Louisiana state legislators are back in Baton Rouge as a special session designed to reform the state's tax code gets under way.
The session is scheduled to last until November 25, and critics of the governor's plan say that 20-day schedule is not enough time to truly reform the state's tax laws.
"The first thing they need to do is probably punt this to the spring," Jan Moller, executive director of Invest in Louisiana said. "(Landry)'s trying to do both the largest changes to our tax system that we've seen in 50 years and the largest changes to our constitution that we've seen in more than 50 years, and he wants to do this in essentially two weeks."
Moller told WWL's Tommy Tucker that says waiting until the spring would give lawmakers ample time to discuss how these changes would impact the state's economy.
"Both of these are enormous undertakings, and both of these things deserve time and space for public debate for legislators to wrap their arms around," Moller said.
According to Moller, Landry's proposals they'll be discussing will hurt most Louisiana residents. That, he says, is reason enough to pump the brakes on Landry's plan.
"Louisiana already has the highest sales tax in the country when you combine the state and local sales tax that we pay," Moller said. "We are going to pass a massive income tax cut that's going to affect everybody, but mostly those at the very top, and an even bigger tax cut for corporations, mostly like large, profitable out-of-state/global corporations, and we're going to try to pay for this with sales taxes."
Moller told WWL's Tommy Tucker that the sales taxes that Landry is pitching to pay for those tax breaks will hurt lower- to middle-class Louisiana residents while doing little to fix the state budget.
"When we add it all up, we're still going to be left with a massive budget shortfall."
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