Louisiana Governor Campaigns in Shreveport for Amendment 2 Ahead of Election

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry is crisscrossing the state ahead of Saturday’s election in support of constitutional amendment 2. That statewide campaign included a stop to speak with the Rotary Club in downtown Shreveport on Tuesday.
If approved, Amendment 2 would become the most significant revision of Louisiana’s constitution in half a century. The amendment would cap the income tax rate to a flat 3%, in its revision of Article VII. The measure would also double the standard deduction for seniors 65 and older from $12,500 to $25,000. And Amendment 2 would reduce the corporate income tax to 5.5% and eliminate the corporate franchise tax, among the many proposed changes.
Governor Landry told the audience at the Shreveport Convention Center that none of those changes are possible unless people go out and vote. Otherwise there are potentially dire consequences. “I mean it. We can’t give teachers a permanent pay raise. We can’t give a double deduction to our seniors to keep them in Louisiana. We can’t lower your income taxes and ultimately get your income tax down to zero. We can’t manage the financial affairs of the state. We can’t put a limit on government spending.”
Critics point out that capping the income tax rate to a flat 3% is good news for everyone, except the people who earn less than $12,500 a year. They only pay 1.85% right now. So this would be a tax hike for the poorest residents in Louisiana. The impact is greater when you consider that the state’s poverty rate stands at 18.6%, the second highest in the country, well above the national poverty rate of 11.5%, according to U.S. Census data.
Further compounding the challenges facing Louisiana’s poorest citizens, lawmakers increased the state’s sales tax to 5%, which went into effect on January 1, 2025, as well. Louisiana’s combined state and local sales tax rate comes to 10.12%, the highest in the U.S. That’s according to the latest rankings by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research think tank in Washington D.C. A sales tax is known as a “regressive tax” because it takes a larger percentage of income away from those who earn less money. In all, there are four proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot for Saturday, March 29, 2025. The polls in Louisiana are open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.