New Transportation Law Imperfect, But Reflects the Art of Compromise

One thing everyone seems to agree on is that the sweeping transportation bill passed by the Legislature and just signed by the governor isn’t perfect. But there’s also agreement that despite the shortcomings, it represents the state’s largest new investment in infrastructure in almost 40 years. You won’t see big changes overnight, but the new […]

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Legislative Session Produces Positive Results

By almost any measure, Louisiana lawmakers took up some weighty issues during the 2021 legislative session. The fact that they weren’t able to accomplish everything to the degree some had hoped at the outset, doesn’t diminish the fact that there were some major accomplishments this year. Even though this was a “fiscal” session of the […]

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Buddy Roemer Was A Reformer for Louisiana

The story of Buddy Roemer is the story of many who fight for reform. One of passionately embracing policies to make the state better, but running head first into the obstacles of the political status quo. Though he served just one tumultuous term as governor, he made a real difference for Louisiana. History should remember […]

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Making A Difference with Revenues from the American Rescue Plan

The governor has outlined his plan for spending the first half of a $3.2 billion windfall that will be coming to the state through the federal American Rescue Plan. Recently, members of the House of Representatives have offered up their ideas, too. No final decisions have been made, but there is one notion that continues […]

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A Chance for New Investment in Roads

The major fiscal story of this “fiscal” session of the Legislature has been tax reform. Those bills got off to a fast start and are still in play. But another potentially big issue that had been on the backburner earlier began to move this week. That one deals with transportation and infrastructure. In the months […]

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Tax Restructuring Bills Advance

They call this a fiscal session and that was certainly apparent in the first week of the 2021 legislative session. The Legislature’s two tax-writing committees held five meetings between them and advanced a handful of the major tax reform bills of the session. Bills that CABL is watching closely include: HB 199 by House Speaker […]

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2021 Legislative Session to Focus on Issues that Could Be Gamechangers

The legislative session starts this week and it’s a fiscal session in more ways than one. Not only is it that every-other-year session where the focus is mostly on money matters, but it’s one where lawmakers will try to sort out a plan for spending a windfall of federal covid-relief dollars. The combination of those […]

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K-12 Education Sees Huge Influx of Federal Recovery Funds

It’s almost hard to comprehend, but from April of 2020 to today the federal government has earmarked roughly $4.6 billion to K-12 education in Louisiana as a response to the COVID pandemic. That’s a lot of cash. Much of it is going to cover or reimburse real-world expenses directly related to the coronavirus. We don’t […]

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2021 Legislative Issues – Fiscal Policies

This year’s legislative session starts in April, and CABL will be working with our RESET Louisiana partners, PAR, and the Committee of 100, on a full legislative agenda. Prior to the session we are highlighting some of the issues we will be focusing on. This time, we look at state fiscal policies.  In 2019, RESET […]

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2021 Legislative Issues – Higher Education

This year’s legislative session starts in April, and CABL will be working with our RESET Louisiana partners PAR and the Committee of 100 on a full legislative agenda. Prior to the session we are highlighting some of the issues we will be focusing on. Here’s a look at higher education. The good news for higher […]

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