What Will Louisiana Legislature Do With $300-Million From Tax Amnesty Program?

Louisiana lawmakers are faced with an unfamiliar issue: what to do with $300-million. As residents of the Bayou State are all too aware, those who work in Baton Rouge are usually faced with FINDING more money, rather than it being the other way around.

Thanks to the response by taxpayers from the recent amnesty program and a surplus from last fiscal year, the coffers of the Louisiana treasury are filled to the tune of $300-million in unallocated cash.

And where's there's money to be divided, so are there disputes, for the list of needs is long and, unfortunately, the total surpasses even the large number which exists at the bottom of the current balance sheet. From highway projects that have been waiting by the side of the road to the rainy day fund that is getting drier by the year, and state public colleges that have taken blows from the budget-cutting ax six years in a row to state health care programs that are managing to fight the good fight despite feeling the blows year after year, legislators will have their work cut out for them when they meet in regular session to decide how much of that $300-million goes where in March.