Here’s how Louisiana’s biggest business group wants lawmakers, Jeff Landry to govern

 The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, arguably Baton Rouge’s most powerful lobbying group, wants state lawmakers next spring to pass many of the same tax cuts and business-friendly laws the group has pushed in years past.

Those include eliminating the corporate franchise and business inventory taxes, centralizing sales tax collection and changing the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program to help manufacturers, according to a proposal the group’s leaders presented to this newspaper’s editorial board on Monday.

LABI’s report, LA23, also pitches new initiatives for attracting workers, bolstering early-childhood educational resources and reducing crime. Crime has dropped since the COVID-19 pandemic but business leaders remain convinced it’s hurting their profits, the report says.

The report says Louisiana is facing a potential exodus of industries because business leaders are unhappier than ever: 87% of 526 such leaders the group surveyed said Louisiana’s “business climate” is worsening, with many citing an inadequate workforce and pricey insurance, among other factors.

“We’ve got to change our direction,” said Jim Patterson, a longtime governmental affairs director for LABI who’s served as interim president for the past few months.

LABI is among a handful of lobbying groups that wield immense influence over the Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature.

Its policies are routinely criticized by progressive groups and Democratic lawmakers, who face a supermajority of Republicans in both chambers of the statehouse. Jan Moller, director of the nonprofit Louisiana Budget Project, which backs tax and budget policies that it says help poor and working people, said the LA23 plan contains promising shifts from LABI on early childhood programs and other issues.

But the sweeping tax cuts detailed in the plan came with few answers for how to fund those programs, Moller said. 

“I really do appreciate they understand the importance of investing in kids…but there’s just an inherent contradiction between what they want and what they’re willing to pay for,” Moller said. 

The proposed cuts coincide with forecasts that Louisiana’s tax inflow will decrease by hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the coming years when a temporary .45-cent sales tax rolls off the state’s books. The state’s general fund is projected to be further reduced by the diversion of other tax collections to transportation projects.

Lawmakers and fiscal staffers have debated the true scope of the so-called “fiscal cliff” amid repeated surpluses in recent years worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Still, lawmakers have proposed few solutions to the impending revenue drop-off. 

How effective LABI can be going forward may hinge on the receptiveness to its agenda of Attorney General Jeff Landry, the state’s Republican governor-elect. Landry is a firebrand conservative but ran a gentler campaign before winning the governor’s office outright in the Oct. 14 primary. 

Former LABI president Stephen Waguespack left his post to run for governor as a Republican and finished in third place in the primary. He was one of few candidates to openly criticize Landry on the campaign trail.

A Landry spokesperson declined to comment on LABI’s proposals. Landry has said he would retain elements of current Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ sweeping Industrial Tax Exemption Program reforms, which LABI wants to roll back.

Asked in an interview last month how the group would work with a Landry governorship, incoming CEO Will Green said LABI is ready to collaborate with any governor that embraces its agenda.