Bribing Louisiana Couples to Stay Married?

Louisiana lawmakers face the pleasant prospect of a big budget surplus-- at least in the short run. As a result, this year's legislative session has been primarily about how (and how much) to cut taxes. There's been a parade of clever, and not-so-clever, ideas.

Yesterday's session of the state House tax writing committee was no different. Representative Gary Beard (R-Baton Rouge) proposed what he calls a "marriage-strengthening tax deduction" bill, HB 279. The bill gives a tax deduction of $100 for each year of marriage starting with the fifth year, with a cap of $2,000 on the deduction for each return.

The implications are fascinating.

• The first five years of marriage apparently are trouble-free enough that no tax incentives are needed to keep the marriage together.
• But at the five-year mark, marriages start going to hell pretty fast. The longer you stay married past this point, the bigger your tax deduction.
• And it's only on their silver anniversaries that Louisianans find themselves able to keep their marriages together without a little extra encouragement from the tax system each year.
• Since the marriage tax break is designed as a credit rather than a deduction, the sponsor clearly thinks that rich people need more incentive to stay married than do poorer families.
• Since the tax break is a nonrefundable deduction, the clear implication is that families too poor to pay state income taxes have more stable marriages than do wealthier families.

Ways and Means Committee members had few questions before they politely put the bill on the "bone pile" of tax proposals that may (or may not) someday be voted on in committee.

But Rep. Rick Farrar had a good one, asking whether there would be a "clawback" provision: in other words, if you get divorced, do you have to give the money back?

At a time when Louisiana lawmakers are discussing some big-ticket tax cuts, the Farrar bill is small potatoes-- hardly worth discussing except to laugh at it. But it's actually a pretty good allegory for the economic development tax incentives state lawmakers offer every day. Earlier this month, Alabama lawmakers gave the ThyssenKrupp corporation $800 million in immediate tax incentives-- and the promise of a thirty-year exemption from state corporate income taxes--to encourage them to build a steel mill in Alabama. Did the incentives change ThyssenKrupp's mind-- or just reward them for what they were going to do anyway? No one really knows except ThyssenKrupp. Similarly, no one know if a $100 tax deduction is going to be enough to keep a bad marriage going for one more year. The most likely outcome is that a bunch of happy couples will get a tax break for doing something they were going to do anyway-- stay married.

A Permanent Transportation Funding Solution for Louisiana?

The Advocate reports that Louisiana lawmakers are moving towards an agreement that would provide a permanent, ongoing source of funding for additional transportation spending, rather than a one-shot injection of surplus revenues. The main source of this ongoing revenue: the state's sales tax revenue from car and truck sales. This year, the yield from this part of the sales tax base is pegged at $382 million.

So what's smart about this idea? Its main virtue is that it's matching a growing spending area (transportation) with a growing funding source-- the sales tax. Sales taxes are based on the value of the thing sold, so as prices go up with inflation, the sales tax paid on cars will go up too. By contrast, the gasoline taxes that states most typically use to fund roads are (usually) levied on a per-cent basis, which means that they don't grow so fast. A 20-cent tax on a gallon of gas will bring in the same amount, in nominal terms, five years from now as it does today.

Of course, the flip side is that if this bill passes, revenue that is currently designated for general-fund spending won't be there anymore. So this bill is robbing from Peter to pay Paul. To the extent that Louisiana lawmakers are still wondering whether their budget surpluses are "sustainable" in that they'll still be around 3 or 5 years from now, this "moving things around" approach to funding transportation leaves something to be desired.

How not to talk about the budgetary process

Michelle Milhollon reports in today's Advertiser that the spending priorities of state lawmakers could make it harder to pass the up-to-$500 million in tax breaks that Republican leaders are pushing for. And where is the money going? Milhollon leads with a, well, leading example:

A historic social club, city planning efforts, a balloon festival and an animal disease lab are among the Baton Rouge area projects stuffed into the $29.6 billion state budget proposal.

Buried beneath this obviously anti-government language, there is an important story here: the battle between advocates of adequately-funded public services and, well, opponents of adequately-funded public services. Louisiana's budget surplus is going either for spending hikes, or tax cuts, or both-- and there ought to be a healthy debate over this. To her credit, Milhollon ultimately gets to an explanation of what the contested spending priorities are:

The added spending runs the gamut:
An additional $71 million to move 3,000 disabled people — including 150 with Lou Gehrig’s disease — off waiting lists for community-based health care services.
$1.8 million to ensure that state troopers are the highest-paid law enforcement in the state.
More than $42 million for charity hospitals, including funding for additional detoxification and psychiatric beds.
$40 million for public schools’ basic operations. The governor already planned to spend $430 million on pay raises for teachers, corrections officers, state workers and others.

This is, of course, fundamentally uninteresting stuff to most people. But does that make it OK for Milhollon to lead her article with the image of a "balloon festival" being "stuffed into" the budget? I laugh all the time at consultants who are constantly talking about "framing" ideological topics to shape the debate in your direction. But that really isn't the job of journalists-- and her opening paragraph plays right into people's latent fears of an ineffective, pork-laden government. The real thing I want to know from this article is, where's the $410 million of new spending that Milhollon says got added to the budget last week go? What's it buying? And my hunch is that the "balloon festival" is the tiniest slice of this money.

We all love to make fun of inefficiencies, and they're more obviously on display in the public (government) sphere than in the private, corporate sphere. But that doesn't mean the media should be beating this drum.

Who Benefits from SB66?

In the wake of the Louisiana Senate's passage of SB66, which gradually re-introduces itemized deductions to Louisiana's state income tax, John Hill has a concise and accurate explanation of who would benefit from this plan:About 350,000 to 400,000 — or about 20 percent of Louisiana tax filers — would be eligible for the tax break that would be phased in over three years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office. The first year, the tax cuts would total $157 million, growing to $308 million when the restoration is fully implemented. The other 80 percent of Louisiana tax filers would get no tax cuts under the plan.

Which makes bill sponsor Robert Adley's claim about the fairness of his plan seem pretty laughable:

Adley responded that he and other legislators had received a lot of calls complaining about the Stelly Plan's income tax changes. "This is not a bill for all those high-income people. This is a bill for the middle class."

Or at least for 20 percent of them.

Undoing the Stelly Plan: A "Middle-Class Tax Cut?"

The Louisiana Senate has approved a bill that would undo part of the "Stelly" income tax reforms of 2002. The bill would gradually re-introduce a provision allowing Louisianans who itemize their federal income taxes to claim some itemized deductions on their state tax forms.

Marsha Shuler covers the story in today's Advocate. Regarding the question of how many Louisianans would benefit from this tax change, she makes the point a bit subtly:

SB66 would phase in itemized personal deductions at 57.5 percent beginning this year — at a $157 million state cost — and it would reach 100 percent in 2009-2010. About one-fourth of Louisiana’s income tax filers itemize.

The omitted point-- that 75% of Louisianans would get nothing at all from this plan--may be obvious to some, but not to many.

And the omission becomes more glaring later on in the story, when Senator James Cain makes a very different assertion about who would benefit from this plan:

Cain noted that a group of teachers were in the Senate chamber opposing the move. “That’s what hurts me the most,” Cain said. He said many in their number are being hurt by the Stelly income tax. “It hurts the middle class,” he said.

The disjunction between what Cain says and what the data tell us is there if you want to look for it, but it would have been nice to see Shuler connect the dots a bit more.

An equally interesting argument from Cain is that Louisiana should re-introduce itemized deductions simply because most other states allow them.

“Only seven states in America do what we do. We are the only state in the South doing it,” Cain said.

The fact of the matter is that plenty of tax policy types think federal itemized deductions (at least some of them) are just bad tax policy, providing expensive and poorly targeted subsidies for homeownership, charitable giving and other "good" behaviors. The President's tax reform commission (remember them) recommended modifying or repealing most of them a while back. And you can make a pretty good case that the states that have gotten rid of these deductions (like Louisiana) or that never had them (like, say, Illinois) are the ones that have the right idea.

No one like to stick out, and one hears this argument being used to sway state lawmakers all the time. But being different doesn't always have to be bad.

Latest Revenue Estimates Show Even More "Surplus" Revenue

The news Louisiana lawmakers have been waiting for is in.
The state's Revenue Estimating Committee released new estimates last night of the projected budget surplus for the ongoing fiscal year, and for the year beginning in July. The answers:

• An additional $118 million for the current year.
• An additional $128 million for next year.

This tells us nothing, of course, about whether this "extra" revenue can truly be considered a surplus. It's only obviously a surplus in the sense that it's money coming in that the state wasn't expecting at this time yesterday.

Now comes the interesting part: lawmakers get to decide whether they'd rather devote the newfound surplus to meeting unmet infrastructure needs-- from education to transportation to health care-- or whether they'd prefer to enact a bunch of tax cuts. Let the fireworks begin!

Paved With Good Intentions: Louisiana Lawmakers Consider Tax Breaks for Theater Productions

As we noted back in March, Louisiana's tax credit for film-making activities has come under scrutiny in some quarters this year. A tax proposal that made intuitive sense to some when Louisiana was one of the few states doing it-- giving tax breaks to movie-makers to encourage them to film in Louisiana rather than in other states--now seems less obviously good when dozens of other states are providing essentially the same tax giveaways.

But now, as the Associated Press' Melinda Deslatte documents, the Louisiana legislature is considering taking the next step: offering tax breaks to musical and theater productions. Rep. Jeff Arnold, a Democrat from New Orleans, has introduced HB 155, which would provide refundable tax credits for "musical or theatrical productions" that employ Louisiana workers.

There are lots of sensible questions to ask about such a credit. Start with two: What kind of productions should benefit? And how we do know the incentives will actually change these production's behavior rather than rewarding them for something they would have done anyway?

"Musical or theatrical productions" covers a pretty broad swath of the cultural spectrum. The bill's language says this term "shall include but not be limited to drama, comedy, comedy revue, opera, ballet, jazz, cabaret, and variety entertainment."

Does this mean that when Jerry Seinfeld brings his comedy show to Shreveport, he'll get a tax credit for doing so? That the Rolling Stones will be subsidized to appear before college students in Baton Rouge? That famed tax-avoiders U2 will get yet another tax bonus if they rock New Orleans? Apparently they will, as long as Louisiana marks the first stop on their US tour.

And what happens when neighboring states do exactly the same thing? In testimony before the Ways and Means Committee, bill booster Roger Wilson, the chairman of something called "Broadway South, LLC" argues unconvincingly that "no other state... is offering a similar incentive" and that no other state has the infrastructure in place to meaningfully offer similar incentives"-- and admits in the same breath that Louisiana has virtually no musical/theater industry to begin with. He doesn't make much of a case for why Texas or Mississippi can't productively enact exactly the same credit next year.

Wilson also compares the intended impact of the theater tax break to the alleged impact of the existing film tax break in a way that makes the motives of this giveaway seem pretty craven:

Any movie that’s made in Louisiana as a result of the initiatives you passed years ago is basically stolen from other cities... We want to propose an initiative that will do the same thing[for musical and theater productions.]

This is what economic development experts like the folks at Good Jobs First are talking about when they decry the "race to the bottom." When states or cities use tax incentives to simply steal investment from other states and cities, the net impact on the US economy is, at best, zero. The same investments are taking place-- just in a different place than they used to be. And if the tax breaks in question are encouraging companies to invest in an area that simply wouldn't make sense economically otherwise, the net impact on the US economy is arguably negative. Theater companies would be moving from a place that makes sense economically to a place that doesn't.

It's not popular to argue that the leeway given state and local lawmakers to provide tax incentives should be curtailed in the name of a more effective national economic policy. We all value state and local autonomy very highly. But listening to this sort of blatant job piracy gives one a lot of sympathy for imposing such limits.

Shreveport Times: Keep Stelly Plan?

Tax topic #1 for Louisiana lawmakers so far this year has been whether or not to repeal the "Stelly tax plan," which cut sales taxes and hiked income taxes back in 2002. Today the editorial board at the Shreveport Times says it exactly right:

A massive overhaul of that favorite whipping boy, the Stelly Plan, is a step backward. It properly shifted the state away from a dependence on regressive sales taxes on food and utilities, "temporary" taxes that made Wall Street bond analysts nervous, and shifted the burden to a less regressive income tax.

But the Times also understands why lawmakers are nervous about defending the Stelly plan:

But couple that with a tax bracket shift and the loss in the ability to make deductions in home mortgage payments and medical expenses and many- middle and-upper income taxpayers soon began crying foul.

Paying for the Stelly sales tax cuts with a hike in another tax was the responsible thing to do-- and hiking the income tax in a way that eliminated special tax breaks made the tax system fairer in a number of ways. The burden should be on advocates of Stelly-plan repeal to explain why bringing back these long-dead tax breaks is actually good policy.

In parting, the Times suggests if Stelly repeal is in the cards, lawmakers should follow their M.O. from years past, when they've made tax hikes temporary, by making any income tax cuts temporary and contingent on economic growth:

Just as lawmakers were content for years to rely on a system of temporary sales taxes to prop up the state budget, perhaps those dead set on tax breaks would consider putting sunset provisions on tax changes as a hedge against the bottom falling out of state revenues.

This also seems right on: nothing is certain in Louisiana revenue forecasting. The state's dependence on oil revenues means that the difference between revenue boom and revenue boost can be a small one. Lawmakers should be mindful of this as they decide the fate of the Stelly reforms.

Why ThyssenKrupp picked Alabama

It's official: Louisiana won't be getting the new ThyssenKrupp manufacturing facility. The company announced yesterday that it will build its plant in Alabama-- the one remaining state against which Louisiana was competing for this economic development prize.

So what did it cost Alabama? Let's start with what we know:

• $461.1 million in direct financial aid, including land acquisition, site preparation, worker training, and road improvements.
• $350.3 million in "abatements of sales, property and utility taxes by state and local governments."

Which adds up to a cool $811 million in direct spending and tax breaks up front. Now for the part we can't put a price tag on:In addition, the company won't have to pay any state income tax for the next 30 years unless its tax liability exceeds $185 million in any year. And since the entire state corporate income tax only brought in $484 million in fiscal year 2006, it's hard to imagine how Thyssen's new plant could possibly rack up $185 million on its own. So that "unless" statement is pretty meaningless: Thyssen is getting a free pass for 30 years on the corporate income tax.

So you can't put a price tag on that part of the deal, but that doesn't mean it's free.

So if Louisianans are looking for consolation in the wake of "losing" this smokestack-chasing contest, try this on: maybe this is a race they couldn't have afforded to win. And maybe Alabama will find they can't afford it either.

The Advocate: Keep the Stelly Plan

In the wake of new poll results showing that Louisianans don't view new tax cuts as a big priority, many are wondering why elected officials are going against their constituents' preferences by pushing for tax cuts. Today the editorial board at the Baton Rouge Advocate goes one step further. If you're going to cut taxes, they ask, why would you repeal the progressive 2002 income-tax-for-sales-tax swap known as the "Stelly plan" in particular? After questioning "the political wisdom of railing against a tax policy change that left the vast majority of taxpayers better off," the Advocate comes up with a theory:

Part of it is human nature: People benefit a little bit every day from the sales taxes eliminated in 2002 by passage of the Stelly plan. But everybody notices when they write a larger check for state income tax. Lawmakers are responding to aggrieved, mostly affluent constituents who pay big income tax bills.

This is a commonly cited problem with the sales tax: even the low-income folks who are hit hardest by it often don't notice, because they pay a nickel here and a nickel there rather than one big lump sum. If people don't notice the sales tax when they pay it, it's easy to understand that they wouldn't notice when (as a result of the Stelly sales tax cuts) they're not longer paying it. And income taxpayers who are accustomed to writing off their itemized deductions on state income tax returns will very likely notice when (also as a result of the Stelly reforms) they're no longer able to.

But "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" isn't much of a principle for tax policy. The Advocate suggests that if lawmakers do find they can afford tax cuts, they should tailor these cuts in ways that could actually affect the economy:

If tax cuts are called for, why should they not be targeted on economic development issues? By that, we mean reducing or cutting the business taxes levied in Louisiana but not in competing Southern states, or that otherwise impede business development.

There's a bigger debate to be had here, of course: if economic development is the goal, one can legitimately ask whether tax cuts of any kind are the right way to go at a time when the state has wide-ranging unmet needs. But the Advocate is right to question state lawmakers' reflexive interest in repealing the Stelly tax cuts.

New LSU Poll: Voters Don't Want Tax Cuts

The Public Policy Research Lab at LSU has released its spring 2007 public policy survey, just in time to inform the growing debate over how (if at all) Louisiana lawmakers should change the progressive "Stelly" income tax reforms enacted by voters back in 2002.

The results, summarized by the Shreveport Times here, suggest that tax-cut-happy lawmakers are misinterpreting voter preferences in a couple of important ways:

1) It turns out voters aren't all that interested in tax cuts. They'd rather see adequately funded public services.
2) For those who do want tax cuts, income taxes don't seem to be the thing they're most worried about.

Here's the skinny on the spending-hike-versus-tax-cut point:

• Among survey respondents who want to see any budget surpluses used for one-time expenses, road repair was the top choice (89 percent favor or strongly favor this option), following by paying off pension debt (75 percent) and hurricane recovery projects (71 percent). A one-time tax rebate came in a distant fourth place (57 percent).
• Among those who want to see surpluses used to pay for recurring spending needs, the two big favorites were health care for the insured (84 percent favor or strongly favor) and increasing teacher pay (82 percent). Permanent tax cuts were a distant third, with 59 percent approval.

Equally interesting is that for respondents who are mad about their taxes, the income tax appears to be the least of their worries. 50 percent of survey respondents now think that Louisiana sales taxes are too high. A smaller 40 percent of respondents think property taxes are too high, and just 33 percent of survey respondents thought income taxes were too high.

[As this chart from Fair Tax Louisiana shows, the survey respondents got it just about right: the only types of tax in Louisiana that are emphatically above average are sales and excise taxes. Income and property taxes just aren't that high.]

The conclusion to be drawn, according to LSU survey director Kirby Goidel:"[P]eople are less anti-tax than is commonly believed," Goidel said. "Most people realize this is a relatively low-tax state. What they want is value in what their money is spent for."

A Lawmaker's Guide to Targeted Tax Breaks

Alert observers of the just-beginning Louisiana legislative season probably noticed when a House committee approved what is universally described as a "tax cut for General Motors" last week.

So how do you enact a tax cut for just one company? Here's the clever way: call it a tax break for "machinery and equipment used by a motor vehicle manufacturer with a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code beginning with 3361." That's what the bill, House Bill 633, says.

This isn't to say that there's anything sneaky or underhanded about the bill's language, or even that the proposal is a bad one. There's open agreement among lawmakers that the proposed tax break, which weighs in at a cost of $1.2 million, is designed specifically to benefit the General Motors plant in Shreveport. No one's concealing this. And exempting manufacturing inputs from the sales tax is the right thing to do: sales taxes are supposed to fall on retail sales, not the costs incurred by manufacturers. But it's interesting to see how effortlessly lawmakers can channel tax breaks exactly where they want to without actually naming the beneficiary.