“As I understand it, we have competing bills.”
Thus began a lively debate between Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger and Prairieville Rep. Tony Bacala.
“I have introduced a bill to eliminate Earned Income Tax Credits, and the other bill is to double Earned Income Tax credits,” Bacala explained.
Leger, a Democrat, began with a bit of history, noting that the federal EITC was initiated by Louisiana’s former U.S. Senator, Russell Long.
“Former Senator Long didn’t believe in handouts; he believed in hand ups,” Leger said.
But that federal link is one of the reasons Bacala – a Republican – thinks it should go.
“The Earned Income Tax Credit is keyed off of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, so we’re tied to decisions in Washington that are going to affect us, and we have no control,” Bacala reasoned.
Leger, whose similar bill passed the House floor last year, argued doubling the EITC is a fair thing to do.
“Even with the EITC, the tax burden in Louisiana falls disproportionately on low income families.” Leger also observed, “This bill could serve as an opportunity to offset the regressive impacts that an additional penny of sales tax may have.”
Leger says doing away with the EITC would put Louisiana deeper into the hole, since “the Earned Income Tax Credit allows us to draw down $164-million in grants from the federal level.”
But Bacala believes, with limited resources available, state spending should continue to assist business and industry.
“When you grow industry, you grow the state,” Bacala said. “You offer jobs to people. And I think if we grow business, we grow opportunity. When we grow opportunity, we start fighting against poverty. Instead of treating it, we’re curing it.”
In closing on his bill, Bacala asked, “We’re in a budget crisis. All the choices we have are bad choices. So here it is: which ones are the worst of the bad?”
None of the choices –at least, not right now. Both bills were returned to the calendar for a later vote -- along with all the other revenue-raising measures still pending in the Ways and Means Committee.