re: Jon Bel wants massive tax increases

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How the "Republican" senate puts democrats in charge of the three most important committees: Finance, Rev and Fisc and Govt Affairs is baffling to me. Say what you about Alario is he a heck of a skilled politician.

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The Senate is a bunch of RINO's. There's a few real republicans in there, but when you combine the card carrying democrats with the former democrats that turned coats during the Jindal Administration, you get a solid majority, same as in the U.S. Senate. The governor has a ton of power to extort legislators via the line-item veto. Oppose the governor and risk your district being cut off from infrastructure funding for the foreseeable future. If there's a University in your district, that goes double.

The House has enough real republicans to occassionally put up a fight, but the Senate is Edwards's b&%#h. When Jon-Bel says "jump", the Senate asks "how high?"

I actually tend to agree with most of that. We will obviously have to increase (or renew) taxes this session and as a conservative that pains me to say because I know all of that revenue will be pissed away. We absolutely HAVE to look at reigning in costs for the future. Rep. Barras' spending cap proposal will probably be the most important piece of legislation this year IMO. It requires a few factors to be met before state spending can increase: Regional CPI, personal income levels, population growth, and the price of oil. Plus it caps the spending increase to no more than 6% even if those factors are met.

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So essentially he wants to keep taxes level?

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no it looks like no matter what they will go back down to some degree

Jeff Landry is not Troy Landry's cousin.

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Screw that. Redo the LA Constitution and remove all the "protected" tax breaks the politicians have inserted over the years. Each year every friggin program should be reviewed to see if the program is no longer needed or if the funds can be reduced, etc.

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Agree. Politicians have been blaming the constitution for the last decade but no one has had the balls to step up and call for a convention. Surely it has to happen in the next 5 years, right?

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As long as the money is being spent on programs that benefit the gowth of the state I don't see an issue with this. Problem is I don't trust that moon faced idiot. Per LA politician standards this is just an opportunity to make LA Dems interests richer as opposed to LA Republican's.

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And there's your problem. JBE could have proposed some spending reforms and some cuts and the House's argument would be a lot weaker. Instead he went the 100% revenue route.

Now the House could have countered with a bunch of cuts and actual spending reforms but they didn't want to stick out their necks.

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That is so true. The Jindal era cuts really didn’t get us anywhere, did they? Now we are so broke we are raising taxes to cover already existing obligations. This is where republican economics and tax policies get you. We are raising taxes to fight off default. Totally sucks.

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Redo the LA Constitution

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Agree. Politicians have been blaming the constitution for the last decade but no one has had the balls to step up

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The issue isn't that they don't have the balls to do it. Instead, they really just want to kick the can down the road and enjoy using the LA Constitution as an excuse. You can bet that it would get done if it were important to them.

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The fact Dardenne is now on Edwards staff means JBE’s greatest opponent won’t challenge him.

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lol Dardenne is a clown that had no business running in the first place. He's nowhere near the conservative he claims he is and he gave up that claim not only endorsing JBE but also working for him.

He couldn't even beat Vitter who was running a terrible campaign.

Dardenne would get his mud hole stomped even bigger than 2015.