Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry prepares to provide the introduction of his tax reform package to the Louisiana House Ways and Means Committee on November 7, 2024.
Full Disclosure:
Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns very, very strongly supports Gov. Landry’s tax reform package which he’s presenting to the Louisiana Legislature in the current Special Session; furthermore, he frequently advocates for free-market initiatives (particularly entailing overly-burdensome occupational licensing requirements in Louisiana) and is an avid advocate of the initiatives of Louisiana’s prominent think tank, The Pelican Institute, which also supports Gov. Landry’s tax reform initiatives.
When we published our last feature, we indicated that founder Robert Burns would take a “minimum of eight (8) days off.” Much of that “time off” was spent thoroughly reviewing Gov. Landry’s tax reform proposals, and we have engaged in numerous telephone conversations entailing his initiative along with one town hall meeting at which his tax reform package was discussed.
Obviously seizing the moment of an expected Trump victory, Gov. Landry was shrewd enough to time the current Special Session to commence literally the day after the big election. He now has a ton of momentum and, in our opinion, he is utilizing that momentum and enthusiasm to propose what we believe to be a very, very valuable first step toward making Louisiana much more competitive with Texas and other surrounding states by lowering both personal and business income taxes.
If his proposals become law, of all of the states in the United States which still have an income tax (and that number continues to dwindle), Louisiana will become the state with the second-lowest top individual rate (at 3 percent as proposed), behind only the state of Arizona.
We will be providing extensive video coverage of the hearings on Landry’s proposals to include both House and Senate Committee hearings as well as floor debates at each Chamber. Today is Installment One of our series.
Today featured House Ways and Means Committee consideration of two measures: HB-1, which would lower the personal income tax rate, and HB-3, which would repeal the corporate franchise tax (which is a huge impediment to business entities considering expanding in this state).
The Committee is chaired by Rep. Julie Emerson (R-Carencro), who has an extensive past history of trying to break down many of the barriers to entry in this State entailing occupational licensing, and she has the battle scars to prove her commitment to that cause.
First, let’s have Chairperson Emerson provide a very brief explanation of the game plan for today’s Committee meeting which she outlined at the outset of the meeting. Here’s that video:
11/7/24: Ways and Means Committee Chairperson Julie Emerson outlines what would be covered in the meeting today.
Next, let’s present, in its entirety, Gov. Landry’s introduction of his initiatives and note his strong emphasis on how important it is for all of these measures to all pass as a package:
11/7/24: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry touts the benefits of his proposed tax reform package, which he readily refers to as a, “generational opportunity that we don’t get quite often!”
Let us next present Chairperson Emerson’s wrap up on HB-1 and the actual vote on that bill:
11/7/24: Chairperson Emerson wraps up HB-1 and the vote is taken on the initiative (it passed 15-3).
Finally, let us present Chairperson Emerson’s wrap of HB-3 and the actual vote on the bill:
11/7/24: Chairperson Emerson wraps on HB-3 and the vote is take on the initiative (it passed 17-1).
We will provide coverage of tomorrow’s meeting as well as all future hearings (to include Sunday). Obviously, we believe that Gov. Landry’s initiative, with Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson providing the hard work to provide the architectural framework for Landry’s package, is a huge first step toward making Louisiana more competitive with Texas!
Having said that, we know there are folk out there who disagree with us, and we would encourage anyone who falls into that category to feel free to make comments to these posts reflecting your sentiments.
Further, we have afforded to anyone we have encountered who expressed sentiments on Gov. Landry’s initiatives to feel free to express those sentiments, be they positive or negative, on our camera.
We will state right now that we’ve encountered one person who has indeed made comments on our camera expressing her opposition to one of Gov. Landry’s proposed bills.
On the day that we present coverage of that particular bill, we have committed, just as we have since the formation of this blog, to permit anyone an opportunity to “sound off” irrespective of whether the individual(s)’ sentiments line up with ours or not.
We believe our policy in that regard makes Sound Off Louisiana unique. We intend to honor that commitment which we made at the very formation of this blog, so if there is anyone else out there who falls into the same camp as the young lady whom we’ll be presenting on a subsequent feature, please do not hesitate to contact us and arrange video coverage of your sentiments.
So, to Gov. Landry and Revenue Secretary Nelson, we say, “Great job!”
Who knows? We just may see Gov. Landry coming around on this whole occupational licensing issue in Louisiana soon because we have folk starting to “come out of the woodwork” at Cosmetology Board meetings and making their sentiments known! We look forward to airing those people’s sentiments as they chose to “sound off” in the near future!