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As he gave the opening speech last week for a special session called mainly to overhaul Louisiana’s tax code, Gov. Jeff Landry didn’t wait long to take a not-so-veiled shot at anyone defending the status quo.
“This tax code is holding our state back,” he said, while holding a hefty green soft-cover volume of Louisiana statutes. “The nearly 1,400 pages are filled with special interests, carve-outs, loopholes, and latent benefits for a few.”
He would come back to the theme of a tax system rigged in favor of those with political connections at the expense of the rest of the state more than once, though he also offered a promise to some of the effort’s biggest skeptics.
“We will work to make sure our local governments are made whole,” he said, acknowledging the parish presidents and police jury administrators in the House chamber’s balcony.
And he urged lawmakers to resist the temptation to break up the wide-ranging package.
“The structure of this package makes its success dependent upon its entirety,” Landry argued. “Let us take the whole, rather than just a slice.”
But some lawmakers are doubtful that the broad overhaul Landry is pushing can be fully accomplished in a session lasting less than three weeks. According to the call, they can go until Nov. 25, the Monday before Thanksgiving.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
