EDITORIAL: Lawmakers should delay tax breaks to save higher education
Times-Picayune (excerpt)

State Senate leaders hope to reduce deep, damaging cuts to higher education by delaying an increase in state income tax deductions, and that course of action makes fiscal sense for Louisiana. Senate Bill 335 would not increase state income taxes, as some opponents are claiming. Louisianians who itemize on their federal taxes -- about one in every five state taxpayers -- still would be able to deduct 65 percent of their federal excess itemized deductions when they file their state returns next year.

That deduction was due to increase to 100 percent under a phase-in adopted by the Legislature last year. But SB 335, sponsored by Rep. Lydia Jackson of Shreveport, would delay the final part of the phase-in until 2012.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has indicated that he would veto such a measure, and House Speaker Jim Tucker predicts that the bill, which passed the Senate tax policy committee and now heads to the full Senate, will face a hard time in the House. Members there will view it as a tax increase, he said.

But the state surely will feel the impact of $219 million in cuts to higher education, which is what's called for in Gov. Jindal's budget. Although the House has taken steps to soften those cuts, restoring about $100 million, half of that money is expected from an amnesty program for tax scofflaws that may or may not produce the estimated results. Higher education officials fear that won't help much in the next academic year.

Rep. Tucker says that the Senate measure would simply delay the inevitable, especially since more budget shortfalls are forecast. But a more thoughtful approach to cuts in something as critical as our state's colleges and universities is surely preferable

Sen. Jackson said that she fears "generational wounds on higher education." That's a valid concern, one that lawmakers in the House and Gov. Jindal should share.