Louisiana, run by Progressive-Democrats since Bobby Jindall was term-limited out of office, is facing a $1.5 billion deficit as “temporary” tax increases implemented earlier begin to expire.  Jay Dardenne, the center-left Republican Commissioner of Administration, Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards’ chief budget officer, says that “devastating” spending cuts would be necessary absent a renewal of the tax increases or enactment of other tax increases.

Devastating: among those are additional reductions in higher education. This is misleading from a State official whose State already objects to school choice and to successful voucher schools in the K-12 range—because they take money away from badly failing public schools.  Except they don’t.  The State funds the public schools on a per-student basis, but when a student leaves for a voucher school, he takes less than his full allotment of funds with him, leaving the “losing” public school fiscally net better off.

It’s misleading, too, because higher education has an inflated tuition and fee structure supported by all that government funding (the Feds are contributors to this inflation with their own money transfers to the higher ed institutions), leaving those students fiscally net worse off.

Other areas facing spending reductions are tear-jerker “child-welfare” programs and “other” state agencies.  Never mind that these facilities waste the funds allocated with their high bureaucratic overhead and middle-man frictions.  And in the case of welfare (not just child), through uncertain enforcement.

No, the only ones truly facing serious spending reductions are the lobbyists and the Progressive-Democrats’ (and too many Republicans’) cronies.

It’s past time for a $1.5 billion reduction in State spending.  Louisiana needs to leave the money in the citizens’ hands, and it needs to stop competing with the private sector in providing goods and services and in acquiring resources for its own (unnecessary) functioning.

Republicans disagree among each other about the deductibility on Federal personal tax returns of property and sales taxes levied by States, with most of the objections coming from Republicans whose constituents are in high-tax States (which is to say, primarily Progressive-Democrat-led States like New York and California).  I’ve written elsewhere about the nature of that beef.

In my infinite wisdom, I offer a couple of alternatives for compromise.

One is to allow Federal income taxpayers to deduct either their State’s property tax or its sales tax, but not both.  Another is to allow the deductibility of both, but only part of the taxes—say 50%—not all of them.

In either case, after a year or two for transition/adjustment by both the taxpayer and the State of which he’s a citizen, eliminate altogether the deductibility of State taxes on individual Federal income tax returns.

The NLMSM touts the deductibility as Federal government redistributions, but the plain fact is those redistributions are of the monies paid by citizens of other States laundered through the Federal government.

I repeat my chorus: there’s no reason the citizens of Texas or Illinois should pay for the spending decisions of New York or California.  It’s true enough that all the States are in the Union together, and we’re all bound to help each other.  But that’s a two-way street: no State should be creating itself a burden on the other 49 by being irresponsible in its spending and taxing and then demanding those others make it whole from its foolishness.