The Senate Finance Committee is expected to take up legislation this week that would dedicate a portion of the state’s sale tax that is set to expire in 2025 to infrastructure.
Port Allen Senator Rick Ward’s bill would take the .45% sales tax that is set to drop in four years and move it out of the state general fund and into an infrastructure trust fund over a three-year period starting in 2022. Ward said by 2025 his proposal would generate 350 to 380 million dollars a year to build new infrastructure and repair Louisiana’s crumbling roads and bridges.
“There is only one other state out of the 50 states in this country that has gone longer than Louisiana without making a new investment into infrastructure,” said Ward.
Ward said the legislation lays out some of the early “mega project” priorities that would be tackled should this proposal get approved including a new bridge over the Mississippi in the Capital Region, a new Calcasieu River Bridge in Lake Charles, I-49 South from Lafayette to New Orleans, and a number of other projects from North Louisiana to the North Shore.
Ward said this is a chance for lawmakers to back up all the talking they do about making infrastructure investment a priority.
“We have got to find a way to do something I mean our infrastructure is literally crumbling around us,” said Ward.
The bill would have to move fast as the session is set to end on June 10th.
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