John Bel Edwards' Fiscal Policies get an F

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John Bel Edwards is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and he served
eight years with the U.S. Army as an airborne ranger. Edwards went on to serve in the state legislature
before being elected governor in 2015.
Edwards has spent much of his two and a half years in office pushing for higher taxes. Facing
a budget shortfall in 2016, Edwards embraced a slew of tax increases. He signed into law higher
taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, health care providers, vehicle rentals, business inventories, and other
items, in addition to increasing corporate franchise taxes and broadening the sales tax base.108
The 2016 deal also included a “temporary” increase in the sales tax rate from 4 percent to
5 percent. However, when that hike was set to expire in 2018, Edwards and the legislature decided
to retain about half of the increase for another seven years, so the state’s sales tax rate
currently sits at 4.45 percent.109 Louisiana’s government will also receive a revenue infusion of
more than $200 million a year because the state’s tax code automatically conformed to the 2017
federal law.110
In 2017, Edwards proposed a gross receipts tax which would have raised more than $400 million
per year, but the state legislature quickly shot down the bill.111

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