Speaking of "off the shelf" tax subsidies

Three of the four candidates for the District 93 House seat were at an Alliance forum this week. They all sounded skeptical. 

Three candidates for the seat — Kenny Bordes, Royce Duplessis and Danil Faust — fielded questions Wednesday night from the Alliance for Good Government about how they believe the budget crisis should be resolved. (A fourth candidate, Eldon Anderson, did not attend.) All three said that the state needs to re-examine its tax exemptions in an effort to raise more revenue this year, and stave off the proposed cuts.

Duplessis, a private energy attorney and former chair of the City Planning Commission, said he would start by re-examining revenue opportunities by way of tax exemptions, ensuring that the state is getting a proper return on each of those investments.

“Simply saying we’re going to cut is not the answer,” Duplessis said, emphasizing that not even the governor wants to pass the budget he himself proposed.

Faust, a French Quarter bartender, said that such tax exemptions cost the state $3 billion in 2005 but have grown to represent $8 billion in lost revenue now, with some going to firms that do not even have employees. Instead of relying so heavily on personal income taxes that hurt workers, the state should derive more of its tax from property and industry, he said.

“You have a lot of companies that can work through these loopholes and get rebates,” Faust said.

Bordes's answer was slightly different in that he brought up a potential call for a constitutional convention to solve the problem. It all depends on the details, yadda yadda, but, we've mentioned before, that has the potential to create more problems than it solves.