2 Weeks Left; La. Budget Woes Still Unsolved

With only two weeks left in the legislative session, lawmakers are not close to agreeing on a budget for next fiscal year and addressing the loss of over a billion dollars in temporary taxes that are set to expire in July 2018. That’s according to Jeremy Alford of LaPolitics.com.

“Two weeks to go, there’s no compromise on the budget yet. Next year’s $1.3 billion fiscal cliff isn’t likely to be addressed in full.”

Alford says the majority in the House despise creating new taxes to solve a looming budget deficit, while the majority in the Senate and the governor believe that is the solution. He says there is no clear path for where this session will end.

“It’s a wait and see process, a lot of what’s going on is a political game of chase. The House is staring at the Senate, the Senate is staring at the House, the legislature is staring at the governor and I would bet the governor is wondering the same thing as us, exactly what’s going to happen.”

Alford says while action on the budget is stagnant, the legislature is moving ahead with criminal justice reform. He says the package that lawmakers will agree on is not as ambitious as what the governor originally proposed.

“But I think the governor, at the end of the day, will be able to say he brokered some compromises and put some notable policies on the books.”