#255 Tax Cut Wins & Ready Red Pens w/ Rep. Dixon McMakin

In this episode Louisiana State Representative Dixon McMakin discusses recent legislative efforts addressing the state’s bloated budget and proposing significant tax reforms. Key points include the drive to reduce state income tax, challenges in cutting government spending, and improving the state's economic attractiveness. Dixon shares his commitment to fostering a business-friendly environment and holding government accountable, aiming for streamlined operations and better fiscal efficiency.
SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY:
1 John 4:7-13 TPT
 
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KEY POINTS:

Show more

00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks
00:40 Podcast Overview and Mission
01:29 Guest Introduction: Dixon McMakin
01:50 Scripture of the Day
04:17 Fraternus Organization and Community Impact
06:02 Legislative Session Insights
08:01 Economic Developments and Business Climate
12:11 Tax Reforms and Future Plans
21:22 Challenges and Reporting Issues
26:41 Identifying Bureaucratic Waste
27:30 Bacon with McMakin: Engaging Constituents
29:49 Fiscal Responsibility Task Force
32:44 Insurance and Tax Challenges in Louisiana
37:09 Cutting Government Spending
46:39 Concluding Thoughts and Future Plans

Danielle WALKER (00:01.028)
Joining us today is Louisiana State Rep, Dixon McMakIn from District 68. Last time he joined us, he was a candidate and today he's in the hot seat to talk with us about the recent special session on tax and budget. Before we get into that hot, hot topic, before we get too riled up, let me read the scripture of the day. It's 1 John chapter four, verses seven to 13. And it says, those who love

Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him. The one who doesn't love has yet to know God for God is love. The light of God's love shined within us when he sent his matchless son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love. He loved us long before we loved him.

It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his son to be the pleasing, sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then our loving one another should be our way of life. No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God's splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him. And his love is brought to its full expression in us.

and He has given us His Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that He lives in us and that we live in Him. And if Holy Spirit lives in us as a result of our faith in Jesus, then love should be the evidence of that in our lives. And I feel like this time we are that we're in right now, leading into Christmas is supposed to be a time of personal reflection.

prayer and recalibration. Many of us have been so consumed with life, with a special session, with elections, that it is time to get quiet and spend some time with the Lord. For me, I've had to make some adjustments so that I can make sure I'm on the right track. And there's no greater indicator for whether I'm on the right track than how I respond to and engage the people around me, my family, people I work with.

Danielle WALKER (02:16.592)
And some good questions to ask in light of this passage are, I operating from a place of love? Are my responses and reactions to my family ones that make them feel loved? And I hope this passage serves as an encouragement to carve out some time to spend with the Lord and make some of those adjustments so we can be operating from love in these weeks leading into Christmas.

Chris ALEXANDER (02:40.823)
Wow, what a great scripture passage today, Danielle. You know, the evidence of God being present in us is the way that we love each other. Our guest today, Dixon Macon.

really has put that into practice with an organization called fraternist. I know this is not really the topic of the day, but I have to acknowledge Dixon McMacon and the influence that he and other men who started that organization have had on my son and on so many other young men throughout the community, teaching them how to live lives of virtue, hope and love. And Dixon takes time out of his busy

busy schedule to help form and influence young men coming along. Dixon, it's really a pleasure to have you with us today and thank you for all the good work that you do. Non-political in the community,

Dixon McMakin (03:39.443)
Yeah, thanks Chris for that. started a few years ago at St. Aloisius. We're part of a group from Alabama and we wanted something that kind of combined, you know, all those different groups that you have on most church campuses, right? have a night to Columbus, have a men's club, you got a youth group. This was the first time kind of putting them all together and really the goal was for young men, medium men, old men to interact and to get back to the basics.

principles of the Bible with virtues and to be virtuous men and you know our goal is to hear from moms that those young men are better sons we want to hear from the wives that their husbands are better husbands we want to hear from kids that my dad's a better dad now too and just getting simple and that's something that I think too I also take the government side of things too sometimes simpler can be better we don't need to be so complicated where we are and

Godly focused people that we try to be.

Chris ALEXANDER (04:37.111)
Yeah, such a great point. Sometimes we tend to make things more complex than they need to be. And Christ's message, really, it's not an easy message, but it's a very simple message to understand, not always easy to live out. But, Dixon, let's get to the legislative session, most recent past. What

Danielle WALKER (04:37.541)
Yeah.

Chris ALEXANDER (05:01.331)
good in your view came out of the session as we move forward. know you were knee deep in it.

Dixon McMakin (05:09.444)
Yeah, thanks. So this was our fifth session of the year. We have an organizational one, regular, and three specials. So we haven't done five sessions since 1994.

Danielle WALKER (05:13.136)
you

Danielle WALKER (05:19.544)
I feel like you went in as a freshman and you came out as a senior.

Chris ALEXANDER (05:24.207)
A graduate student.

Dixon McMakin (05:24.783)
Yep.

One of our, don't really shave, I have much facial hair, but they're like, man, if you would have, you could have a full beard through all this time you spent up there. But I think there was a group of us, our freshman class in particular, that came in and we wanted to get to work. We always voted to come back. We wanted to be there. We wanted to get to work. And so the first thing I think that you saw with our class and group we have in there now, the governor, Governor Jeff Landry, is a group that wants to get to work.

You don't call special sessions if you don't want to tackle a tough issue and get to work. So I think the first thing, Chris, your question is this, the governor called a special session and we wanted to be there and get to work. That in itself shows the steps that our group is taking to attract businesses here, get people back here. Because if we didn't do that, we would have said, we can just wait till 2025 when we have a fiscal session.

Collectively it was why wait? Why wait? We've been waiting too long to turn the ship of our state around. So let's get to work, let's get in there. And I think we accomplished a good bit. Did we get everything we set out to do in the governor's call? No, we didn't quite get all of it, but we got a well over majority of it, which I think we're already starting to see the benefits of that, talking to some economic leaders around the state.

Danielle WALKER (06:52.56)
Great. What are you hearing from economic leaders across the state? When we had on Senator Thomas Presley before the session, he was looking forward to the session just as you were. And he was talking about, you know, if most of this got accomplished or if the whole package got accomplished, we would be moving from I think 40th in ranking in terms of economic friendliness or attractiveness to number eight.

And you said we didn't get all the way there, what are people's responses? Does it seem like businesses are more interested in taking a look at Louisiana or would consider it?

Dixon McMakin (07:35.898)
Yes, he was talking about the Dax Foundation rankings right there. I don't think we're going to get in the top 10. I personally have not seen the new rankings. I don't know they've put them out yet or not. There's been some estimates of what we might be, but even with that estimate, it's still going to cut us, we think, in half by going from 48, 49 to the of 20s. So that alone is a sign to the business community that says, look, Louisiana just made probably one of the largest jumps of any state in the country.

Let's go look at them, let's go see what they're doing down there. And they're gonna see a business-friendly governor, they're gonna see a governor that has economic development in his blood, and used to work in that department. They're gonna see Susan Bourgeois, our new economic director of development over LED, and what she's trying to accomplish, bringing Louisiana back to work. Me and her actually have a little saying, we tell each other, I was in Nashville for my cousin's wedding, and I sent her a picture, and it was these cranes in the background.

I said right now the state of Louisiana is the brown pelican. By the time we're done, I want people to hard consider that we're going to make it a crane. It's going to be the construction crane that's coming to Louisiana because we're going to get the work. So, know, some of big steps we took with them, we got rid of the franchise tax, which was a tax that pretty much everybody agreed we were one of the few states, if any, to even have it. Why are we still doing that? Why are we still putting a special burden on businesses that other states aren't doing it?

Danielle WALKER (08:40.272)
I love that.

Dixon McMakin (09:01.69)
And we also reduced the corporate tax rate as well. So those two signs right there are showing businesses and businesses, corporations that bring jobs, let people come back, want them to be here, get to work. They bring tax revenue, everything you want for a healthy society, they do. And so those were two huge steps that we took from the business standpoint that I think we're going to start to see. believe the governor will actually be in the North Louisiana tomorrow for a river cutting, a big

development ribbon cutting. We've heard from natural gas companies that they're coming to North Louisiana. had the Haynesville Shell up there, which is an untapped resource that we're tapping into now to provide that. So you're going to start to see some of those announcements. And of course, everything kind of building up to the Super Bowl coming in a few months to New Orleans. And what we're trying to do down in New Orleans with a previous special session to reduce crime. saw yesterday they asked Mary-Ann Trell about that.

is this governor's taking credit, you're taking credit, you whose credit is it? And for as much as she might want to take credit, it was the special session, what Jeff Landry and what Attorney General Liz Mueller, our state police and troop, are doing down there. No tide turned down in New Orleans until we took those steps to put those troops down there. And I think you're going to see businesses feel more comfortable being here. They're going to feel safer. Their families are going to feel safer. And they're going to want to come back to Louisiana.

are the only state in the South that's losing population right now. There's a Southern Renaissance that's going on in the country. People are leaving those terrible states, Illinois, California, New York, they're just not putting up with governments anymore that are taking too much of their hard-earned money. What we're saying is, hey, in Louisiana, you're gonna come here, we're gonna treat you fairly. and by the way, we have a little bit of a land-yap thing that those other states don't have.

every week and you can find great music, great food, a great festival, and you can have a really good time as well. I think when people understand that and they feel that in Louisiana, they're going to come here, they're going to stay, and then we're going to start to see that Southern Renaissance turn into the Louisiana Renaissance.

Danielle WALKER (11:11.31)
Yeah. Well, I hope so. There were some clear trade-offs from this session that happened. And, you know, many of us expected to see the state income tax completely eliminated. A recent guest of ours, Barry Huggins came on and talked about Louisiana. If we didn't, if we didn't get rid of the state income tax becoming an island of taxation in a, in a sea of freedom based on our neighbors. And, you know, I know that when we were talking to candidates back

last year, last summer through the fall election season, many of the candidates pledged to get rid of the state income tax. Why didn't we get there and is there a plan to get there? Because it doesn't seem like there's a phased approach that was kind of put into the legislation that made it all the way through.

Dixon McMakin (12:01.912)
I'll say this and I think he's okay with me saying it. The governor is behind a fully getting rid of the income tax. He's behind it. Our group of freshmen that came in, think we're all behind it. The problem just was the fiscal note on it. To it immediately was going to be too much of a big burden that the people just didn't want to the people, I would say that the tax professionals and the people that are advising us from the fiscal office and the treasurer's office and the Department of Revenue office,

that they just thought that was cutting off an appendage, really. It was kind of a thought process there. But everyone is committed to doing it. What we're trying to do when we moved from the personal income victim to three, so it's one of the lowest in the country, of those that have it, right? You gotta always set an extra extra part behind it. It is one of the lowest of people that have it, right? You can't per se do the lowest because the other states don't have it.

Danielle WALKER (12:54.234)
Yeah.

Dixon McMakin (12:57.71)
I think I mentioned this when I was on your show last time, right? I have cousins that live in Texas and see all over these states without the income tax. And I get to see the simplistic life that they have. So another aspect of that too is that we still do not have a state centralized tax collection system. That's something else that we've got to work on in the future for the things that we want it to do to affect the locals. We have a big pushback when it comes to locals versus state who collect the

What do they get it? What they spend it on and so we started those conversations in this special session and I think we all know what Topics are where people are curious where they're cautious of cutting along the way. So now that we know that we can Place over the next two three four five years, whatever it is. I would vote it for it. They put it on there and they would have said it's

$2-3 billion. So let's give me the red. Let's go it. Well, I'm just a freshman. They don't give me that pin. But hopefully as we get a little older and we get the experience, we'll have that opportunity to do that. And I think we're going to get that think everyone sees, as you said, we cannot be an island of taxation. We've got to get there. It's just which way do you want to get there, right? Texas and their property. Everyone knows Texas has

Chris ALEXANDER (14:00.164)
Yeah.

Danielle WALKER (14:00.292)
Hang on.

Dixon McMakin (14:23.015)
crazy property taxes they put on other states sales taxes they do. Where do we want to be?

Chris ALEXANDER (14:25.527)
Yeah, but they're also, Dixon, but you're right. yeah, but Dixon is, Texas is also a thriving state economically. Florida is also a thriving state economically. Mississippi State, I mean, Mississippi, excuse me, is very steadily phasing out their state income tax. But I wanted to ask you a question about this. You mentioned that it would have been too burdensome to cut the state income tax out entirely, to eliminate it.

Barry Huggins suggested and others have suggested that there could have been and maybe should have been an amendment in legislation for precisely that, a gradual phase out of the state income tax, say within four or five or six years. Why do you think it was that that was not included in legislation where there would have been an inevitable ultimate elimination of the state income tax on a phased out basis?

In other words, you didn't have to do it all at once.

Dixon McMakin (15:23.918)
Yeah, I think what they're trying to do and what they want to do is let's see what happens with everything we did put in place. Let's see where that takes us because let's say we did a phase out and everything works the way that it might work. Let's say like the best case scenario happens and let's say we can cut it sooner. Why limit ourselves to a phase out? Because if we put that phase out in, something I've seen from other legislative years is you

phase out in and people say, no, we're already gonna get rid of it in five years. Why rush it? Why get rid of it sooner? This allows us that opportunity to maybe come back and do it sooner. One of the most important bills that we passed, I'm sorry don't remember the number, but it was by Representative Geymann I called it the Geymann Growth Limit Bill, the GGLB. And this was something that a lot of people forget, that Rep. Geymann, this is his second time around in the house.

He was there back in the day with Bobby Gendel, of Fugazi budgets that he was putting together, know, taking things from certain areas and doing it. But had we at the time put in the Geymann Growth Limit Bill, we wouldn't have seen the growth that we've seen under the John Bell years as well. So know a lot of people, myself included, had a direct frank conversation with the 4-4 of why are we not cutting right now? Where is my big cut? That's what I call it.

Where's my big cut? And they tell me, this is the way this works. This is a taxing session. When we come back in 2025, when we do our budget, that's what we're gonna cut again. know Chris has said to do some data on that, that we did cut the budget from the previous administration. And that's something they're committed to keep doing. So if we continue to cut, and we also have the time and growth limit bill in there as well, you're gonna limit the growth

of government going forward. That's been where I see our tax initiatives and what we'd like to do bring businesses here, get the jobs here. Hopefully we'll see that income tax eliminated sooner than later.

Danielle WALKER (17:32.484)
Hang on right there, hold on, hang on. I'm just gonna stop this and Dixon, if you would.

Chris ALEXANDER (17:32.513)
And do you think? Yeah.
Chris ALEXANDER (00:02.67)
So clearly, Dixon, it would be better to phase the income tax out sooner. And if you put a time certain in there, four or five years, maybe it could be done sooner. Is the legislative will in place? mean, is the desire to do what's necessary to eventually completely eliminate the state income tax?

I know a lot of people talk about it. I know it's your desire to do that. But right now, there's nothing in place. But you're saying that there is the legislative will to get that done, eliminate the state income tax.

Dixon McMakin (00:47.798)
Yeah, I would say absolutely the desire is there. And one thing we did this past session, we dropped it to that normal rate or excuse me, standard rate of 3 % from 425 at the max to three. So we saw 1.25 cut. I'll tell you, internal discussions though, were brought up to raise it. They were brought up to raise it. Where if we didn't meet our number to try to make this a revenue neutral or even a cut issue that we were doing,

Would we go up? Would we go up to 3.25? Would we go up to 3.5? And I think collectively, we all kind of said, no, this was one that's got to go away anyway. We're not touching that one. So we stayed true to that. That one stayed three the whole way through. You did see a slight change in the corporate tax side that we gave a few basis points back on that side. And so that's where we made some adjustments. We made some other adjustments on some internal movement of money that we have.

at the Capitol as well, all in an effort, Chris, to keep it at three, knowing that, all right, we just got rid of 1.25. So really two and a half more times we get there. You know, we get there two and a half more of those cuts. We'll get there, get the three to zero. So I think that shows you the commitment we had to that portion of it and the desire. And I would say if I'm ranking it, I think the desire is most of our freshman class. We came in with

pretty strong. I think we saw what was happening around the country with other states versus the others that have been there a little bit longer, right? It takes maybe a few more tugboats to move an older ship than it is for a newer ship to move around the harbor. So I think the desire would be stronger for our class. And so that's why I think we're going to get there in my time.

Chris ALEXANDER (02:35.374)
Do you think, Dixon, that it's going to require raising the sales tax more? Some people have been talking about one of the chief criticisms of the session is that we really didn't reduce government spending here. We didn't make spending cuts. We really, it really swapped taxes around. So we reduced the corporate income tax, reduced the individual income tax to 3%. But we...

not only did we not completely eliminate the 0.045 sales tax increase, we actually raised it. And now the combined sales tax in many places in Louisiana is approaching 11%. Assuming we ultimately eliminate the state income tax, are we going to have to raise the sales tax again to be able to balance that out? And what about the people who are going to be suffering with a 10 and a half, 11 %

sales tax rate in Louisiana, the highest in the country.

Dixon McMakin (03:35.446)
Yeah, so I think, you know, a couple of points there you got. One thing about the rates now is people that their income is going to get reduced. We doubled the standard deduction for them as well. The seniors got more of a deduction as well. So even if you would have stayed at the 3.5 level, even if that would have stayed, you currently are the 3.5 level, you would have more money in your pocket because of the other steps we did. And so previously, you know, when they, when they did that 0.45, there was no other cut on the other side of the ledger.

Right. But this time with the personal income cut, the over billion dollar cut, largest cut in the history of Louisiana, there was something on the other side. Previously, there was no other side to the equation. And I think that was one reason that people like myself, you know, really were questioning why we were adjusting our sales tax side when we were trying to do multiple cuts. Well, it's all about and I'm a financial adviser. So it comes down to the business side of basis points.

and where you move your basis points, right? If you have a massive basis point cut on one side of the ledger and you don't make up a basis point on the other side, then what are you to do in making that up? But we did put in the sales tax is getting reduced. It does go down, I believe, 0.45 in four years, I believe it was. So we said this was more of a transactional, transitional basis point that we were putting in there during this time of

when we're having the collections come in. And one thing I like about our group, Secretary Nelson, the Governor Landry is we want to track all this. And so that's something else. put a bill in place to to make the locals track stuff as well. Like, imagine this. There were some numbers we were asking for and they were telling us, we don't quite know what that number is. Right. It's twenty twenty four. And you mean to tell me in certain tax collections and parishes

Danielle WALKER (05:27.119)
Yeah.

Dixon McMakin (05:31.444)
You can't tell me what the number is that we're looking for. So we specifically put that in a few of the laws this time to say, no, no, we don't care if you can't find it now. Going forward, you're going to find it. So we know what that number is so we can go back and make those cuts and make those adjustments. That was another thing that a lot of people aren't talking about, I think, is not only the Gaiman growth limit bill, but also the restrictions we put in that says, hey, you are now required to report

Danielle WALKER (05:35.249)
It's unacceptable.

Dixon McMakin (06:01.578)
this in certain ways. So we know in the future when we ask you for that number. just to give your listeners some background, we have a legislative fiscal office and they put out a fiscal note on a bill. So when we drop from 4.25 to three, they tell us on this paper what they think that number will be. They get that number from the Department of Revenue who gets the tax numbers. The Department of Revenue gets their numbers from the locals that collect the tax.

So it's this upstream of information and anywhere along that stream, if you don't have the right data or what you're trying to find, well then it throws off the numbers. And so that's something that we really tried to look at as well. Hey, going forward, how can we make sure that Louisiana is in the right place to have the right numbers to make those determinations in the future of how quickly we can get rid of the personal income tax?

Danielle WALKER (06:56.847)
Yeah, well, thank you for that. had no idea reporting was so terrible. And you know, you are a business owner. I'm a business owner. I pay for QuickBooks. It's expected of me to be able to know what comes in, what goes out, how much I owe in my tax bill. So the least we can expect from our local governments is that they are tracking the money that they are taking in. I mean, that's just, that's just too insane. And we're not even that this doesn't even address the money that's going out, right? This was just clearly.

Dixon McMakin (07:06.454)
You

Danielle WALKER (07:25.891)
for on the tax side, you have to know what's coming in.

Dixon McMakin (07:27.478)
Yeah, and that's and that's kind of that's the Chris's point to that. This session was about the money coming in session, I would say. When we come back in 2025, that's the money going out part that we are still committed. I know I am as well to cutting. I want to see another red line come in and a dip from those previous budgets that we did in round one. And I know there's several of us that the governor has even told us personally. Hey, any if anyone gives you any trouble when you ask them

for a number or why are you spending this? What are you doing? You let my office know. He is committed. His office is committed. They want to know the people that are the elite fat cat bureaucrats that say, no, no, not my budget. No, sorry, I don't know that number. He is committed. He wants to know who those people are, what departments that is. And a lot of times I think as you guys have been around this a little longer than me, those are the ones usually you can find the most fat to cut from as well.

Danielle WALKER (08:25.849)
Yeah, exactly. And Dixon, I'll be happy to tell you that Chris is going to go to Costco and he's going to get a big, big box of red Sharpies and he's going to hand them out the first day of session. Perfect.

Dixon McMakin (08:38.44)
Love it. Absolutely. I'll put my logo on them, Chris. Heck, I'll help pay for those. That's fantastic.

Chris ALEXANDER (08:39.284)
Absolutely. Yeah, you go. Yeah, yeah, because we got it's got to be certainly has to be a priority.

Dixon McMakin (08:47.188)
People that know me, keep a sharpie in my jacket every day, so I always got it ready to go. I'll add a red one to the repertoire.

Danielle WALKER (08:52.569)
Yeah, you need a red one. Look, when we interviewed you as candidate McMaken, you were having monthly breakfast called bacon with McMaken. So I wanted to check in on those. Are you still having them and what are you hearing from your constituents? What's what's on their mind right now? How are they feeling about the outcome of this session?

Chris ALEXANDER (08:53.186)
There you go.

Dixon McMakin (09:09.994)
Yeah, so we moved those. Instead of doing them at a restaurant, we were doing them just at the Capitol because I was there so much, like I said, through the five sessions. So we would have them in the cafeteria at the Capitol over there. We will be having our December one coming up, our end of year review one coming up as well. And we're hearing the same thing. It's the table side talk from people. But what I find a lot of times is people aren't very engaged. You know, they don't pay attention as much as you guys do. And I know your listeners as well that are

very engaged voters. they might have an issue with a topic or something. And really it's trying to explain the practical side of things of what happened. For example, right now you're hearing like we just did a tax session and we didn't cut the budget. So we have to, I have to explain to people, we actually cut the budget when we do the budget. We didn't do a budget during this tax session. That's when we will cut that. And the cuts we did are coming.

But also, you know, we also did cut the personal income tax by over a billion dollars. That's a really big deal. I loved one time that Speaker de Villiers was in our legislative meeting, and he said, guys, you know, I've been here nine years. I wrote down some goals every year when I've been here. I never thought we would even be at this point this soon. And wow, that just kind of hits you pretty hard that even the speaker didn't think we'd get to where we got to this soon in his tenure. And so to think that

Chris ALEXANDER (10:32.472)
Yeah. What answer? Yeah.

Dixon McMakin (10:35.294)
our freshman class that came in and you know we get that feeling of year one. So I think about in sports right you know when you have a good tennis match or you play golf really well or baseball whatever that might be and you have a great game. What do you want to do you want to get back in there like you don't want to ever come out of the game you're you're striking people out pitching you're getting base hits coach put me back up put me back on that mound and that's how we kind of feels like hey put me back in there I don't want to wait the four months you want to call another special and.

February again, all right, we're in. Let's roll. Let's go. Let's keep the momentum going. Let's keep making positive, bold, positive change for Louisiana.

Chris ALEXANDER (11:14.766)
Dixon, this fiscal responsibility task force. During the middle of the session, I know that there was a lot of pressure on the governor when they were talking about raising the sales tax and talking about taxing services and such. And there wasn't much talk about actually cutting spending during the session. the governor created...

at least talking about creating a fiscal responsibility task force, the appointment of a czar, the ostensible purpose for which is to reduce spending, streamline government. Two part question here. Do you know whether or not a czar has been appointed by the governor yet? is this something, this possibility something that needs to be approved by the legislature for it to go forward?

Dixon McMakin (12:08.704)
Yes, I was in actually one of those meetings where we talked about that. We talked about the red pens It was a group of us that brought that up. You know, where was the spending cuts? What were we doing? And that was his commitment to us was saying, hey, you want to get a group together? You want to do this? I'm in. I'm in. Let me know what y'all want to do. But y'all are the legislature. Go do it. You know, he was kind of empowering us and saying, don't ask for permission. Go do it. Go be bold. Go get it done.

To my knowledge, no czar has been appointed. He can do that by his executive pen that he has to put that group together. I know I hope to be on it. You've seen it with President Trump now with his DOGE group that he has with Vivek and Elon. And so I think, you know, when you have the federal government that's going to start doing it, you want the state government to do it as well. We've been working on something even back to the early spring of the Amber Alert system with me and

Danielle WALKER (12:47.377)
Yeah.

Dixon McMakin (13:02.208)
trying to go paperless in certain zones. You know, if there's paper that we're using at the Capitol or different forms, you got to fill out just two of my pillars where efficiency and effectiveness. So we want to get those involved as well. And I think you're going to see a lot of that coming from him. But to my knowledge, no czar yet. hope, I'll be honest, I hope we don't call them a czar. I hate that word. That reminds me of the border czar, the other czars that Obama started. I'm not a big czar guy. So if he wants to set up a committee and

Danielle WALKER (13:21.743)
Yeah.

Chris ALEXANDER (13:23.202)
Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle WALKER (13:28.485)
We don't live in Russia.

Dixon McMakin (13:30.068)
have a committee chair, I'd love that. I would personally ask him not to call him a czar. I we don't need Russia up in our state.

Danielle WALKER (13:37.743)
Yeah, agreed. Well, in light of DOGE and the moves being made by our neighboring states, you've you've alluded to the fact that Louisiana was pretty aggressive this session at thanks to thanks to I think the pushing of some some strong legislators who feel like they have a lot to go back and report to their constituency on. know, we're looking at I'm way down in South Louisiana and Terrebonne and the insurance bills.

Chris ALEXANDER (13:38.712)
Good point, good point.

Danielle WALKER (14:06.425)
are out of control. so that has, you know, if we're going to keep people here, it has to be accounted for that, you know, we're not just looking at a tax bill like every other state. We're also looking at an additional extraordinary insurance rates, both for both for cars and for homes. But, you know, that's just that's kind of my personal aside. And we've talked to Paul Heard recently. I don't know if you've talked to him before.

He has been looking at the budget very closely. He's been looking at Louisiana's economic incentive structure or disincentive structure, depending on your point of view. And he has said that he thinks that our state agencies could take an across the board 5 % haircut and we could live well within our means without having to have a state income tax at all. I know you've mentioned being very happy to go ahead and get rid of that as soon as we can find the cuts to do it.

Dixon McMakin (14:44.534)
Thank

Danielle WALKER (15:05.307)
Do you think that that kind of aggressive move is something that we'll be seeing with your red pen and the red pens that we'll be handing out to everybody else in the legislature?

Dixon McMakin (15:17.044)
Yeah, I hope so. And Danielle, kind of two parts there you talked about. You talked about the insurance side of stuff, and then we also had the tax and the budget side of stuff. I don't think I've ever seen where us making any tax moves per se would help insurance. But if we have more businesses here, more companies wanting insurance, more insurers willing to write insurance and increasing the competition,

then hopefully would reduce our insurance rates. one of the measures

Danielle WALKER (15:47.407)
Yeah, but not so much even moving the insurance rates through tax cuts, but moving people's ability to live. You know, it's their own budget being impacted.

Dixon McMakin (15:56.022)
Right. Yeah, and that's exactly, know, one of the, hopefully one of the after things of this tax session. We will see that. I actually talked to Commissioner Temple this past weekend. He lives in my district. So we were one of those double voters. I vote for him. He votes for me. Hopefully I think we both voted for each other. And, know, it's something we always talk about. And I asked him, said, Hey, are we going to do an insurance special? He's like, we're talking about it, you know, because

If he's got to put together the right package, of course, we kind of had one earlier in the year where we addressed a lot of issues. His package that he had come through the legislature, we had a couple of his bills didn't quite make it. I did talk to Senator Talbot, who's over insurance as well on the Senate side. try to, it's one thing you got to learn as a freshman is, who are the people to talk to and learn from and, just going straight to the commissioner and going to the chairs of those specific committees is something that helps a lot.

And Senator Talbot, last time I talked to him, didn't sound like we were leaning towards a special, but that they would have a package of bills during the regular in April to get to. So that's something still for us to be, to look at. I know if they do call it, I'll be there. I'm, I live the second closest to the Capitol. Larry Sellers lives closer than me. So I'm ready to go, ready to get there. And I think our group of freshmen and not only that, I think the group of Republicans.

that have served eight years under a Democratic governor that really couldn't get the ball moving the way they wanted to, now with an opportunity of state government on our side to help us keep that ball moving forward for Louisiana, I think we'll continue to see that because you mentioned at those bacon and McMakens and when I talk to my other colleagues that are having lunch events or dinner events or whatever they're having as well, it's almost unanimous that insurance is one of the top things. Of course,

We'll be having a press release to go out in a couple weeks that we're finally going to get the start to shutting down the Washington Street exit off the Interstate Bridge here in Baton Rouge. I know the Interstate for my people is a big one. but overall kind of unanimously the insurance rates are at the top of everyone's mind. So we know when it's at the top of the mind, then you got to be aggressive and bold and take action as well.

Chris ALEXANDER (18:12.558)
Yeah. This, Dixon right now, not to put you on the spot, but obviously we have a bloated government. we have Barry Huggins indicated to us that statistics show that in North Carolina, that what we spend in Louisiana or take more money from taxpayers by about $10,000 more per citizen than North Carolina.

and about 5,000 more per taxpaying citizen than Florida does. And yet they seem to have, those states seem to have better outcomes than us. What does that say about fiscal efficiency of our government in Louisiana and our ability to make meaningful cuts in spending?

Dixon McMakin (19:03.19)
All right, Chris, I've known you for a while now, so I'm gonna give you two kind of answers. One answer is gonna be a political answer, then one's gonna be a Dixon answer. Okay, so here we go. The political answer to that is any stat obviously can be skewed to show something. North Carolina and Florida have vast more people than we have. So of course, when you have more people, you have more money into the pot overall, then you don't have to have as large of a budget.

part of the citizen if you have more people. That's just economics.

Chris ALEXANDER (19:33.73)
Well, that's true because your pool is bigger.

Dixon McMakin (19:37.302)
because your pool is much bigger. So there's your political answer, right? Even though he says that and does all that, I see his reporting that sometimes you have to take the reporting with a grain of salt and just know that we live in a much lower population state, a much lower medium income state, and all of that when you take those into consideration. Now here's the Dixon answer. Let's freaking go and get it done. Every one of those reports I see, I believe them fully, that our budget is overbloated

We have too many people out there working, not doing enough. I love what Elon and Vivek said about the national government. Hey, you don't work there anymore. Get your ass in the office. Let's see what you actually do. I mean, it's unbelievable.

Danielle WALKER (20:14.811)
Yeah.

Chris ALEXANDER (20:16.194)
That's what the, and Dixon, that's what people, that's what the conservative citizens in Louisiana want to hear and want to see.

Dixon McMakin (20:21.184)
Yeah.

Yeah, and so that's where then I would say for me, though, right, you it takes I have to learn it, though, too. Right. I come from the private sector. I don't come from the public sector. And I would say we don't have a lot of legislators that really do either. Like a lot of us. Part of the reason we got elected is to bring that business sense in there. And I'll say this, you know, this past session, we passed a bill for Susan Bouchard, L.E.D., just to allow her.

to purchase items and not have to wait through the normal purchasing guidelines of state government. How about that? Like she's trying to do something to bring businesses here, but she was stopped by the red tape of the bureaucracy of government. So we had to pass a new law to allow her to not have to do that. And even in that bill, we were getting pushback that said, hey, whoa, if y'all allow this to happen, like, whoa, government might become too quick and too efficient for us to operate. Okay.

Well then get it done. I grew up, you know, a dad with a baseball player, his granddad, my granddad was a principal, a Marine. You rub dirt on it, you get back in the game. know, excuses are not accepted for the McMakin house. And every person, how about this guys, great example, sorry, tangent, you got me off, Chris. We put a Christmas tree up in the Capitol this past week, okay? It's a fake Christmas tree. And I asked the lady, said, hey, why are we doing a fake tree?

We have great trees in Louisiana. Why not bring a local tree, put in the capital? And the amount of bureaucracy I got from her of why we can't have a real tree. well, we'd have to water it too much. We'd have to worry about the lights. It may not be as firm for the ornaments. We don't know what it would look like. It wouldn't be consistent. I was like, be quiet. Put a real tree up, make it beautiful. We can brag about where the tree came from.

Dixon McMakin (22:14.785)
But that was just a little taste of what you experience in that building. When you talk about something to make it better and greater for Louisiana, make it more efficient, more effective, and just that person that's always done it the same way doesn't want to change. So the change agents are in the building. And I think that's starting to get around that we're there, we're ready to work. Watch out.

Chris ALEXANDER (22:36.044)
Yeah. And Dixon, it's good to know that you and your colleagues are prepared to phase out the individual income tax and are prepared to make meaningful budget cuts and to streamline our government. Because I can just tell you that based upon conversations we have with LACAG members and state of freedom listeners, they are looking to see

where the legislative will is and the governor's will when it comes to those two primary issues, eliminating the state income tax and reducing the size and inefficiency of our government. And I don't see how you do that, Dixon, and keep everybody happy. We have to understand that some of these things may be uncomfortable.

There may be some difficult decisions that have to be made. And unlike you, I see a lot of politicians who seem to want to do certain things that need to be done, but they don't want to make the tough decisions that have to be made.

And I want to get your response to that. Your view is that the legislature is prepared, and I know that you can't speak for everyone, but your understanding is that the legislature is prepared to make some of these tough decisions that have got to be made.

Dixon McMakin (23:47.062)
Yeah.

Dixon McMakin (24:02.486)
Yeah, I think absolutely. And I think with our with our younger freshman class that came in to, know, using data, using analytics, kind of that. You mentioned that gentleman that talked about how much more we take in and how much more we spend and all that stuff. So having that data to look at and not just taking it off of the word of someone that's been in government for 25, 30, 35 years. Right. You know, serving in government used to be an honor and a privilege.

And I think now people are taking advantage of it. That's what I see personally so far right now, right? People talk about the legislature, how much we make. Yeah, we don't make a whole lot. It's a little bit here and there, whatever it is. But would I do this for free? Yeah, I would. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to serve the citizens around you. And a lot of people though, I'm not saying the legislators, but some of the staff members there, right? You don't see that same honor and privilege that I think you used to see with people.

And sometimes it's just a how to get by to get by to get my paycheck and then retire one day with a big fat sum. And that's something we got to look at in all factors. And that's what we are looking at with that, the budget, how we spend it and what we do going forward. And it's nice to have the power of the fourth floor behind us now when we're trying to do those things.

Chris ALEXANDER (25:10.784)
Yeah. One example, Dixon, before we close you out, LDH says that, OK, we can cut spending, the Louisiana Department of Health, but the only way we're going to be able to do it is by cutting disability services. You're talking about an agency that spent $100 million or so on advertising.

Danielle WALKER (25:11.654)
Yeah.

Chris ALEXANDER (25:38.669)
And so they come back and say, the only way we're to be able to cut spending is by cutting services to the disabled. Is that true? There's nowhere else that LDH can cut spending?

Danielle WALKER (25:51.867)
And hold on, I also want to jump in there because that LDH hundred million dollar ad spend has me so irate, I can barely stand myself because we know that they were spending that advertising. Most of it went to pro-vaccine, pro-COVID shot advertising when we have known that the COVID shot is not really safe and effective as we've been told.

Dixon McMakin (25:52.042)
Yeah.

Chris ALEXANDER (25:54.029)
Yeah.

Danielle WALKER (26:19.065)
So they're spending money on advertising. That's a hundred million dollars. Then the advertising is causing more money to be spent. I'm like, why would we want to advertise services in the state? That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. All right. End rant.

Dixon McMakin (26:35.402)
Yeah, so we have a you know, freshman rep rep Jay Galle is over our Homeland Security Division. They did a great COVID review that they did. They're they're continuing to do that. I know Rep Chuck Owen was well involved with that one as well, so it's great to have them looking back and to see what we messed up along the way. Of course, Jay and I weren't there at the time, but I think we would have thought we would have acted differently and tried to hold the governor a little more accountable on that. But yeah, to hear they can only cut that section I will.

don't think we're allowed to curse one here, but it starts with a bull and it ends in S-H-I-T. I don't believe that at all if they say that those budgets are all over the place. One of the things, you know, Chris and Danielle look for in the future is maybe starting with a zero budget, right? And make you prove why you get the money, right? Instead of just saying, well, here's all the positions. Okay, here's a 2 % raise or whatever it is over here. And that way over there, let's start with a zero sum budget and say, what do you need? Do you really need all that? Let's go.

Chris ALEXANDER (27:08.078)
Okay.

Danielle WALKER (27:32.945)
love that.

Chris ALEXANDER (27:34.264)
Great idea.

Dixon McMakin (27:34.484)
And then two, if people know that their jobs are needed, I believe I heard that about Elon Musk when he got to Twitter, that he made all employees come and meet him for five minutes and tell him what they do and why they were still needed around. Imagine if we ever did that with a state agency. That'd be a long ass meeting, I know. But I'd sit there and I'd like to hear the notes and let them tell us why they think they're still needed.

Chris ALEXANDER (27:54.35)
Yeah, it would.

Chris ALEXANDER (27:59.917)
Yeah.

Danielle WALKER (28:00.311)
Exactly. I heard that that meeting for him lasted 18 hours and people just came in in five minute increments. The man is a beast. The man is a beast and an inspiration. And I hope that we can see something that even approaches that kind of scrutiny when it comes to our state budget.

Dixon McMakin (28:06.484)
Yeah, right.

Chris ALEXANDER (28:14.134)
Yeah. Well, Dixon, it's good to have you down there. It's good to know that your financial mind is on all this stuff. And, we expect, you know, great results, not only out of you, but out of your colleagues as well.

Dixon McMakin (28:14.399)
Absolutely.

Chris ALEXANDER (28:32.27)
Let's keep moving forward and get the results that we're looking for. I do believe, and I think that Barry Huggins agrees with us. In fact, he suggested this, that there were some good things that came out of the session, but we're not to second base yet. And we've got to get around third and get home.

and really make Louisiana what it can be. And I think with your leadership down there and others, we're gonna get there. So God bless you, sir. And thank you for joining us and sharing your insights with us today.

Dixon McMakin (29:05.62)
Looking forward to those LaCag red pens in the springtime, baby. Bring them on. We want big Sharpies and little ones. Bring them all to us. Thank you guys. Merry Christmas.

Chris ALEXANDER (29:08.608)
I look, you bet. God bless you, sir.

Danielle WALKER (29:08.806)
Hehehehehe

Thank you, Merry Christmas.

Chris ALEXANDER (29:15.52)
You too.

 
 
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