While House leaders try to put together their version of the state budget, the state Senate got an early start on its own deliberations with a rare Sunday meeting of the Finance Committee. Gov. John Bel Edwards took the witness table and told the upper chamber that they don’t have much time to replace some of the nearly $1.4 billion in expiring tax revenue and avoid deep cuts to state services. The AP’s Melinda Deslatte:

“Inaction risks the health and lives of too many of our most vulnerable citizens,” he told the Senate Finance Committee, which later heard of health care programs proposed for elimination if deep cuts are levied. House Speaker Taylor Barras, a Republican, has said he supports a shortened regular session and plans for a second special session. But Barras hasn’t committed to a calendar proposed for making that early adjournment happen. As senators started digging into the details of next year’s spending plan, some Republicans on the Finance Committee also pushed back against the governor’s perspective. Sen. Sharon Hewitt, a Slidell Republican, said “there’s absolutely no guarantee” lawmakers will agree to taxes to fill budget gaps. Sen. Jim Fannin, a Jonesboro Republican, suggested the Edwards administration was asking for too much money.

The Revenue Estimating Conference – which decides on the official budget forecast – is scheduled to meet on Thursday, and is expected to recognize at least $300 million in additional income tax revenue for next year. The Advocate’s Elizabeth Crisp:

Edwards’ top budget architect, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, said Sunday that the administration expects the gap will be shrunken to about $692 million, thanks to a boost from the impact of Congress’ recent federal tax overhaul. “You can’t just dig around the edges and find what amounts to now about $700 million in general fund dollars,” he said.

Louisiana (still) needs a higher wage
A modest increase in Louisiana’s minimum wage to $8.50 per hour would provide a much-needed pay raise for an estimated 193,000 workers in the Pelican State. That’s according to a new report by LBP Policy Director Jeanie Donovan, which also shows how workers in the state’s seven largest metro areas would be affected by somewhat larger wage hikes that could happen if the Legislature agreed to let municipalities decide for themselves what wage levels are appropriate.

“An hour of hard work should be worth more than $7.25. Louisiana workers deserve better,” Donovan said. “The Legislature’s refusal to raise the minimum wage has left tens of thousands of working families living below the poverty line. If our elected officials can’t agree to a statewide minimum wage, the least they can do is let their constituents decide at the ballot by passing Senate Bill 252.”

The state Senate recently rejected legislation by Sen. Troy Carter to establish a state minimum wage of $8.50 per hour by 2020. A companion measure – SB 252 – is a constitutional amendment that would put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide. It is scheduled for debate this morning in the Senate Finance Committee.

The looming federal debt crisis

After declining for years, the federal budget deficit is rising sharply and on track to top $1 trillion next year, thanks in large part to the massive federal tax cut law signed by President Trump. Over time, rising debt will lead to higher interest rates and debt payments, which will make it harder for the federal government to finance other priorities. Four former chairs of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, writing in The Washington Post, explain the situation, and the long-term consequences of the tax cut.

The primary reason the deficit in coming years will now be higher than had been expected is the reduction in tax revenue from last year’s tax cuts, not an increase in spending. This year, revenue is expected to fall below 17 percent of gross domestic product — the lowest it has been in the past 50 years with the exception of the aftermath of the past two recessions. … The right way to do reform was to follow the model of the bipartisan tax reform of 1986, when rates were lowered while deductions were eliminated. Instead, the tax cuts passed last year actually added an amount to America’s long-run fiscal challenge that is roughly the same size as the preexisting shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare.

The racism behind 10-2 verdicts

Louisiana is one of only two states where a person can be sentenced to prison with a jury verdict that is not unanimous. A state constitutional provision that dates to the post-Civil War Reconstruction era allows criminal convictions even in cases where two jurors dissent. The Advocate’s John Simerman and Gordon Russell take an in-depth look at the origins of the split-jury law, and the ugly racism that led to its first implementation in 1898.

Tulane University history professor emeritus Lawrence Powell said the strength of the Afro-Creole movement in and around New Orleans may be why Louisiana, and no other Deep South state, took such a dramatic turn away from centuries of Anglo-Saxon tradition. But there is no mention of the divided-verdict rule in the convention’s official journal, and Powell argued that the delegates were careful to leave little record of their real intentions. “They were very cryptic, and it was almost self-consciously racially neutral. They had to use stratagems and ruses,” he said. Still, Thomas Semmes, a former Confederate senator who headed the convention’s judiciary committee, crowed that the delegates had fulfilled their mission “to establish the supremacy of the white race in this State to the extent to which it could be legally and constitutionally done.”

Montana is Medicaid work model
The director of Louisiana’s Medicaid program told lawmakers Sunday that there is no formal timeline for establishing a work requirement, and that the state is looking to Montana as a model for how such an initiative might work. Montana’s program does not specifically require people to work, but instead helps connect Medicaid recipients with work, training and educational opportunities. Nola.com/The Times-Picayune’s Julia O’Donoghue reports that the cost of establishing a work requirement could also be an issue in Louisiana, where state government faces a budget shortfall of at least $700 million:

In February, Republicans in the Legislature pushed some Medicaid work requirements as part of an overall budget fix that eventually collapsed. But legislative analysts expected such a program would cost the state money. Louisiana is in the middle of a major budget crisis, so that soured lawmakers on the idea. Most of the upfront work for a Medicaid work program would likely be covered by the federal government, but Louisiana would have to still put up some money for the initiative, according to health officials.

Number of the Day

64 – Percentage of the $1.6 billion budget shortfall that is due to the expiration of temporary taxes on June 30. The remaining 36 percent is due to other factors such as inflation, school enrollment and other budget factors (Source: Legislative Fiscal Office)