Could Louisiana End the State Income Tax?

Louisiana lawmakers met this week to discuss a surprising topic: Eliminating Louisiana's State Income Tax. Am I dreaming?  Lawmakers are actually looking to eliminate a tax?  I'm not getting too excited at this point. I remember well the discussion back in the 90's when Steve Forbes, of Forbes Magazine, ran for president.  The hot topic for his campaign was changing the national tax code to the flat tax.  And we can see now where that went.

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Just this week the House Ways & Means Committee held it's first meeting to actually evaluate whether or not the state could eliminate the state's income tax and still be able to pay for government services currently being provided.  Kudos to Mandeville Republican Representative Richard Nelson for saying what we've all known for years, that Louisiana's outdated and overly-complicated tax code is running businesses and people out of the state.

“”We’re a banana republic that has run out of bananas. We need a new direction. We need new ideas, and I think that this committee can help bring that forward,” Nelson said.  “Texas, our neighbor to the west, grew six times faster than we did. Florida is about the same. what do they have in common? They have no income tax”

Now we know if the state eliminated the state income tax, which generates $4 Billion in revenue, that money would have to be made up elsewhere.  This would mean possibly raising property and sales taxes, as well as eliminating various tax exemptions.