If the votes on the alcohol tax increase are an accurate indication, a new alliance in the House between Democrats and moderate Republicans may leave the hard-line conservatives who’ve been holding up the revenue-raisers hung out to dry.
Though the alcohol tax hike failed to pass by 5 votes on Friday, it came up again Sunday evening.
Shreveport Republican Thomas Carmody had an amendment.
“This amendment would sunset the increase in the alcohol tax after a 36-month period.”
New Orleans Democrat Walt Leger had some questions.
“Do you know the last time when these taxes were increased?” Leger asked.
“I do not, no sir,” Carmody replied.
“Would it surprise you if told you that beer tax hadn’t been increased since 1948?” Leger pressed. “And so, I’m struggling with why we need to sunset this tax.”
“I’m worried about the idea that what we’re going to do is basically perceived as ‘tax everything that moves’ and making sure that we tax it forever going forward,” Carmody responded.
Representative Dorothy Sue Hill of Dry Creek then suggested it might be fairer to make the sunset 68 years, instead of 3, since that’s how long it had been since the tax was last increased.
Baton Rouge Democrat Pat Smith had more questions for Carmody.
“You were here when we had a $1-billion surplus, and what did we do with it?” she asked.
“I think we appropriated the best we could, but we spent it like drunken sailors,” Carmody responded.
“Oh, like drunken sailors? And we didn’t do anything to raise any money on the drunken sailors that were out there, did we?” Smith fired back. “We give it away in tax credits and tax exemptions, am I correct?”
“You are correct,” Carmody responded, reluctantly.
The amendment failed, but the tax passed, 76-25.
Further, a bill that would remove exemptions from an already-existing penny of sales tax came within 4 votes of passing, and will be considered again today. It’s the alternative to a plan business and industry has been pushing – to raise the sales tax by yet another penny.
The governor says that is the wrong thing to do.