re: Does JBE win re-election?

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The chicken or the egg.

May of 2018 they raised sales taxes .45 cents. If they did not, we would still have a surplus. If Trump's tax cut wouldn't have happened, we'd have an even bigger surplus.

Edwards was asked during a debate if he'd roll back taxes, he said no. He wants to keep it for the state.

With Edwards the state comes first. That's the problem. He doesn't put people first.

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Well here is my take on the tax thing. What has actually happened as a result of Trumps Federal tax law change in 2017 is that Louisiana's tax code is defacto back to the Stelly plan, which IMO, should have never been undone. So all the folks responsible for it, Ms. Blanco, God Bless her soul, MR. JIndal, JBE who voted to repeal it, and all the others, caused the so called fiscal cliffs LA had starting say in 2012-2013 to here recently.

LA's state tax code is tied to the Federal tax code in some ways different that most other states. Historically, if you itemized your deductions, excess itemized deductions on your Federal return, i.e. lets say those not meeting the requirements to take them, could be deducted on the state return. If you took the Federal Standard Deduction, that state tax code provision for itemized deductions did not apply to you. Well, the Federal Standard deduction has basically been doubled so more and more LA taxpayers, me included, who use to itemize on the FED return, now go standard deduction. That means you lower your Federal taxes, but you might pay a little more in State LA tax given how are laws are written relative to the Federal.

So here is my position, I think you will here Economist, Tax attorneys, tax CPAs, etc say that LA's budget and revenue estimates for the next few years are in relatively good shape and we are in terms of fiscal policy, back to where we were under Stelly. So with these Surpluses, rather than "Spend the money" and start cutting taxes again, put it into General Fund Surplus accounts and use it in the future to plug budget holes rather than 1)Gutting HIgher ED, which Jindal did in fact do and 2) raising the sales tax, which JBE did.

After a few years under this new fiscal reality (i.e. Defacto, back to Stelly plan in essence), if we can keep are budget in order, i.e. spending on the right things, Higher ed, infrastructure under with the tax revenues we are getting now, then you can roll back the sales tax to what it was in the said Stelly era which was 4%.

My concern is that Rispone will do what Jindal did. JBE at least has said he regrets gutting Stelly. Well, we are in fact in reality back to a tax structure that we were in the Stelly plan era 2001 to 2007 before Ms. Blanco signed the first of the roll backs, then Jindal did the rest of them, except for the 4.45% vs. 4% sales tax.

My hope leave the state tax code alone for 2 years and if we can keep the fiscal house in order, then to a tax cut on the 4.45 sales tax and bring it back to the 4% in the Stelly era.