and it advertises something necessary – which is an eventual phase-out of the state income tax, plus a number of the punitive corporate taxes Louisiana imposes (which got a whole lot worse during the eight years of John Bel Edwards’ misrule as governor), but with a pay-for that includes re-upping at least most of Edwards’ 0.45 cent state sales tax increase, plus a raft of new goods and services that would become subject to the sales tax.

The administration calls that last part “broadening the base” of sales taxes in Louisiana, and the argument for doing so is you’ll have more economic activity being taxed so the tax burden can be spread out to the maximum number of people and therefore the rates can go lower.

And philosophically that’s pretty defensible.

The problem is that it costs money to comply with sales taxes, and lots of small businesses doing things – an example being thrown around is dog grooming – which aren’t currently taxed but would be if this package passes will now have to figure out how to do compliance.

The tax itself, they’re going to pass on to the consumer. The compliance costs, many of these business owners are afraid they’ll have to eat in paying more to their CPA’s or credit card vendors, etc.

There’s a lot of griping about that, and it doesn’t help that most of the people who’d be hit in this base-broadening are people who vote Republican.

If you’re going to raise taxes on people, your best move is to raise them on people who didn’t vote for you. File that under “reward your friends and punish your enemies.”

Anyway, Miguez isn’t fully on board with Landry’s plan. He’s not alone in thinking this, but what he’d like to do is pass all of the tax cuts in the package and leave the pay-fors off to the side.

And he said as much yesterday.

Landry – or his communications team – was not very happy about Miguez’ missive at all, and boy did they make that known…

Landry wasn’t done, either…

The whole message, with nothing hidden in those X posts, reads as follows:

Now is not the time for political posturing or worrying about one’s next political office. @BlakeMiguezLA seems to want to run to social media instead of offering his own plan.

He knows we have already cut billions in government spending. And, other leaders are doing more. He is also welcome to come forward offering his own detailed, public plan for the exact spending he would like to cut.

The Louisiana Forward plan will cut taxes for Louisiana families and job creators. He needs to overcome his need for headlines and get on board with ensuring Louisiana can compete for new jobs and economic prosperity. @BlakeMiguezLA should take note that while he sits on the sideline, the members of the House today voted to shrink the size of government under the package we are proposing.

And the good people of St. Martin and Iberia Parish should ask him what his proposal is, what has he done, how is he going to take us from the bottom to the top?!

This made some waves, to be certain.

But one wonders about the tactic. Miguez is very well respected and very, VERY popular in the state senate. More than that, he’s a hero among Louisiana’s conservatives and a member of the state’s Freedom Caucus. His perspective on favoring spending cuts as pay-fors for tax cuts is shared by most of the Republicans in the Legislature and it’s also the official, publicly-stated position of the Louisiana Freedom Caucus, which has been pretty demonstrative in stating their willingness to support Landry.

So this seems like shooting inside the tent.

And it’s a bit of a head-scratcher.

Why would you start a fight with Miguez rather than see if there’s a bone you can throw to him and his people?

Last year the Louisiana Freedom Caucus PAC polled the question of killing the state income tax and using budget cuts as the pay-for. The results?

And further, the poll also asked respondents whether they thought they were getting good value for their state tax dollar…

Do you think that’s substantially reversed from last year? We’d be surprised at such a result.

The point is it doesn’t seem like a good idea to start a fight with Miguez on an issue so many people will take his side on.

It seems a lot easier to just take the win. Let Miguez and the conservatives lead the way in passing the tax cuts in the plan, and if the pay-fors fall short, so be it – spend the next six months cutting the budget.

Team Landry says they’ve already done that, but let’s face it – Louisiana’s budget is still about double what it was when John Bel Edwards took office, and the state’s population is flat if not reduced since then. Nobody believes Louisiana’s state budget doesn’t have lots more fat waiting to be cut.

This is a pretty typical reaction, frankly…

We’d like to see the fighting stop. And we’d like to see lower taxes and smaller government in Louisiana.

It’s what we voted for when we put Miguez in the Senate and Landry in the Governor’s Mansion.

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