Senate Passes Sales Tax

The Louisiana Senate has passed a bill to raise the sales tax in Louisiana by a penny beginning on April 1st.

The increased tax from HB 62 would bring in about 210 million for this fiscal year (by the end of June 30th). That means the increase tax would generate about 70 million a month over the next 5 years. I did the math. That's 4.2 billion over five years. Does that mean we're not going to at least try to trim the budget between now and then? It sounds like we're just going to grow government some more.

The bill still has to go back to the House for concurrence.

Senators voting yes:

Barrow, Bishop, Boudreaux, Brown, Carter, Chabert, Colomb, Cortez, Donahue, Erdey, Gatti, Hewitt, Johns, LaFleur, Lambert, Long, Luneau, Martiny, Mills, Morrell, Morrish, Peterson, G. Smith, J.Smith, Tarver, Thompson, Ward, White.

Senators voting no on the sales tax:

Allain, Appel, Claitor, Fannin, Milkovich, Mizell, Peacock, Perry, Riser and Walsworth.