The legislative session is nearing its midpoint, and so far the House Ways and Means Committee – where revenue proposals must start – has yet to pass a single instrument that would help avert the nearly $1.5 billion “fiscal cliff” in 2018. That could change this week, as the panel has 40 tax bills on its agenda for today and Tuesday. The Advocate’s Tyler Bridges sets the scene:

Hanging in the balance is whether lawmakers can forge an agreement on the budget that must be in place by July 1, the start of the 2018 fiscal year, or whether they will dissolve into the type of partisan gridlock bedeviling Washington. Also at stake is whether they will solve the following year’s fiscal cliff, which is on the agenda this year because the Legislature cannot raise taxes next year during its regular session. “If these expiring taxes are not replaced with stable, recurring revenues, it would create unprecedented hardship for Louisiana’s universities, health care providers and others who depend on state resources,” Jan Moller, the director of the Louisiana Budget Project, a left-of-center nonprofit in Baton Rouge, wrote to Ways and Means members on Monday. “Restoring stability to the state budget – and creating more certainty for businesses and potential investors – cannot wait another year.”

It’s been largely a mystery so far what the panel’s powerful chairman, Rep. Neil Abramson, and House leaders have in mind. The AP’s star reporter, Melinda Deslatte, reports that Abramson is leading a faction of legislators who see a constitutional rewrite as the best solution to the state’s chronic fiscal problems.

While it’s still a long-shot approach, more interest is building for a wholesale redraft of at least the part of the Louisiana Constitution that deals with government finances. “We all know the process is broken,” said Rep. Neil Abramson, a New Orleans Democrat who is sponsoring legislation that could lead to a constitutional convention. “This provides an opportunity to try to go in and create a fix.” It’s been more than 40 years since Louisiana’s last constitutional convention, and the once slim volume of guiding policies for state government has grown thicker nearly every year.

The inimitable Jim Beam of the Lake Charles American-Press notes that the House version of the budget manages to both micromanage Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration while at the same time giving very little direction on how to implement the budget cuts they seek.

Language in the budget bill forbids the Edwards administration from cutting the public-private hospital partnerships that took over the state’s charity hospital system by more than $31 million. … House leaders also want agencies experiencing budget shortfalls to eliminate their vacant positions first. Any vacancies they want to keep would have to be approved by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. After laying out all those ground rules, the House GOP leadership told the Edwards administration it would have to decide where to make the $235 million in health care cuts. Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans and the No. 2 man in the House, said, “It’s a transparent attempt to cut the budget deeply and hide those facts by telling the Division of Administration to do the dirty work.”

LBP’s Nick Albares lays out the key tax bills the Ways & Means Committee will consider, and their potential fiscal impact, in a new blog.

Medicaid work requirements

The Advocate’s Elizabeth Crisp had a front-page story about Sen. Sharon Hewitt’s effort to impose a work requirement on adult Medicaid recipients. She notes that the matter is likely to be studied in the coming year before the state decides whether to ask the Trump administration for a federal waiver of Medicaid rules.

“I feel very strongly that as a state this is an issue we are going to have to come to grips with,” said state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, a Slidell Republican who proposed the idea to the state Legislature this session. “The growth is unsustainable.”

Unfortunately, the story left out some important context. It failed to mention that Hewitt agreed to study the issue after a bill she sponsored (SB 188) could not get support in the Senate Health & Welfare Committee due to opposition from a broad range of health care provider and consumer groups. For more on why work requirements are bad policy, read this report by LBP’s Jeanie Donovan.

Business inventory tax in the crosshairs

Louisiana is one of only a handful of state that charges a property tax on business inventories. But in true Louisiana fashion, the companies that pay the tax at the local level get most of it back from the state in the form of a credit. But Sen. Bret Allain is proposing to phase out the tax altogether over the next 10 years – which would save the state money by eliminating the credit, but would deprive cash-strapped local governments of an important revenue source. The Advocate’s Tyler Bridges looks at the politics behind the inventory tax:

Lawmakers and lobbyists agree any plan to phase out the inventory tax must also provide local governments with enough revenue from another tax to offset the phase-out. Local officials don’t believe this is possible under Allain’s plan, however. Allain insists it is, and he proposes to eliminate the inventory tax gradually through changes he will offer to Senate Bill 26 when it is before the full Senate on Tuesday. He says an executive order issued last year by Gov. John Bel Edwards to shave a popular tax break known as the industrial tax exemption would produce enough revenue to make up the difference for local governments.

Bob Mann on Alton Sterling

Columnist Robert Mann uses the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the Baton Rouge officers who killed Alton Sterling to look at the ways race – and poverty – affect the way justice is carried out in Louisiana and elsewhere.

Indulge me a time-travel thought exercise. Take me back to July 5, 2016, and put me in Sterling’s place for his encounter with police. An officer would not jam his gun to my head and bark, as one of the Sterling family’s lawyers reported, “Bitch, I’m gonna kill you.” No one would die. That’s not because of my superior survival skills. It’s, rather, because I am white. Over the 40-plus years I have owned a car, I’ve been pulled over by police a few times. Early on, I was fearful I couldn’t afford to pay the ticket; in more recent years, I’m fearful of the impact on my auto insurance rates. Never once, however, have I worried the officer emerging from his squad car would harm me. That’s because white people don’t have such fears. Black people do every day.

Number of the Day

186 – Number of times Louisiana’s constitution has been amended since it was implemented in 1974 (Source: PAR, Louisiana Secretary of State)