After the Senate Finance Committee advanced HB 122 Thursday -- with less draconian cuts than its author Cameron Henry wanted -- the full House did pass the cigarette tax hike.
“It would bring in an additional 16 million in fiscal year ‘16; $47-million in fiscal year ’17,” its author, Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger explained.
But the House did little else to advance bills for alleviating the state budget shortfalls.
Over on the Senate floor, though, the stress of that little progress was showing as senators worked through the limited options passed on by the House.
Action led to frenetic humor with the car rental tax bill.
“This seeks to reinstitute a previous tax the Legislature tried to reinstitute on its own, and Governor Jindal vetoed it,” Senator J. P Morrell said, as he handled the bill authored by Rep. Julie Stokes.
Apparently the urge to do something had senators lining up to add amendments, dedicating the local penny of the tax to their area Councils on Aging.
After eight amendments were added, Morrell said, “I believe at this point the clown car is full, so we will send that car back to the House.”
An amendment to a bill which voids the credit for taxes paid to other states brought political opposites -- Republican Jack Donahue and Democrat Karen Carter Peterson – to the same side of the issue.
“Does this have a fiscal note?” Donahue asked the amendment’s author, Sen. Barrow Peacock.
“I requested a fiscal note on this. They don’t know what this will cost,” Peacock replied.
“How can you propose something, if you don’t know the cost of it?” Donahue demanded.
“The issue is, it’s double taxation,” Peacock responded.
Peterson then went to the mike to remonstrate with the Senate.
“So now we’re passing amendments that don’t have fiscal notes and we have no idea, but it decreases revenues? We look crazy!”
Senate President John Alario looked and sounded weary, as he ultimately told the body, “While it looks like we’re getting closer to solving this year’s problem, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we’re still far away from next year’s problem.”