EDITORIAL: Local Costs, State Burdens
Advocate (excerpt)

A limited tax base of local government means that more burdens come the way of the State Capitol. The governor has talked often in the current budget crisis about a “sustainable” level of state spending. Whatever that level turns out to be, the cost of services — fire, police, street repairs — for local government is going to be there.

A home exempt from property tax is not exempt from the need for a fire department when it catches fire. True, Louisiana has some desperately poor regions where the property tax base would be low even if the homestead exemption were to be repealed entirely. But the cost-shift for a higher homestead exemption would over time put more demands for state spending on Jindal and legislators.

Broadening the base, so that everybody pays a little, is one of the fundamentals of a stable tax system. Raising the exemption almost ensures that locals will come hat-in-hand to the State Capitol, again and again.