"JINDAL SCRAPS TAX PLAN"

SOMETIMES WE WIN!

Gov. Bobby Jindal bowed to public sentiment Monday and shelved his plan to immediately eliminate income taxes and raise sales tax.

The governor admitted defeat on the first day of the legislative session during a speech to a joint gathering of the Louisiana House and Senate.

Jindal said he heard the complaints that he moved too fast and that his approach was not the best one.

House Democrats, religious leaders, public research groups, the business community and even the governor’s own accounting consultant found fault with his proposal to eliminate the state’s personal income and corporate taxes in favor of a higher state sales tax rate and a broadening of the sales tax base.

“Let me do something politicians don’t normally do,” Jindal said. “We’re going to adjust our course. We’re going to park our tax plan.”

Jindal's withdrawal of the plan demonstrates what citizens can accomplish by working together.  Hardly anyone except Jindal and his close advisers liked the tax plan, which was poorly crafted, with numbers that did not add up.   Perhaps Jindal and his inner circle have learned a lesson about opening up their planning process to outside advice, rather than operating in secrecy and holding plans close to the chest until the eleventh hour before the legislature convenes.  Still, Jindal and cohorts are crafty, so citizens must must remain vigilant and not let down the guard, for further nefarious schemes are likely to emerge.

The people of Louisiana have won only a reprieve from the negative consequences of Jindal's tax plan and are left with many problems still to be solved.  Political leaders in the state need to accept the reality of raising revenue to prevent further depredations on programs, institutions, and infrastructure than have already happened during the first term of the Jindal administration, but I doubt the will is there in either the governor or the legislature.  The repeated rounds of mid-year budget cuts because of faulty projections of revenue must be addressed to enable state programs and institutions to operate with a measure of stability.

LOUISIANA CLERGY SPEAK OUT ABOUT JINDAL SALES TAX PLAN

Bishop Morris Thompson

Religious leaders from across Louisiana complained Friday that the math behind Gov. Bobby Jindal’s tax proposal is flawed.

Northern and Central Louisiana Interfaith, a Shreveport-based religious organization, said the Jindal administration underestimated the expected tax burden on families by omitting part of a proposed state sales tax hike from calculations.

The Rev. Melvin Rushing

“This is about more than just numbers on a page. This is about integrity and people’s lives,” the Rev. Melvin Rushing, of Baton Rouge, said during a news conference at the State Capitol.

The Rev. Morris Thompson, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana in New Orleans, said the governor should withdraw his sales tax proposal. He was among ministers from around the state drawing attention to the governor’s tax overhaul proposals.  (My emphasis)

“Our numbers are growing,” Thompson said. “Our voice of justice is being heard.”

The math doesn't add up.  The governor won't answer questions, nor will he give full details of the sales tax plan.   Jindal is known to hold details until the last minute, just before the vote, so that the legislators don't have time to do a proper review.  What could possibly go wrong if Jindal's plan becomes law?  Will the legislators once again submit meekly to the governor's wishes in a last minute rush?

Thanks be to God that the clergy in Louisiana are speaking out against the injustice and fuzzy math in Jindal's proposed tax policy.

[Tim Barfield, executive counsel for the state Department of Revenue,] concluded his statement by appearing to blame the ministers’ complaints on misinformation spread by the Louisiana Budget Project, which he called a liberal special interest group.

The liberals are out to get them.  But wait!  The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana and The Council for A Better Louisiana are also critical of the plan.  They're all out to get you, Tim, but hang on and don't let paranoia get the best of you.  But wait again!  I had a thought: Does it ever cross your minds that it may not be "them", the people and groups who disagree with the tax plan, but perhaps the Jindal administration's plan on offer is just really, really bad? 

ABOUT THAT TAX PLAN, GOVERNOR JINDAL

Bishop Morris Thompson

Two groups of religious leaders from several faith traditions and denominations gathered at the Louisiana State Capitol on Monday to protest  Governor Bobby Jindal's latest tax plan to eliminate income tax for individuals and businesses and replace the lost revenue with a sales tax.  Neither the governor nor members of his staff met with the representatives of the two groups.  One of the groups published an open letter to the governor explaining the reasons for their objections to the tax plan.  Among the clergy who signed  the letter, I'm pleased to note the names of four Episcopal bishops in Louisiana - two serving bishops and two retired bishops, along with the names of other Episcopal clergy.

Bishop Jacob Owensby

The Rt. Rev'd. Morris K. Thompson, Jr., Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana

The Rt. Rev. Jacob W. Owensby, PhD, DD, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana

Bishop Charles E. Jenkins, Retired Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana

Bishop James B. Brown, Retired Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana
 

Bishop Charles Jenkins

The text of the letter:

March 18th, 2013
The Honorable Bobby Jindal, Governor
P. O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004

Dear Governor Jindal,

We, the undersigned members of the Louisiana Clergy, are writing to express our deep concern about the tax proposal you are proposing for the upcoming legislative session.

Bishop James B. Brown

We serve in many different faith traditions, across a broad spectrum of people and communities in this State. As diverse as these traditions may be, we find unity around a few fundamental ethical principles: fairness, a concern for the least of these and an obligation to make our voices heard when matters of justice are at stake.

Our concerns about the proposed tax plan are as follows.

First, we are concerned that Louisiana already has one of the most regressive tax systems in the nation, putting a disproportionately high burden on low and moderate income families. Currently, families earning minimum wage (less than $16,000 per year) pay 10.6% of their income in state and local taxes; the average Louisiana family pays 10.1% of its income in taxes; while the wealthiest Louisiana families (earning over $1 million per year) pay only 4.6% of their income in state and local taxes. That is unacceptable, as a starting point.

Second, we are concerned that the reason we have such an unfair and regressive tax structure is our State's heavy reliance on the sales tax. It is universally recognized that sales taxes create a disproportionate burden on poor and moderate-income families, who spend nearly all they earn. Louisiana already has the 3rd highest sales tax rate in the nation.

Third, we are concerned that your tax plan seeks to increase our state's sales tax rates even further. Any increase in the sales tax would deepen the root causes behind the unfair and regressive nature of our state's tax structure and worsen the burden for poor and moderate income families in our community.

Fourth, we are concerned that your plan proposes to use the increased revenue generated by a heavier burden on poor and moderate income families, not to fund any of the important needs and services our State faces, but to decrease the tax burden for those members of our community who are most blessed with wealth and resources. That, too, is unacceptable.

Fifth, we are concerned that your proposed tax plan will be unsustainable over the long term. Historically, sales have grown much more slowly than personal income, in our State and across the country. Swapping income taxes for sales taxes replaces a faster-growing revenue source with a slower-growing revenue source. We worry that your proposal would be "revenue neutral" in its first year, but "revenue negative" over the longer term. If our State begins to rely even more heavily upon a slower-growing portion of our economy for revenue, we will face deficits and service cuts down the road that make our current ones seem small.

We believe that any proposed law that would increase the tax burden on low- and moderate-income families in order to decrease it for wealthy families must be judged an unjust law.
We believe that any proposed law that would threaten the long-term fiscal soundness of our State must be judged an unwise law.

Therefore, we ask you, in the full spirit of humility and faith, to develop a fundamentally different framework for tax reform.

To that end, we submit the following basic principles as guidelines for the kind of tax reform that would be just and in accord with the ethical frameworks of our faith traditions:

Principle #1) Tax reform should not increase the sales tax rate or take any other steps that make our tax structure more regressive than it is already;

Principle #2) New sources of revenue should be used, not merely to redistribute the tax burden from one group to another, but to invest in high priorities for our state, such as healthcare, education, human services and infrastructure, which have seen significant and far-reaching cuts in recent years; and

Principle #3) Tax reform should not replace a faster-growing revenue source with a slower-growing revenue source, thereby threatening our State's ability to afford important services and investments in the future.

We thank you for your serious consideration of these concerns. We would welcome the opportunity for a delegation of our leadership to meet with you to discuss these matters in more detail. We can be reached at LAfaithcommunity@gmail.com to schedule that meeting.

We pray that you, and all of us, may be blessed with the judgment to move forward in a spirit of wisdom and fairness on such an important matter to the lives and well-being of so many.

Yours faithfully,
--------------------------

View the signatories at the link above.

A second, unaffiliated faith-based group also came out against the governor's tax plan with a rally on the Capitol steps Monday afternoon. Led by the Micah Project, an affiliate of the interfaith community-organizing focused group PICO Louisiana, clergy denounced the proposal as benefiting wealthy Louisianians and corporations at the expense of the poor and middle class.

Referring to administration claims that a sales-tax based system would create a simpler tax code, the Rev. Chuck Andrus of Blessed Sacrement - St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in New Orleans said the tax system should take into account the needs of families in the state.

"We don't want what's simplest, we want what is just for our families," Andrus said.

I'm betting the governor will not meet with the clergy representatives, but I hope I'm wrong.  Jindal seems to listen to no one who does not already agree with his policies.  He surrounds himself with a closed circle of advisers and his supporters the legislature and hears only what he wants to hear.