Switching out progressive taxes for regressive taxes, nothing to see here.
People earning under $50,000 actually get double fucked, since they were exempt from the income tax of 4.25% before, and now they will have to pay the new "lower" 3% income tax AND the new sales tax.
While this is regressive and fucked, it looks like lower income people still won't have to pay income tax:
As part of the legislative package, lawmakers doubled the standard deduction for seniors and nearly tripled the standard deduction for individuals, effectively eliminating income tax on the lowest income households.
53.6 percent of Louisiana's budget comes from Federal funds. That's up from 47 percent in 2011. So for over a decade, they have only INCREASED their dependency on the Federal govt to keep their economy running.
Fuck these regressive dicks. They can't run their own State, they only exist to transfer public funds to private businesses. And those businesses turn around to grease the politicians' palms.
They are running a SCAM. And pouring more Federal funds into this scam will NEVER do anything other than enrich the upper wealth layer already grifting the state. Cut them off at the knees. Make up the 53.6% in CORPORATE and Marginal Tax rates on the wealthy.
Thing is if they do that there and we don't do it everywhere at once, the corporations will just move their operations to some other state with a better tax rate and then LA is left with nobody to employ their citizens.
I want to be very clear that I'm not condoning this but the reason this continues so readily is because this keeps the corporations operating in their area. A little bit of tit for tat and money under the table ensures that the labor pool in your area stays employed, at a bit of cost to the people's well being and the federal coffers. If you just crank up the business tax rates suddenly then within 5 years all the big businesses will be gone. That might be a good thing long term but it's going to be a very very bad thing short term.
Allowing states to dictate their own tax rates was a trap that we walked fully into and now I don't see a way out of it without discarding that and taking over control of that federally. Which is something that will never ever fly in American politics.
"Any state that requires more than 45% of their annual budget to be Federally supplemented, for a period of 3 of 5 years (non-consecutive) summarily concedes their budgetary autonomy."
Boom, Federal govt steps in, taxes all the freeloader states at appropriate levels, and levies Corporate taxes uniformly across the tier.
Who am I kidding tho, right? Neither Party would ever, EVER push back on their Corporate overlords. But my pipedream is nice, no?
People of Louisiana, now is the time to unite and bring hell down upon the legislature. Fill their buildings with protestors before Trump can brand you all terrorists. Stand up for yourself and your community. And this is the most important part, fuck corporations.
Shame that the average American will look at this and just say "Hey I'm paying less tax!" Without looking at our even understanding their own budget and how it's going to fuck them over in the long term.
I suppose it’s actually impressive they’re trying to “pay” for it at all. Normally they just cut taxes and claim growth will make up for the loss of income.