The Advocate on Tuesday published in its lead editorial a spirited attack of the Louisiana Legislature’s repeal of the Stelly Plan income tax increase. Incredibly, Baton Rouge’s premier newspaper contends, “today’s budget crisis is in significant part a self-inflicted wound because of income tax cuts.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The real causes of our state’s financial crisis are (1) the unsustainable growth of state spending that occurred from 1996-2007 and (2) Obama’s disastrous economic and energy policies. Instead of another regressive proposal to raise state income taxes, we should be asking ourselves why we even have a personal income tax in Louisiana when Florida and Texas are doing fine without one.
History clearly shows that this infamous income tax increase, pushed by then State Representative Vic Stelly and Senator Jay Dardenne, was a completely unnecessary burden to the citizens of Louisiana.
When Stelly was first proposed in 2000, the state budget was about $13 billion. By 2008, it had grown to $30 billion. Stelly provided a few hundred million extra dollars to the legislature. The growth of the budget is proof enough that the extra money was unnecessary. Case closed.
While my political opponents were perpetrating this tax fraud against Louisiana’s citizens in 2000, I was organizing tea parties across the state to protest. We won a round, lost a round, and (I thought) finally repealed the law. But it seems that the proponents of Stelly just can’t give it up. It appears they want to raise taxes again. This is no time to reverse course. We need more reform and more spending cuts, not a return to the Stelly Plan.