By Jim Beam
American Press
May 24th, 2009
“A tax increase by any other name is still a tax increase. Members of the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee would have you believe otherwise, but don’t buy it.
The committee last week decided unanimously to freeze a tax break citizens are supposed to get when they file their 2009 state income tax forms next spring. The goal is to free up $118 million for the state’s higher education institutions.
Officials who run those institutions apparently aren’t aware the country is in one of its worst recessions since the Great Depression. People are losing their jobs by the millions, but that fact seems to have eluded those who live in their ivory towers…
Taxpayers are supposed to be able to deduct 100 percent of those excess federal itemized deductions next spring, but [State Senator Lydia] Jackson’s bill would only give them 65 percent. If that move produces an additional $118 million for the state treasury for each of the next three years, someone please explain how that isn’t a tax increase.
Gov. Bobby Jindal moved quickly to say he opposes the Senate committee’s plan.
‘I don’t think the right answer is to take money out of the pockets of Louisianians,’ the governor said. ‘We have said all along that we would veto any legislation that delays tax relief for Louisianians.’
Jindal obviously believes this is a tax increase.
The only people who don’t view this move as a tax increase appear to be members of the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee and the higher education officials who support it…
Jindal and Tucker say now is the time to make the difficult budget cuts, because the next two years are going to be even worse…
Any budget cuts hurt. The millions of Americans who have been laid off in the private sector are living testimony to that reality. But it’s a fact of life they are forced to accept.
Why should higher education be immune from its share of the pain? Most taxpayers find it hard to believe that there isn’t some fat in higher education that could be trimmed with a minimum of disruptions…
We are all in this economic downturn together. Many people have already made sacrifices, and conditions may get even worse. There is no better time to face the harsh realities of this economic downturn.
Raising taxes isn’t the solution, and no amount of double-talk is going to make citizens believe this freeze is anything but a tax increase.”
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