Between The Lines

Landrieu pass illustrates weakening political position

2009-07-09T17:15:00.000-05:00

There are two reasons why Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu seems to have closed the door on pursuing in 2010 the office his father held and one he twice has run for and appears to prize heavily, mayor of New Orleans – he can’t win because he’s white and his last name is Landrieu. In doing so, he also reveals his uncertain political future.

A 1994 run produced little result, but in 2006 Landrieu made the runoff and many thought he would win with a voting population near black-white parity. Despite being the least mono-racial election for New Orleans mayor in decades – an estimated 20 percent of blacks voted for Landrieu – still he lost to a deeply flawed and weakened incumbent Ray Nagin.

Since then, white candidates have won what in effect are city-wide elections – Arnie Fielkow and Jackie Clarkson have grabbed at-large city council spots although the latter in a special election, and Leon Cannizaro got elected as District Attorney with President Barack Obama on the ballot just last year. But Landrieu’s problem is that his name is not so much associated with his father that might help him with black voters relative to stronger black candidates, but his own and his sister’s that will hurt him relative to white voters.

What Landrieu learned in 2006 is that his support was a mile wide but an inch deep. Even facing the likes of the ridiculed Nagin, he could not entice enough black voters to abandon the incumbent that more than offset his solid white support, but at the same time too many whites see him as too liberal, in part because of professed comfort with big government, in part because he is linked with his sister Sen. Mary Landrieu, for him to stimulate the disproportionate white turnout that would vote for him to beat a quality black opponent.

Being lieutenant governor provides a steady paycheck and it’s the kind of job where it’s difficult to knock off an incumbent, but it’s typically dead-end. Until former Gov. Kathleen Blanco made the leap in 2003, it had not happened electorally. Craven ambition will lead Landrieu to want to vacate his present post eventually, and it is unlikely that conditions ever will change for him to make the mayorality of New Orleans likely. Thus, governor would be the next logical step, but whether in 2011 is another matter.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has had a rough spot here and there but at this point – and two years is a long time politically – he should not have much trouble for reelection purposes and still enjoys high popularity. Landrieu may be wondering whether Jindal will make a stab at the presidency in 2012 which would really require for him to have any chance of success that Jindal stand down for 2011. Recent policy failures by Obama especially as the economy continues to deteriorate and the essential exclusion of two strong opponents, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin voluntarily and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford somewhat less so, may encourage such a Jindal run, but chances are still that Jindal will wait until 2016 for additional burnishment of his record and possibly facing no incumbent for the White House if he chooses to run for it.

Thus, Landrieu probably will have to wait until 2015, creating plenty of time for other contestants for the state’s top job to emerge. Therefore, the real lesson of this admission of Landrieu’s is he lacks strength to go after what he wants now, and needs to wait out and hope for favorable contingencies to advance his ageing political career.

Hypocritical, immature legislators react to Jindal vetoes

2009-07-08T13:20:00.002-05:00

More vetoes were rung up by Gov. Bobby Jindal, and more wailing and gnashing of teeth from the comically hypocritical to the ignorantly profane were issued forth by his ideological opponents.

One Jindal bill victim was HB 785 which would have created a new political subdivision with sweeping regulatory powers, causing concern for the governor. Despite the reasonableness of the objection, this left the bill’s author state Rep. Sam Jones sputtering, “I fear that maybe it’s punitive … the reasons given to me certainly don’t wash.” Jones argued it was similar to an existing local government elsewhere – but just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, and Jindal’s veto certainly was appropriate.

However, it’s not surprising Jones would think in terms of vindictiveness; as a member of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s Administration, he likely had input into the “punitive” vetoes she used to cast. Jones’s selective and situational indignation is thereby duly noted and snickered at.

But another author of a bill that Jindal struck down, state Rep. Walker Hines’ HB 781, reacted in an immature way on many levels. This bill would have created a new salaried political appointee and a new board with political appointees to study ways to deal with “homelessness.” Jindal vetoed it because he thought that it wasn’t necessary to spend over $600,000 extra of the people’s money during the next five years for the Department of Social Services to do this. Hines thought the federal government might pay for some of this, but spending taxpayer money needlessly regardless of the source never is a good idea.

Hines’ reaction to the veto was akin to what one might have thought had he been told Jindal personally had gone door-to-door kicking people out into the street and repossessing their homes on a whim: “This is a political retribution – for what, I don’t know,” he whined, and followed up by asserting that Jindal would have to answer to his Catholic faith for the veto – presumably meaning that somehow the action was inconsistent with “Catholicism” as Hines desires to define it.

Yet if Hines truly believes adding one more bureaucrat and a commission on the taxpayer dime is going to do anything to address this “problem” to such an extent that to oppose it threatens Jindal’s soul, he clearly has lost touch with reality and knows little about Catholicism (despite his biographical claim that he practices it). Although he’s probably familiar with this document that instructs us to take care of some possible side-effects of homelessness (Ezekiel 18:16 declares as righteous he “who gives his food to the hungry and clothes the naked,” although also we are told in 2 Corinthians 5:1 “if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God”), it appears he may not be familiar with this one, but in neither case do they declare that it is a matter of doctrine for the faithful to have government use additional resources to address a social problem like homelessness, nor does failure to do so constitutes sin.

Hines also may not be aware of Pope Benedict’s recently released encyclical Caritas in Veritate and that nowhere in it does Benedict make such claims. In fact, the use of government to force a caritas out of its citizenry, the philosophy behind Hines’ statement about Jindal, is something of a contradiction to its entire meaning.

We, especially us Catholics, must lament the lack of maturity, intellect, and knowledge behind Hines’ comments, particularly when they come from one who holds himself out as Catholic, and depressingly consider that these traits may be more the norm than exception among politicians of all faiths or of none. But through communication and prayer, we can hope that they understand what it means that we are (as Mark 12:17 instructs) to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” when it comes to wise public policy.

LA legislator's excuse reminds of her insignificance

2009-07-07T09:45:00.000-05:00

So state Rep. Pat Smith is all upset because Gov. Bobby Jindal cast a line item veto against a project she sponsored. For the second year in a row, Jindal vetoed appropriations for the Louisiana Art and Science Museum in Baton Rouge, and what particularly galls her is entities such as the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in Winnfield and Sci-Port in Shreveport escaped Jindal’s pen.

But to say it is a form of “retaliation” concerning her voting record, especially on a bill concerning disclosure by the governor’s office, is pure fantasy on her part. Reasons abound to demonstrate why.

First, while Jindal is never going to say he “retaliated” against any legislator, at the same time he offers a plausible reason for the vetoes – no regional impact compared to something like Sci-Port. Second, Smith was just one of many legislators to vote against Jindal’s preferences on not just that bill but also many more, so if that were Jindal’s decision criterion, a whole host of measures from a wide array of legislators should have been struck by him. Third, even if Jindal seemed to decide things this way, Smith was by no means Jindal’s biggest critic or obstacle to his agenda.

State Sen. Lydia Jackson, for example, sponsored legislation very opposed by Jindal to reverse already-implemented tax deductions. When the initial try was ruled unconstitutional by House Speaker Jim Tucker and not dealt with in that chamber, she tried again by amending her bill onto a House bill. On the floor in debate of these bills she criticized Jindal, and even in committee on a bill dealing with disclaimers on state publications she ripped into the Jindal Administration. She took every chance great and small to harangue Jindal over their policy differences, so if Jindal was in a retaliatory mood Jackson should be his obvious target. And – you guessed it – Sci-Port is in Jackson’s district.

It’s possible that a Jindal line item veto here or there might be designed to send a message. However, Jindal seems to do what he says in terms of projects meeting criteria such as public submission and discussion and statewide or regional impact when viewing the totality of his choices to retain or snip. Certainly the Baton Rouge museum didn’t close down because it didn’t get state money last year, validating the decision then and now.

And if Jindal were going to punish a legislator, let’s be frank, evidence is Smith simply isn’t that important or worth it. So the proper interpretation of her remarks is not that they have any validity, but that they reflect a big ego spilling out of a puny politician simultaneously searching to be taken seriously and to try to make excuses as to why she can’t deliver the goods.

Caddo schools play politics despite charter success

2009-07-06T14:20:00.000-05:00

As a pair of its schools have officially gone under state control as of last week, political pouting by Caddo Parish school administration is going to get just that little bit more difficult as a result of the recent releasing of standardized test scores that cast more doubt on the direction the district is heading.

The results showed that yet another Caddo school has fallen into the danger zone that culminated in two such schools being taken over by the state’s Recovery School District at the end of this month. Ridgewood Middle School became the 14th, or now about one-fifth of the total, of the district’s schools to be put on the warning list. If there was any silver lining to this, it was on the basis not of overall scores as the previous 13 had been nailed, but on sub-groups scores.

To date, the other schools that have spent too many years on the list have escaped state takeover because of individual operating agreements made with the state while others have been subsumed into the “Caddo Plan” which is an attempt to create themed schools, pump in some more money to them, and tinker with personnel. Unfortunately, the latter is unlikely to produce the kind of change needed to get these schools up to snuff because it does not change the system that produced low performances in the first place.

In order to accomplish this, the district needs to look at the dramatic improvements seen in Orleans Parish. Most of the schools there have been taken over by the state, but that’s not what has really caused some impressive progress. Rather, it has been that almost all of the schools left under the Orleans Parish School District, and many now in the RSD, have become charter schools.

By way of comparison (for the exact methodology, please refer to a previous posting) at the 4th grade level in the RSD charter school students outperformed their regular school peers by 28 percent, at the 8th grade level in the RSD by 41 percent and in the OPSD by 43 percent, and on the Graduate Exit Exam in the OPSD (excluding the magnet high school Benjamin Franklin) by 53 percent. Keep in mind that, overall, these schools draw from similar populations and the typical per student cost in a charter school there was substantially lower than in the regular schools.

In short, charter schools have done much better in the education mission using fewer resources, primarily because they can avoid some of the bureaucracy and regulations inherent to the remainder of the monopolistic one-size-fits-all public school system, especially in personnel matters without great union interference and political machinations that often accompany questions surrounding teachers and principals. It should be no accident this was the model chosen by the state for the two Caddo school taken over.

Yet not only did the Caddo Plan decisively turn its back on the charter school model for its own revamping, but district administrators, claim everybody save the district itself, seemed to go out of their way to impede the startups of the incipient Linwood Public Charter School and Linear Leadership Academy, requiring state intervention to facilitate the transition. This should not be unexpected since in the eyes of too many Caddo administrators and School Board members these are now “competitors” and casting their eyes south they know they are unlikely to win a battle of achievement against them if history (and theory) is any guide.

Which is a lamentable attitude because it puts politics ahead of children. If things play out as expected, in a few years noticeable improvement will have occurred at the two new charter schools and they will have significantly better performing students than in the academically unacceptable schools still in the grip of the CPSD, absent any significant change from the district’s current course. Only then with this evidence may the district finally decide to move from trying to make a better buggy whip to creating an automobile by moving genuinely and enthusiastically in the direction of charter schools.

Meanwhile, years will have been wasted and children will have missed a better chance to reach their potentials. The lesson already is there; no rational reason exists for the district not to embrace the charter concept for its worst performing schools at all levels, only reasons relating to the continued maintenance of power and privilege of existing special interests inside and outside of the district.

Jindal makes progress with item vetoes, but more remains

2009-07-02T10:45:00.001-05:00

Another year, another set of line item vetoes for Gov. Bobby Jindal to cast, and those that he did indicate he’s still selectively serious about priorities in state spending. Last year, Jindal got rid of over 250 items. This year’s (not including all the contingency items in HB 1) number were only a little more than a fifth of that total, in part no doubt because Jindal showed he meant business last year.

HB 881 served as the main vehicle for what are now called “member amendments” (those placed in on request of a legislator for a nongovernmental or local government agency), for which Jindal has stated certain criteria will serve. While a few of the vetoes were technical funding matters from the previous year, on the remainder and those for local governments, Jindal stressed several themes, beginning with they had to be submitted formally which a few were not:

Regional or statewide impact by an NGO. For example, money for Scouts organizations and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts which are centered around small areas of the state were jettisoned. Requests from urban areas, in number of requests and their sizes, particularly were at risk, despite some organizations having affiliations with politically well-connected individuals. Several of these appeared to have multiple grant opportunities from other governments to access.

Attempts to go outside department budgets. If it seemed like it should have been budgeted within funds already appropriated for program operations within a state government agency, Jindal rebuffed it such as in higher education and Treasury.

Persistence didn’t count. Four separate appropriates in very disparate places for the District 2 Community Enhancement Corporation were spiked.

Other local government resources. For example, while monies were allowed to go to a passel of economic development districts and other small local governments for their general activities, a direct appropriation to the Calcasieu Police Jury to run a mayhaw festival was denied as was one for the city of Monroe to deal with Black Bayou, along with one for land for a boat launch ramp in Luling, and one for a film projector and screen for the Beauregard Parish Police Jury to show children some movies. When specified, infrastructure-related projects fared much better than those requesting money to operate recurring programs.

Some were interesting. A roughly $884,000 appropriation Jindal vetoed from the Public Service Commission, ostensibly to fund inspections, because it duplicated something in HB 1, may have been a backdoor attempt for the PSC to gain funding to pay railroad crossing inspectors, a bill to do so having been defeated in the Legislature. Two attempts totaling of $150,000 on behalf of the Louisiana Museum of Arts and Sciences, Inc. were blighted, while the same amount went through for the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame and Museum and a lesser amount to Shreveport's Sci-Port. The Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, headed by a former Jindal cabinet secretary forced to resign after her handling of last year’s hurricane evacuations, found $100,000 chopped from its request. A local economic development nonprofit having as officers state Rep. Walter Leger and his father who sits on the Louisiana Recovery Administration board got denied $120,000. Even Jindal ally Speaker Jim Tucker got a $200,000 line for blight remediation and $300,000 for the Algiers Development District sliced in order to “ensure a balanced budget.”

Outside of these, the most substantial veto was that for the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital. Jindal had opposed the continuation of this, desiring to move operations across Lake Pontchartrain for efficiency’s sake, but intense lobbying by the New Orleans legislative delegation convinced the Legislature to buck that request. But Jindal will appear to get his way on this. (He did not, however, have a chance to veto money for another state-run institution that the state wished to sell off, the John J. Hainkel Home and Rehabilitation Center as that was folded into larger expenses of the Department of Health and Hospitals; the Legislature also blocked this but it was warned the governor might authorize its closing to save money.)

To sum, as he did last year Jindal proved he said what he meant when it came to the kinds of spending he would tolerate regarding local governments (beyond other revenue-sharing procedures) and that going to nongovernmental agencies. A small does of politics may have emerged into the process as well, given disproportionately the NGO deletions hit areas represented by Democrat political opponents of his, but in large part they also disproportionately made requests that seemed to invite Jindal to veto them by his standards. So to some degree, Jindal’s success here can be measured by the number of amendments that never got attempted, discouraged by his previous fortitude.

Still, given the nature of some things that were vetoed, more could have been. If a renewed seriously is conveyed by his actions, perhaps even fewer will be attempted next year. The next logical steps are in two directions, a reconceptualization of revenue-sharing policy to make moot the necessity of any amendments dealing with local government requests, and a restatement of policy regarding the activities of NGOs. Presumably, they get funded because they perform an important task. Why should not formal policy be articulated that either transfers similar, mainly social service, functions being done by government presently to NGOs, or the reverse? Transparency and accountability would be best served this way instead of this hybrid system.

Regardless, what efforts Jindal has made have altered the political landscape. With members less able to bring back projects and tout this ability for reelection purposes, policy becomes elevated in the minds of voters, meaning legislators become more likely to act in the people’s interest rather than self-interest.

To LA liberals, divisiveness happens only when they lose

2009-07-01T08:35:00.001-05:00

At the conclusion of its 2009 regular session, several legislators complained about how conflict and disagreement, part of the governing process, seemed worse than ever this time out. Despite differences in levels of experience, race, and gender, with one exception, all claiming this for the record have one thing in common: they historically have voted for liberal and populist agendas that were largely swept aside in 2009, and the assertion was a defensive strategy to try to avoid more of the same in the future.

It’s a bit ironic that it should be these individuals would register these as complaints because those who share their political agenda on many occasions, given the slightest opening, blasted Gov. Bobby Jindal and his policies. To them, it seemed perfectly acceptable to hurl insults and insinuations at Jindal’s staff during committee testifying, yet not so if they perceived it to be aimed at them. At the same time, it isn’t so surprising neither because consistency means nothing when it conflicts with a standard ploy out of the playbook of liberal elected officials, nor because charges like this by them are a regularly used tactic.

Two attention-grabbing events tried to shape this impression. One occurred among House members, where leaders of three main factions – the caucuses representing Republicans, Democrats, and blacks – endorsed the statement that the House was “fractured” and “splintered.” The only non-liberal to articulate any of this, state Rep. Jane Smith, for whatever reason said it partially was the fault of communication skills of Speaker Jim Tucker. In the Senate, a farewell speech permitted for delivery by state Sen. Reggie Dupre, resigning to take a local government job, complained of “poisoned partisan” attitudes.

This is a typical liberal strategy when conservatives provide vigorous resistance to liberalism’s policy desires, and especially accessed when conservatism is as successful as it was on many issues in the 2009 regular session. At this level, especially when they are used to being in the majority, liberal politicians define “consensus” as “agreement with liberalism,” while being “divisive” is “too effectively opposing liberalism.” Thus, introducing “partisanship” is code for not kowtowing on the altar of liberalism because they try to define “nonpartisan” as “agreement with liberalism.” Thus, partisanship is “bad” and so is the “divisiveness” that can come with it.

Liberals unaware of the bankruptcy of their ideology as nothing more than an intellectually incoherent and factually unsubstantiated set of emotive statements see the tactic of terming opposition to them as “partisan” or “divisive” as a tool to combat what they see as sinister moves to obstruct the “truth.” More aware and thereby cynical liberals see it as a tool to prevent the thinking and informed from realizing that exact bankruptcy which allows them to continue to exercise power and to enjoy privilege. Regardless of motive, “partisan” and “divisive” they strive to attach negative connotations to in order to discourage the competition of ideas where, in a state such as Louisiana, they know they often will lose.

As mentioned elsewhere, “partisan” and other political conflict in fact are healthy and refreshing aspects of democracy. Of course, Smith and perhaps others probably meant conflict based on personal issues should be tamped down, but from the rhetoric from and actions of many leftist legislators throughout the session, one gets the sense they were objecting to the fact that their ideas, after a certain point, simply were losing out and this offended them, to the point they wanted to push legislation simply to try to embarrass their opponents. Indeed, of those crying out on this issue, many probably do so because they looked for and assumed offense because to them it is offensive that their opponents could win majorities on their issues, and that these victors disregarded their ideas totally – to these losers a sign of disrespect. Again, the irony is rich here for in years past when their agendas were ascendant (and slowing grinding the state into the dirt) they steamrolled over their opponents and ignored their wishes totally, and saw nothing wrong with that.

Tucker and Jindal will bear the majority of complaints because it was their agendas that largely muscled out of the way the inferior ideas of the liberal opposition. No doubt this will become an increasingly vocal theme of the minority as the conservative agenda consolidates and gains further ascendancy in state policy-making. Recognize it as an attempt to try to instill some illegitimacy onto the state’s new direction, a delaying tactic by those who, at the ballot box, in committee rooms, in house chambers, and in the realm of public opinion, are losing the debate and will try anything to forestall or prevent that.

LA elected officials must correct Obama on Honduras

2009-06-30T09:45:00.001-05:00

Many might be surprised at the intense interest sparked in New Orleans area about the constitutional struggle occurring in Honduras. A little knowledge of the connections between the city and the country might explain and points to actions the region’s national representatives should take on behalf of their constituents.

Few know that for decades New Orleans has served as a prime nexus between Honduras and the U.S. Tens of thousands of metropolitan area residents are of Honduran ancestry, and as many are Hondurans working in international commerce. (It is asserted that New Orleans has the third largest population of Hondurans in the world outside the country itself.) In addition to trade, a significant amount of remittances flow from U.S. citizens or resident aliens of Honduran ancestry to their families in the country. One of the most significant political figures of recent Honduran politics also spent his formative years in New Orleans: Miguel Pastor Mejia, who along with his twin brother and political aide Sebastian graduated from UNO, is the former mayor of the capital Tegucigalpa and was an unsuccessful candidate for his party’s nomination for the presidency in the last election.

The winner of that election from the other major party, Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, from the beginning of his term in 2006, began with a vaguely left platform and has steadily moved in that direction since. This has produced a major policy break with Honduras’ past and introduced more tension into its relations with the U.S. than perhaps in history. Zelaya has steadily lead the country towards closer relations with Venezuela and its anti-American leader Hugo Chavez (who, upon meeting Pres. Barack Obama for the first time, helpfully gave him a copy of his latest book haranguing America and reiterated its criticisms of America vocally; Obama offered no resistance or rebuttal) and become more critical of the U.S.

But this is not what started the controversy. Zelaya, barred from running for reelection, wanted to introduce a referendum to amend the constitution do allow him to do so and run for that reelection later this year. The constitution does not permit the president to call referenda on his own but Zelaya got Chavez to ship him the infrastructure and ordered the military (as is its job during elections) to distribute the ballots. The military resisted, Zelaya fired its leaders, and the country’s Supreme Court ruled he had acted illegally. Not to be thwarted, Zelaya had his own supporters violently secured and began to distribute ballots. This sparked large protests across the country. The country’s attorney general ruled that the actions were illegal, and the Court authorized the military to seize Zelaya to prevent further lawbreaking. He was sent into exile while the country’s legislature followed its constitution in the process to remove him and pick his temporary successor.

Despite this, along with many other states including ones that recently historically have been at odds with the U.S. including Cuba and Venezuela, on Obama’s order the U.S. not only has condemned the removal of Zelaya, but also Obama absurdly has denied the action was “legal” and termed it a “coup.” This language was stronger than that he employed when commenting on substantial evidence of fraud that appeared in recent Iranian presidential elections.

However, Obama has not committed to support Zelaya’s return to office as the only solution to end the crisis and here, on behalf of Hondurans in Louisiana who overwhelmingly back the new government, the likes of Sens. David Vitter and Mary Landrieu and Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao need to lobby the White House for it to respect Honduras’ constitutional processes and to resist the temptation to meddle in its internal affairs because it may prefer the politics of the ousted president. Cao, himself a victim of a country that retreated from the rule of law, especially could be valuable in his advice and support to help another state hold onto it.

While established, democracy in Honduras retains some fragility. The U.S. has supported it when it faced much bigger threats, such as in the mid-1980s in democracy’s nascent period when communist backed forces of Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Soviet Union tried to provoke revolution in it. It is incomprehensible why the U.S. today so far seems unwilling to assist Honduras when facing this smaller threat. If the executive branch of the U.S. seems bound to pursue its current unwise policy, it is up to the members of its legislative branch to point this out, strongly in private and respectfully in public, who are most closely connected to the issue – the federal elected officials representing the New Orleans area.

Weak arguments against new laws confirm their wisdom

2009-06-29T09:15:00.001-05:00

When somebody gets what he wants in substance and then still expresses unhappiness in the outcome, it’s worth wondering whether that was the issue at all or if instead the real source of the conflict was more personal in nature, even as such inept criticism confirms the wisdom of the very thing being argued against.

The recently completed session of the Louisiana Legislature featured some far-reaching changes in state policy concerning openness of records in the governor’s office. One new measure requires appointees who give a thousand or more bucks in campaign contributions to the elected official who appointed them to report this. Another by all accounts increases overall the amount of information that legally will be made public by the governor’s office.

Yet somehow these changes have made a presumed advocate of more transparency in government, Baton Rouge Advocate Executive Editor Carl Redman, most unhappy. Redman fulminates that the new requirements for appointee reporting will be “burdensome” on “ordinary people” and the new records laws delay release of information he believes was previously available on budgetary matters that he thinks will be mooted because “special interests” still will be able to get information on the budget through informal means, He also chafes at the continuing restriction concerning the “deliberative process,” meaning that decisions made by the governor using input from his advisers during policy-making may be kept confidential. Let’s analyze the validity of these complaints.

Redman preferred an alternative to the contribution law, one that made the appointer go back, comb through campaign finance records, match amounts to (perhaps thousands of) appointees, and then file a report every time (maybe every day) such an appointee met the criterion. This of course will take potentially hundreds of man-hours with all of the cross-referencing and appointees involved – Gov. Bobby Jindal, for example, has had well over 10,000 people donate to him since he began his quest for this term in office – and bigger government and taxpayer resources to go along with it. By contrast, as noted previously, upon wondering whether an appointee gave in a sufficiently large amount to his appointer, any citizen under the new law can go online to the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program website, after a couple of clicks type in the appointee’s name, and get the result quickly at no extra cost to the taxpayer because it will be the civic and legal duty of the appointee to include this information on his standard disclosure form.

It would seem then that Redman has different definitions than in the dictionary for “burdensome” and “ordinary people” if he believes his preferred method, which increases the size of government and use of taxpayers’ money, burdens the citizen more than the actual law requires. His lexicon also appears to diverge from the public’s at the mention of “special interests” as well. Regarding the transparency laws, he argues that “really influential lobbyists and special interests are well-connected and will get information through back channels,” but fails to inform one of these is the media themselves. To strengthen their arguments, those privy to information they think helps their causes always will seek media outlets to be complicit in its dissemination, in order to gather public support. So Redman suddenly believes the media will stop doing a job they presumably already do for no real reason? If he argues information will get out, he cannot argue that, if it is relevant to public policy debate, that it will not become public if the media does their job.

While the transparency law, as previously noted, could have been improved at the margins, it is instructive to know that the standards used in drafting the new law are used commonly by other states and widely accepted. A good example, and perhaps one that injured Redman’s pride, is the “deliberative process” standard. Initially, Redman testified in front of a legislative committee against the bill, identifying himself as representing the Louisiana Press Association’s views on the matter, among other things on this very matter. As a result of that and other testimony, the “deliberative process” portion of the bill was altered in consultations with its critics, which gained the acceptance of the LPA for the entire matter. Stubbornly, Redman continued his opposition in the next round of committee testimony, sticking to support of an unworkable alternative, even as Louisiana’s newspapers (tepidly) favored the bill, so he now identified his opposition as his only.

The larger idea of “executive privilege” as it is known in the context of the presidency, has a well-established place both institutional and juridical at the federal level. Many others besides the LPA see this new standard defined in Louisiana law as striking a reasonable balance between the public’s right to now and improving the quality of executive decision-making through the ability to receive candid advice unbiased by its potential to become public. Redman may not, but his argument is not shared by those representing his profession and a great many policy-makers and legal scholars, if not the public as a whole.

Given the inherent implausibility of his assertions, one wonders whether Redman is truly that unaware of them, or if the issue to him isn’t so much openness as it is who is on what side of the issue. One wonders whether such a column would have been written if the governor did not have “Jindal” as a last name, or labeled himself as “Republican.” Regardless, the weak criticism offered by Redman confirms the wisdom of the new laws.

Tale of two senators encourages, amuses NW LA

2009-06-28T15:10:00.001-05:00

Many families have a couple of archetypes among their members. One is the wise elder who exhibits good sense in almost all matters to whom others listen and employ or disregard his advice at their own risk. Another is the eccentric, prone to doing or blurting out whatever fool thing comes into his head which sometimes actually makes sense but more often are products of convoluted thinking, paranoia, or just general battiness. Northwest Louisiana’s political family is no exception to this general rule, and these two fellows who have the proud honor of serving Bossier Parish showed us their stuff during the 2009 regular session.

State Sen. Buddy Shaw proved to be the Senate’s only member willing to speak on the floor not once, but twice against bills (one intentional, one voluntarily hijacked) that would reimpose recently lowered taxes that would affect roughly 40 percent of Louisiana taxpaying households. While the thundering sound of other senators breaking their arms patting themselves on the back asserting they were making such a tough decision swept through the chamber, Republican Shaw (whose sentiments appeared to represent only a handful of others, none from this area) reminded them exactly of what they were doing: baiting and switching the people, giving hypocrisy a fresh name.

Much in lower profile than last session when he led the charge to cut tax rates for many taxpayers, while Shaw isn’t always right – his extensive public education background stunts his abilities to understand the vast benefits of school vouchers, for example – he always deserves listening to if not following his advice. And it’s good to know at least somebody in the Senate didn’t let the wimps, several of whom were elected in 2007 singing a very different tune about taxes and integrity, off the hook on this issue.

One of which is northwest Louisiana’s dotty Republican-in-name-only state Sen. Robert Adley (who actually authored the original tax cut and said, after Shaw’s remarks, that he must be one of the “hypocrites.”) If one can stand to listen long enough to his ramblings, in among the wackiness some gems may be found on occasion – if one doesn’t get driven crazy from the hyperbole, contradictions, and sheer illogic of what for him often passes as a train of thought.

For example, in 2006 when some legislators were arguing in favor of changes to the election code that would greatly lower the bar on the integrity of elections to allow hurricane-displaced individuals to vote, Adley was an effective spokesman on the floor showing how such changes did not “disenfranchise” voters.

But three years later, Adley brought this session a bill that would have reverted back federal elections in the state from the closed to blanket primary system. His reason? Because they registrants who do not choose a party label “lose” the “right to vote” in party primaries. Hearing this screed made one want to tap on his head, ask if anybody was home, and tell him nobody was losing any voting rights – if you made a declaration at registration as a party member you could participate in its nominating process, otherwise you could not; it was your choice. And if not, you still could exercise the franchise during the general election. (To make matters more interesting, during this testimony Adley told a story both humorous and horrific about voting irregularities in which his wife had been an unwilling participant.)

He also brought a bill concerning reporting requirements of the governor’s office which had little traction with an alternative now almost law. In its committee presentation, he drew out a conspiracy theory about how the alternative really was a ploy to induce greater secrecy, and openly wondered (as he would on the floor) whether the “Dark Ages” weren’t returning on this issue. Obviously, few other legislators reviewing the merits of the alternative seemed to agree. (Meanwhile, with very little publicity, Adley outside the Senate continues to enjoy a no-bid contract with Louisiana local governments for gas management, entities whose governance and finances he affects through decisions he makes as a senator. It’s a perfectly legal arrangement, but nevertheless makes for interesting occasions when he expounds on issues such as transparency and ethics.)

Adley ventured further towards the twilight zone when he opined on the Senate floor that the Governor’s Office put a pox on the Legislature hearing his bills, as part of a complaint of his there appeared to be too much political comment coming from the Division of Administration’s website (which apparently also is legal). In reality, it probably is more the quality of them that leads them to dead ends than anything else.

Antics such as these have gotten at least one Republican active in local politics already exploring a run against him in 2013. It would be easy to do a better job than the relic of a bygone era that is Adley, but difficult in the process to be more entertaining.

Jindal vetoes create more opportunity for smaller govt

2009-06-25T07:40:00.002-05:00

Gov. Bobby Jindal didn’t have to issue line item vetoes on HB 1 – the timeline allowed him to do so after the Legislature had adjourned so it would dramatically reduce the chances of any overrides – but he sent it back with a day to go in the session. What he vetoed and when he sent it back reveals much about the dynamics of the petering out of the 2009 regular session.

As expected, Jindal excised all provisions dealing with revenue-raising matters the Senate had tried to pass into law, or transference of monies from the Budget Stabilization Fund, essentially ratifying preferences of the House. He could do so precisely because he knew no override would come from the House. Now the situation is that other pieces of legislation contain in themselves the seeds of any budget deal and, as mentioned previously, the House and Jindal have the upper hand in any deal-making which must happen today.

More interesting, while most of the vetoes concerned these items, of the few that were not, many dealt with the exact area over which is the focal point of controversy – higher education. Six items vetoed reflected this, totaling $25.55 million – over a fifth of the disputed amount that the Senate wanted to add back in of $118 million. This may factor into negotiations

Most interesting, unlike the almost 250 items dealing with appropriations to nongovernmental organizations and local government vetoed last year, only one got the axe this time around. There are several reasons why this happened.

First, the publicity from the previous year about these no doubt altered the decision mechanism by legislators. Requests that did not follow Jindal’s standards, and entities that did not seem at least somewhat compelling were not forwarded. Second, shortage of money discouraged these kinds of requests. When higher education and health care were losing hundreds of millions of dollars, it probably dampened the enthusiasm of legislators to pursue these. Third, some such amendments were stuffed into some other bills, and some probably are still floating around waiting for a bill to attach to before 6 PM today.

Still, the high success rate compared to the significant casualty rate of last year may indicate that Jindal may have wanted to ease off the vetoes in order to get his preferred budget through. Last year, with a surplus, he may have had more leeway to veto with impunity but with a deficit making for more contention in dividing up a smaller pot, he may have had to tread more cautiously to create more goodwill among legislators.

In the final analysis, with these actions Jindal (with the higher education vetoes) strengthened his hand and demonstrated good faith not only to legislators but also, and most importantly, to the people as he pushed the budget that will come into a more parsimonious direction. Our wallets still won’t be safe for another several hours, but, so far, Jindal has done much to reassure us the bite won’t be as bad as it could be.

Dynamics favor smaller govt advocates in budget tussle

2009-06-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Louisiana House and Senate continued its weird mating dance over the budget, narrowing issues down to just how much will come out from the Budget Stabilization Fund after the House resoundingly rebuked the Senate’s strategy of raising taxes just recently lowered. With all matters of extracting more money from the people set aside, the main issue now is how much is to come out of the Fund and what does this mean to the size of government?

After the House ejected the tax increase, the Senate went ahead and amended HCR 236, the enabling resolution to draw on the Fund. The House wants only a little over $86 million, in large part because it is believed though HB 720 that creates a tax amnesty enough money will be hauled in from that to replenish that which gets taken out of the Fund. The Senate wants more, an even $204 million – note the difference is almost $118 million, the money promised to higher education to offset cuts totaling $219 million for next year. The difference sent the instrument to conference.

There it joins HB 802, which contains mainly funds transfers but also an appropriation for $118 million for higher education and a reversal of a transfer of a fund designed to attract insurers that by another piece of legislation was to have been put into the general fund, both Senate amendments. The Senate conference strategy will be to bargain for the $76 million in the insurance fund for the $118 million extra in the “rainy day” fund.

But now the House’s hand has improved over last week, when its interest in this bill was much greater than the Senate’s because now this is the Senate’s only vehicle by which to pry loose at least the $86 million the House has since volunteered with all other options closed. Neither can afford to let the bill founder because of the funds transfers, and if the House just let it go as is it would actually involve less spending if it also let HCR 236 expire (118 – 76 = $42 million). The problem is the money would not be going the places it wants nor is the actual draw from the fund in place, so a deal must be made.

That determined, if there’s real hardball involved on the House’s side it could say it will accept the $118 million and creation of a fund to send it to that supposedly would send it to higher education expenditures if the fund raid is not reversed, and then depend upon its backstop Gov. Bobby Jindal to veto that line item. The Senate will want assurances that will not happen, but it needs the bill, too, and likely will try to stake out some middle ground in terms of amount to avoid being put in a situation where it can be double-crossed.

Further strengthening the House’s hand is the current posture of HB 720. The only difference between the chambers with this instrument is the House version directs as much of the available revenues from the amnesty as possible to higher education while the Senate, to get leverage for its vision of funding this area, stripped that provision. The House could simply concur on this and HB 802 and HCR 236 with the Senate’s promise of not reversing the insurance fund draw. This would create a much bigger draw on the Fund than it wants, but then the proceeds of the amnesty are left unappropriated past constitutional requirements, which works in the favor of the House and Jindal because the first place they could go would be back to the Fund. In other words, acceding would create only a temporary draining that could be replenished to the level the House and Jindal prefers.

However, note that the Senate has every incentive to play hardball here as well, not because of the superior mechanisms at its disposal, but because so much of their political capital is on the line. Almost 30 senators, some nominally anti-tax, made themselves politically vulnerable by twice voting for tax increases. If they get at least some additional funding to higher education, they can claim they had to adopt extreme measures to reach this payoff and successfully. But if there is no payoff, or at least not any way to argue there is one even if substantively there is not, they will look quite foolish.

This has come down to a contest of wills because of a fundamental difference in belief about the appropriate size of government between Jindal and the House majority, and the Senate majority, where the latter believes government should be larger than the former. Given the constitutional, legal, and procedural structures of the state and its governing institutions, unless the former group loses its nerve its preferences are going to triumph in the main.

Firm Jindal can wrap up sensible budget, protect wallets

2009-06-23T08:50:00.000-05:00

Louisianans still need to keep their hands on their wallets as the 2009 regular session of their Legislature plunges into its death throes, the dying often committing acts of desperation that could yet trump the state’s Constitution, break promises, and produce poor public policy. A dedicated attendant, however, can and must manage the crisis.

Of course that would be Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has emerged as a referee of sorts between the more cautious House and free-spending Senate. Quite sensibly, the House majority, effectively Republicans like Jindal, recognizes a looming fiscal crisis over the next three years and an economic recession dictate sometimes painful prudence in spending and keeping as many of the people’s resources in their hands as possible. By contrast, the majority Democrat Senate resists the idea of downsizing government to match resources and, as part of its plan, has gone so far to concoct a solution of dubious constitutionality.

That would be encapsulated in HB 689, essentially hijacked with the permission of the author state Rep. Karen Peterson to take back a tax cut that began nearly six months ago for those who itemize on income taxes. The original attempt, SB 335 by state Sen. Lydia Jackson, was denied a hearing by House Speaker Jim Tucker because it clearly violated Art. III Sec. 16 of the Constitution: “All bills for raising revenue or appropriating money shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur in amendments, as in other bills.” Having tacked the SB 335 language into HB 689 the Senate presumes takes care of that.

This probably is something that, regrettably, will have to go to the judiciary. HB 689 never was designed as a revenue raising bill in the House but got mutated into such a bill by the Senate, so where did the revenue-raising capacity actually “originate?” Also constitutionally a problem is that it appears to be retroactive in nature, prohibited by Art. I Sec. 23 of the Constitution.

However, in the short term the constitutionality question can be mooted by Jindal, who may be playing the role of referee, but a biased one in favor of the House. The latest negotiations, excluding areas of agreement, seemed to have boiled down to acquiescence on his part to use about a ninth of the Budget Stabilization Fund to offset some cuts, but that the Senate resists the House’s attempt to use expected funds from a tax amnesty program to offset others and instead still pushes the tax hike to squeeze out even more revenues. The bargaining chip they seem to employ is about $30 million in House “member amendments” – specific line item appropriations to organizations in and out of local government – which they have stripped out of the supplemental appropriations bill HB 881 which contains also the appropriations language for HB 689. The offer seems to be trading some or all of the revenues raised in HB 689 for assent to the member amendments.

As noted previously, it does not have to come to this because Jindal has the upper hand. He needs to state simply that he will not sign HB 689, even if the House debates it (allowing the Senate to save face, although it is possible Tucker again could refuse to hear it out of constitutionality concerns) and it will vote it down. Further, he should declare what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: if House member amendments don’t go through, he will veto every Senate member amendment. Given the dynamics of the process and bill languages at this point, these two remarks checkmate the Senate’s expansionary desires as its members know those vetoes will not be overridden by the House as it would have nothing at stake. Jindal is going to veto some from both chambers, but the two must cooperate in order to convey that too many Jindal vetoes on these line items and on other whole bills could trigger a veto override session.

Jindal doesn’t like to micromanage the Legislature, having articulated that governors ought not be in that business. But practicing what he preached last year put him in a position where he wasted political capital on the matter of pay raises to full time status for legislators. Being firm with the Senate now will avoid a repeat of that outcome and do a service to the Louisiana citizenry.

No justification to give more money to make movies

2009-06-22T07:50:00.000-05:00

Shreveport’s City Council, mayor, and the Caddo Parish Commission recently demonstrated that these yokels remain as blinded as ever by the chimerical bright lights of Hollywood.

The Council unanimously, and with Mayor Cedric Glover falling all over himself to sign the ordinance into law as quickly as possible, voted to relieve filmmakers working in the city of at least some city sales tax. The measure permits as much as a $150,000 rebate (depending upon just what activities are paid for and how they are taxed, perhaps as much as $6 million in expenditures) but any concern that spends at least $300,000 in the parish is eligible. Repeat performances increase the ceiling even more. The parish came up with a much less intrusive, but equally as obnoxious program that will rebate as much as $23,200.

It’s more than just star-struck politicians who now get the chance to puff out their chests a little more and will find more opportunities to rub shoulders with film industry types. Slick producers and glad-handing lobbyists (which include city film officials) also praised the move to the skies. As well they would – the former now can get corporate welfare and the latter can justify their fees and paychecks.

The losers of all of this, of course, are the citizens of Shreveport. Because the one thing the politicians, the producers and others in the industry, and the lobbyists never will admit and desperately do not want the public to know is that these kinds of programs cost far more taxpayer dollars than they ever return in revenues to government.

A couple of months ago the state’s latest report on its film tax credit programs came out. Supporters of them seized on one figure that showed $763 million in “economic benefit” was produced by the presence of the state credits. What they ignored and tried to distract from was the fact that of the about $115 million that the state paid out in credits, it saw only $15 million from taxing these and derivative activities come back to it. The other $100 million or so simply represented a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to a small handful of people who like to make and invest in the making of movies – many not even Louisiana citizens.

It’s not like any of this is news. Five years ago the Legislative Fiscal Office observed that only around a sixth of the money that goes out comprising these credits comes back. (And it conceded this to be a generous estimate as it assumed no film activity would have occurred at all without the credits.) This corroborates what other policy studies of programs of this nature across the country have shown since then, research which also demonstrates these credits tended to distort economies away from more productive uses of these funds.

So if a child wonders why Shreveport pools aren’t going to be open, or if city business owners struggling in harder economic times reflect upon how city sales taxes may be pushing them out of business, or parish residents wonder about where to get the resources to fix animal control problems, no doubt they will rest easier knowing that, in addition to the almost $23 per man, woman, and child that each Louisiana resident transferred in 2007 to people running around making movies, that these critical resources at the local level will line even further the pockets of a few. Glover and the Council complain about how they need to make budgetary ends meet, yet they foolishly embark upon a plan that analysis shows will drain even more dramatically city resources – or funds that if left in the economy by a general lowering of sales taxes probably would increase economic activity and the resulting government revenues far more than by taking it from the productive citizenry who don’t want bribes to be here and giving it to nomads who insist they have to have these handouts to have anything to do with the city.

The state faces a similar question as laws governing the existing credits, supposedly transitory in nature to allow the film industry to develop and which are supposed to wither away in a few years, look to be altered by state politicians this legislative session. One hopes the advocates of extending these credits are asked to demonstrate the hard numbers about how economically the state is better of with them than by using the funds in alternative ways or by leaving the money in the hands of its earners, and maybe these officials won’t be so smitten by the glitz as were the hayseed Shreveport and Caddo elected officials. So far they haven't been, and the bills look to be on their way for approval to make the state credits permanent.

I’m all for the making of movies – a significant portion of my academic career has been spent studying and teaching about politics and the cinema: presenting research here and abroad, publishing in the area, serving as an officer in the professional organization dedicated to the study of this, and teaching courses on it at three different universities. But government subsidizing the making of movies at the expense of other vital services and/or at the sufferance of other taxpayers cannot be justified on any economic or moral grounds.

Melancon eyes Senate out of weakness, not strength

2009-06-21T09:50:00.001-05:00

Louisiana’s Democrat Third District Rep. Charlie Melancon seems to be reevaluating his previous position not to challenge Republican Sen. David Vitter. In the end, it will come down just how risk he is willing to assume to have a longer political career.

The calculus has changed somewhat for him over the past several months, but not in any consistent, or even politically favorable way. Even with Vitter’s only vulnerability being admission of a “serious sin” connected to an escort service, overall Vitter would be a difficult opponent to defeat, and events since the beginning of the year have made him even more formidable:

He continues to raise huge sums of money, already over halfway to a $5 million. Melancon, who doesn’t yet have $1 million, probably would have to spend in that area to be competitive if Vitter does the same.

No distracting challenge within the GOP has emerged to dilute Vitter’s efforts.

Opinion polls continue to show that a solid majority approve of Vitter’s handling of his job, and he is just under 50 percent in head-to-head matchups with opponents (if 50 or above, he would be considered a lock at this juncture, and it is instructive to note that these numbers were better than Sen. Mary Landrieu’s at the same point in her contest two years ago which she won with only a minor degree of difficulty).

The capture of the White House by Democrat Pres. Barack Obama has been as blessing in disguise for Vitter in four ways:
It has allowed Vitter to become one of the highest-profile critics of Obama, showcasing his conservative ideology in a state that barely mustered 41 percent of the vote for the very liberal Obama last year when the major alternative was a moderate.
It has hurt Democrats like Melancon in particular because it has become increasingly difficult for Melancon to masquerade as a moderate, with the self-proclaimed deficit hawk voting on numerous occasions with Obama to dramatically expand the size of the federal government.
It conveys a small electoral advantage in 2010 to members of the out-party like Vitter in their contests. Historically, members of the party not in the White House running for the House do disproportionately better in off-year elections, while Senate candidates do slightly better.
Unless something unprecedented happens, Obama and the Democrats’ economic policy is going to lead the country into a recession as bad as the late 1970s-early 1980s, and maybe even worse. There is no way Vitter would lose to a Democrat under those conditions.

However, pressuring Melancon to run isn’t so much a result of an improving statewide profile for him, but of a deteriorating district situation:

He already has a serious GOP challenger talking about opposing him, state Rep. Nickie Monica, in a district that delivered only 35 percent of its vote to Obama (Melancon ran unopposed last year).

Seizing on the inconsistency between his rhetoric and actions, national Republicans have been running media pieces highlighting this and appear to be committed to do so for the next 18 months regardless of what office he intends to pursue.

Redistricting plans floating around already have his district being merged with the Second by 2012, and this will be the preferred plan by Republicans and black Democrats likely with a reelected Republican governor in order to maximize the chances of Republicans and a black Democrat to be elected to comprise the state’s House delegation if as is probable Louisiana loses a seat through the 2010 census.

Melancon’s problem is two-fold. As any politician at this level must do, he has to act soon on forecasts a year out which may be wildly inaccurate. Also, indications are his chances are deteriorating at both the district and state level, and it is never good for a politician to feel compelled to act out of growing weakness as opposed to growing strength.

So when he states he will make a decision in the coming weeks, this translates as he needs more time to assess the way the political winds are blowing. But if current trends continue, expect him to go with the office he would be favored to win which might disappear in two years rather than the one he would be an underdog in that definitely would give him six more years in Washington, unless he feels really insecure about his district and/or hubris seizes him.

Possible titanic struggle in offing favors Jindal, House

2009-06-18T09:15:00.002-05:00

During the 2009 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature, the political hijinks just don’t stop and are unlikely to until the clock strikes 6 PM on Jun. 25.

Yesterday, three separate bills were amended specifically to impose the will of one chamber on the other. But the lower chamber has the upper hand on the upper because its ace in the hole is the veto pen of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The most far-reaching changes were to HB 802. The bill started out as one that shifts money around to pay for certain appropriations to avoid some projected cuts to government in the operating budget, HB 1 which already has gone to Jindal largely undisturbed from Jindal’s original plan, thwarting the Senate’s desire to force it into a compromise committee as Jindal can pare its desired spending from it. Thus, from the perspective of the House and Jindal, HB 802 is a bill that must pass, and the Senate knew that.

The Senate floor amendments did three things. First, it redirected money from an already-implemented tax cut back into state coffers by creating a fund for higher education and pumping into it money from that reversal as stipulated in concurrently-amended HB 689. Second, it created a device by which the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund could be used, in a manner it is believed which does not require its automatic replenishment next year, that could shuttle some money to higher education. Third, it cancels the actions of SB 193 which would allow distribution of excess funds in a fund created in 2006 to entice insurers into the state which HB 802 originally intended to be used for distribution to higher education.

The mentioned HB 689 was the result of additional hijinks. That bill essentially swallowed into it through Senate amendment the text of the unconstitutional SB 335, the revenue-raising bill reversing the tax cut. House Speaker Jim Tucker refused to deal with it because that revenue-raising bill originated in the Senate. Presumably, the hijacking of a House bill puts that concern to rest, although a challenge to the Louisiana Supreme Court might prove interesting on that account.

For its part, the House’s attempt to trump went in a different direction. Through inattentiveness of a majority on its part, it allowed through an amended HB 841 which directs the state to accept legal changes that converts the state’s unemployment insurance program into a welfare-based operation, opposed by Jindal. The Senate has been more sympathetic to that sentiment and yesterday made sure HB 841 got passed out of committee, narrowly, without any changes. If that is replicated with the entire body, Jindal will be forced to veto it and there is not nearly enough support for an override. Its supporters know this, but want to use the bill to try to embarrass Jindal by making him use the veto.

But the House took a Senate measure, SB 303, and essentially amended out the life of HB 841. Since this was a change, concurrence by Senate assent or by conference would have to occur for it to continue. If HB 841 doesn’t pass unmolested in the Senate or at all, then SB 303 changes would be moot and easily removable. But if it does, the Senate would be unlikely to agree to the changes and then it becomes a matter of whether the Senate wishes to let SB 303 founder at the expense of HB 841. Nonetheless, HB 841 represents a small bargaining chip because while a Jindal veto of it would be popular, it could be used against him politically in the future.

The Senate changes to HB 689 also don’t represent much of a threat. It would seem to come up no earlier than Monday for concurrence, which no doubt will be rejected, giving a conference committee three days to work stuff out. The original bill isn’t that important to the House, so it would willingly let it die by refusing to budge.

This then would moot the language in the new HB 802 concerning that bill. It may direct that monies from HB 689 go into a fund, but that amount is zero dollars without HB 689. As well, the House could allow the Budget Stabilization Fund draw to go through and then its ace in the hole, Jindal, could swat that away as it is an appropriation and subject to a line item veto.

The only substantial leverage the Senate has is the language cancelling the cancellation of the insurance fund. That is not an appropriation and not subject to a line item veto, yet other appropriations wanted by the House and Jindal depend upon it. Further, the money shifting they also need, so the bill must pass. (The Senate also balked on another source of funds for the House plans, HB 720 which allows for a tax amnesty, but it needs that money, too so it’s likely to be acted upon soon.) This suggests three scenarios:

Some kind of complicated compromise emerges connecting all bills, where something of value gets through for each side. For example, Jindal Senate allies (if they actually are able) let HB 841 through unmolested, HB 689 is let through, language addressing that and the Fund draw stays, all are vetoed, but the SB 193 language is removed from HB 802. This is the maximum Jindal embarrassment option and not likely as the Senate majority probably does not value that much, but is an example. Many combinations exist in here, but they all represent the idea that the Senate knows it can’t win and therefore settles for what it perceives as a shaming of Jindal.

A simple compromise emerges on budget cuts. The most likely is a straight trade of the Fund draw for deep-sixing the tax cut reversal, and all other matters get excised. It makes the House and Jindal seem more caring about funding without any tax increases, and it makes the Senate not look bad for a bait-and-switch tax increase. At this time, this seems the most probable outcome.

But it wouldn’t be the most entertaining, which would be a titanic struggle of wills that probably advantages, because they have teamed up, the House and Jindal. They could tell the Senate to send it all over except SB 303, let Jindal veto everything that he can, and add to that an extraordinarily large number of senators’ projects in HB 1 the saved proceeds of which will be used to fund higher education at a later date. If Jindal has the guts to play it that way, accepting the loss of roughly two-thirds of the funds he would want to go to higher education, the Senate knows it cannot win and will blink. Also in the House and Jindal’s favor: allowing HB 802 through quickly, then sending along SB 193 and claiming since the latter was passed last it should take precedence over the conflicting former. These are why the Senate is likely to seek trade of the Fund draw for surrendering everything else.

If nothing else, this upcoming last week of the legislative ought to rank high in entertainment value. Next week, turn off your afternoon soap operas and on your video links to the House and Senate chambers.

Transfer bill defeated by desire for pork, love of big govt

2009-06-17T14:00:00.002-05:00

The defeat of HB 783 represents everything that is wrong with the state of Louisiana – continued infatuation with big government, putting government employees ahead of the taxpayer, and good-old-boy politics of spreading out goodies for reelection – with a dash of ideological extremism thrown in for good measure.

This bill by state Rep. Rick Nowlin would allow the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals to sell and to get out of the nursing home operating business through the John Hainkel facility in uptown New Orleans. Not only does the state have to pay for running the facility, it ends up paying for its Medicaid patients an extra $72 a day over the New Orleans reimbursement rate. However, because of the mix of patients (veterans paid by the federal government, and private pay) typically it has been making an annual “profit” although it cannot keep those funds and must return them to the state.

The facility, among nursing homes, performs at the highest rating level. Note, however, that this is very relative. In the past inspection periods it had a significant number of violations and does poorly on a number of patient outcome measures. Nevertheless, because the majority of nursing homes do even more poorly, its relative ranking appears high.

Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine wants to privatize the facility with a lease arrangement in order to save the $72 per day per patient. This would result, after the first-year startup costs, at its current 85 percent Medicaid census count (typical for Louisiana nursing homes) at a 70 percent occupancy rate (again, typical in the state) and subtracting out payments for insurance and pensions would save the state around $386,000 a year. The amount could be significantly higher because lease payments were not included in the fiscal note. By contrast, the “profit” over the past few years averaged about $140,000 more, although the varied considerably. In other words, looking only at direct costs, the matter probably would be a wash in the short run but over the long run, as pension costs decrease, and especially if more Medicaid patients end up at the facility, “savings” would mount.

However, the indirect savings realized by the state could be much larger. This is because there are too many beds in nursing homes presently in the state, for which the state pays about $20 million a year. In other words, by contributing to the overbedding situation (and clearly Hainkel does so as its occupancy rate is not close to 100 percent) with its operation of Hainkel, Louisiana taxpayers are paying more than twice for some residents – the regular rate plus $72, and then again because a bed occupied at Hainkel is a bed left empty elsewhere. To put it another way, if the state is paying for 85 residents there who could be filling an empty bed elsewhere, the state additionally would be saving (at the lower reimbursement rate for empty beds) hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Which probably is why it’s desirable that if Hainkel could not draw a lease sufficient to pay taxpayers what its worth not to have the state to operate it, taxpayers would be best off by closing it. In the long run, so would residents of there and nursing homes statewide as the state could put the money saved from it and not having to pay for empty beds back into the system, encouraging other operators to provide more and better care statewide.

So a comprehensive review of the financial picture shows the deal is good for taxpayers and patients. In fact, the only people which it might not be are the 137 current employees at the facility that would have to reapply for their jobs under a lease arrangement (although 11 could retire) and the Luddite that represents the district in which the facility is located, Rep. Neil Abramson. He waged a virtual one-man war against the bill, and thereby taxpayers, using a couple of idiotic arguments:

That it was a good facility, so don’t alter it. So what? Why is there any reason to think that the state directly running it would have to do a better job than if it were leased to a private (probably nonprofit) operator? In fact, from what we know about human behavior, it almost certainly would improve without government intervention (note: there still would be plenty of government involvement in the enterprise with 85 percent of its patients being paid for by government).

That is made a “profit.” As the above analysis shows, relative to leasing even looking only at direct costs at best it is debatable that leasing would not be more “profitable,” and looking at the long run and all costs continued operation by government most certainly would cost more to the taxpayer.

Note the particularly insipid assumption behind them: if government is so good at running nursing homes, why isn’t Abramson out there stumping to make government run them all? (To argue “it depends” contignent of a specific facility simply is logically inconsistent: the root conditions that differ between government and non-government ownership do not vary from place to place but remain constants.) The invalidation of these arguments means either Abramson is ill-informed or can’t think very logically, or he knows them perfectly well and uses them to hide his real motivations for opposition.

One obvious motive for his opposing the bill was patronage. He can use the presence of the facility as tool to get reelected, and no doubt the interests behind the present operation of the facility will reward him handsomely in quiet, maybe public, assistance to his next campaign. It’s the 21st century, but good-old-boy politics are alive and well in his 98th House district.

The other Abramson – on behalf of himself and others – tipped off in comments he has made about the idea. He has claimed there is some sort of crusade for privatization, that “it’s a policy-driven decision to get them out of the health care business and turn it over to private interests,” as if this time-tested philosophy were somehow a kind of black mark. This is because to Abramson and these folks, the last thing they want to do is to make government smaller. This is why they have bitterly opposed a reasonable budget that does exactly that and championed taking more money from the people. And even though this is just a small piece of government, to these relics blindly devoted to government as a means of control and redistribution of power and wealth it was one tiny battle they wanted to win against the many losses that ideology has taken this session in the Legislature.

On this matter, for now they have succeeded, for as even though a majority voted for the bill, too many absences meant it fell four short to pass with a majority of the seated House. In fact, it could not have failed without votes against by several Orleans-area supporters of the budget and whom often (at least in rhetoric) support the idea of smaller government. Sadly, they succumbed to helping out Abramson bring home the bacon because some of those facility jobs could be held by residents of their districts.

To further hamstring Levine, Abramson has proposed a study resolution on the question that if passed will make it more difficult politically for Levine to simply shut down the facility to save money during this next year. Regardless of the fate of this instrument, at present on this issue the politics of selfishness and the past have won out.

Misleading tobacco tax arguments don't fool majority

2009-06-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

HB 889, a bill to raise taxes on smoking and tobacco use, went up in flames on the House floor, a fraud to the end.

Its author Rep. Karen Peterson pulled out all the stops, joined in by several supporters, who perpetuated myths if not misleading information. These have been discussed elsewhere, but to summarize briefly:

It is about Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal. Peterson protested too much by saying it was not, despite making a crack at Jindal’s presumed future political aspirations during debate and, earlier in the day in committee on an unrelated bill, bitterly complaining to Jindal Administration officials about his opposition to this bill. It’s clear that while making Jindal look bad by trying to put him into a position to have to veto this probably was not the main motive of Peterson, who holds a party office for the Democrats, on the bill, it certainly was part of her calculation and strategy to pursue it and denials on her part are disingenuous.

That an increased tax would significantly reduce smoking. Several legislators who smoke or have smokers in their family talked about how the task of quitting was so difficult and disrupted family life because of the addiction of it. Incredibly, they missed the entire self-contradiction in their arguments: by claiming this was an addiction, this meant that voluntary actions by them, such as deciding whether to buy tobacco legally available, would not be affected by a tax. Only involuntary restraints, such as making it unavailable, can significantly affect this behavior if it is claimed to be truly “addictive.”

That it was needed to help smokers. In addition to the logical flaw noted above, the argumentation incorrectly noted the locus of control needed to overcome the addiction. Let’s get this straight: tobacco doesn’t cause addiction, it’s people who cause their own addictions. They don’t need a tax increase or even outlawing of tobacco use to quit; all they need is willpower. It is an insult to the millions who quit smoking “cold turkey” to suggest people generally are so weak that they need some kind of government help by higher taxes to do so. If you can’t quit smoking, state Reps. Harold Ritchie and Roy Burrell, it’s not government’s fault because taxes are too low that you can’t, it’s your own.

That the state would save money. The hypothesis here is that smoking-related illnesses cost the state more in terms of health care costs than is gathered in taxes. But in fact, the cost of treating smoking-related ailments is less than that of treating other ailments people get as a result of living longer, study after study confirms. The less smoking that occurs, the more government pays in health care expenses.

That the money would be used to fund health care related to smoking, implying by the previous point new money would be provided for this task. But nothing in the bill promised that, given the realities of cost-shifting and substitution in functions performed. In other words, it could allow, as the current level of taxation on tobacco does, shoveling money into the general fund for any purpose of government.

That it was not an “unstable” source of revenue. Since the tax is supposed to discourage behavior that raises the revenue, it should not be stable and provide diminishing returns. Supporters ran a red herring of an argument that said collections of tobacco revenues increased after the last hike, but that is meaningless when presented in isolation of other factors and did not look at the rate of consumption (which ahs been declining). The bill’s own fiscal note contradicted that sentiment by detailing that for every dollar the tax was raised, only about two-thirds of the revenues from it were realized, historical data showed.

Throughout it all, supporters tried to dismiss the blatant fact of what the bill was, a tax increase. State Rep. Joe Lopinto, the only one who spoke against the bill, did not let them get away with that, despite their claims that “anti-tax” rhetoric did not have a place in the discussion. He correctly pointed out that the question was whether this tax increase was justified, and as the above arguments show, it clearly was not.

Whether the 55 opponents accessed any, some, or all of the above in their decisions to oppose the bill makes no difference as to the outcome, a victory for those who believe government should live within it means and that spending priorities can be altered with no significant decrease in quality of services provided. For this, regardless of whether somebody uses tobacco, this bill’s defeat was a triumph for Louisiana’s people.

Fiscal pain by some emphasizes need for flexibility

2009-06-15T10:15:00.001-05:00

We’ll find out shortly whether the resolve of Gov. Bobby Jindal pays off with bills to restructure the state’s fiscal budgetary procedures.

A criticism of the mechanisms placed into law and the Louisiana Constitution is that, in times such as these when forecasted budget deficits cause significant restructuring of state spending patterns, inflexibility leads to sub-optimal policy choices. Specifically in this cycle, disproportionate chunks must be taken out of health care and higher education due to these strictures.

The recognition basically has sunk in. The Louisiana State University system finally reconciled itself to carry out such reductions, and health care providers continue to lament the need as well, which in its case end up being even more significant because there often is a matching federal dollar component to their expenditures.

But all of this agony may have a larger political point. The Jindal Administration spawned a large number of bills addressing these kinds of matters, many of which will surface in front of the House Appropriations Committee today. They are designed to increase budgetary flexibility.

Interestingly, there is non-trivial opposition to such measures. Some argue that certain functions are too important not to be protected, while others point out that the increased flexibility could allow government to transfer funds put into account directly from the non-government sector to benefit the donors. Several ardent opponents of these measures appear to be on the committee. However, the stark reality of the costs of the inflexible system are being loudly trumpeted by the most prominent victims of it, higher education and health care, putting pressure on the Legislature to pass these measure for Jindal’s signature.

Unfortunately, one outstanding measure, HB 738 by state Rep. Joel Robideaux which would require review of funds every four years to see whether they should continue with special protections that reduce flexibility, is not being considered along with the other flexibility bills of Senate Pres. Joel Chaisson SB 1, SB 2, and SB 34. It would do considerable service if the committee would amend its provisions onto one of these other bills.

Successful passage of these bills not significantly altered out of this committee probably assures they will be made into law. Hopefully that proper outcome will occur today.

Budget tactics likely to make LA's people winners

2009-06-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

Only one winner for sure will emerge when all is settled with Louisiana’s 2009-10 operating budget – the people of the state.

Contention has thickened the air for weeks regarding the document due to fundamental disagreements between the House and the Senate over the size of government. A majority of the former has expressed a desire for next to no new taxes and fees, with any additional money at all coming from underutilized existing funding or a somewhat-uncertain amount from an income tax amnesty to dredge up additional funds. The Senate has refined its appetite for additional revenue by repealing an already-implemented tax break and wanting to dip into the Budget Stabilization Fund, a move which in essence would not allow any money to be drained form it next year when fiscal conditions are predicted to be even worse. It largely consents to the House strategies for finding other monies but questions whether the amounts usable in the operating budget can be realized.

By the Constitution, the governor lays put priorities but the House has the first shot in its origination of fiscal matters. It sent a budget to the Senate reflecting its priorities above. There, the Senate tried to buck the House by rescinding the tax reduction (even as a majority of representatives pledged on paper not to go along with that), tapping the Fund, and adding back in money for areas disproportionately cut given the constitutional and legal structure of the state budgetary process, health care and higher education, made contingent on the bill and resolution passing that would allow these things. The point was to push the House into a conference committee where it could get some of these things – chiefly some kind of reneging on the tax cut, since House Speaker Jim Tucker had ruled the enabling legislation for it unconstitutional and, without any mobilization of House members to overrule him, thereby stopping it. This way, Senate Pres. Joel Chaisson could get the House to amend that bill into the conference report.

But Tucker foiled Chaisson by having the House approve the entire thing, not giving the Senate any opportunity to use the threat of non-passage of the budget to try to extract concessions. This way, if an expeditious normal path of legislative progression occurred, Gov. Bobby Jindal would have gotten the bill on Jun. 12, starting his 10-day clock on veto decisions, plus two days to deliver his veto message – meaning the chambers would have a day in hand to override any vetoes before the Jun. 25 constitutionally-mandated adjournment. The House wanted this flexibility to be able to thwart any revenue-raising measures it didn’t like, yet to be able to overturn any gubernatorial vetoes struck on individual line items that spent money for non-state entities, which run into the tens of millions of dollars, in the operating budget.

(This move also effectively ended the life of HB 889 by state Rep. Karen Peterson that would have increased taxes on tobacco. Any money it raises now has no place to go as it sets up a funding mechanism but does not trigger appropriations. Tucker and likely a majority in the House are against it as a new tax.)

The Senate would have liked to have had the same ability to ensure project survival, but to strengthen its hand for the other measures one of its provisions tied the projects to its contingent revenue enhancements being enacted. The House could do nothing about that in order to avoid the conference committee, so its hope was that Jindal would use a line-item veto on the revenue-raising contingency language, untying the projects. Then Jindal still could cast individual vetoes on them and get them reviewed by both chambers.

However, it was Chaisson’s turn to trump Tucker when, instead of a customary layover of at most a day in the presiding officer’s formal singing of a bill passed in his chamber, he decided to sit on it for the full three allowed. This pushed the deadline for a veto message reception past the end of the session, meaning now that a veto session would have to happen for any overrides to occur. They occur automatically after a session unless called off by the members of chamber through a majority vote; every single one has been since the institution of the 1974 Constitution.

This makes the Senate the biggest loser in the deal. It has to hope that the House is scared enough of losing projects to line item vetoes that it will pass the bill and resolution dumping additional money into the budget, then dare Jindal to veto them and thereby force him to accept whatever public backlash there might be to big cuts in spending in higher education and health care. That seems unlikely not only because of past House opposition to the measures but also because health care expenditures disproportionately go to a small segment of the population and higher education never has been held in high regard by a majority of population (and whose credibility is declining as it seems unwilling to make changes to itself). Jindal can say no new revenues will get through him, and the House then accepts nothing it does can prevent the exercise of Jindal’s veto pen.

The risk to Jindal therefore is minimal. As long as he takes care that enough of his line item vetoes of projects do not alienate enough House members to make them actually want to go for a critical mass of overrides (recall that these require two-thirds votes for success), a veto session again will be canceled. More hits will be taken than House members supporting Jindal would like, but that is the price they pay for getting mostly their preferences in the final budget – with Jindal’s complicity – with Senate largely cut out.

Thus, Chaisson’s move was a big gamble that likely will end up Pyrrhic in nature. It will be much more open season on Senate projects, and few of their differing preferences will be in the final spending document. The House will suffer some drawbacks on its projects, and, since the Senate pushed the issue, Jindal will endure some minor withdrawals of political capital for his excising.

Yet the people of Louisiana come out way on top. They get a budget that promotes smaller, more efficient government that does not abscond with more of their money and keeps the promises made by elected officials. If Jindal uses his veto pen enough, what results will be a good first step to fiscal reordering so desperately needed in the state as even stormier budget clouds gather for the future.

LA higher education must address inconvenient data

2009-06-11T11:10:00.001-05:00

It seems like a day doesn’t go by when Louisiana higher education officials aren’t decrying the impending budget cuts that will have to be endured. As unfortunate as the results of these might be, the problem is the constant refrain that neglects certain aspects threatens the credibility of higher education in a state where its reputation already is subdued among the general population.

Of course, it helps your cause when you don’t associate yourself around idiocy and failure to do so occurred recently when the leaders of the three public Baton Rouge institutions allowed East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden to speak on their behalf. “All three institutions in Baton Rouge are facing layoffs, which weakens consumer confidence and consumer spending and ultimately impacts our sales taxes,” he wailed, which has a degree of truth. But he left out the rest of the story: if restoring funding means removing that money from the private sector, that probably would end up costing more job reductions and lowering of consumer confidence and sales tax revenues. And his idea is logically absurd: according to Holden’s view, why not drain every cent from the private sector to support these schools if that’s what it takes to preserve jobs, etc.

At least the college heads seemed more rational in their statements, adding to the chorus over the past three months about potential adverse impacts concerning the disproportionate cuts, largely dictated by the inflexible state fiscal structure in a deteriorating economy. However, the continued poor-mouthing by higher education threatens to backfire so long as certain inconvenient facts are not discussed, information that, if left unexplained by the higher education community, weakens the argument against significant cuts.

Using data mainly from 2004-05 (but number of institutions from 2006), a couple of aspects need to be addressed in the debate over the cuts. First, Louisiana, which ranks (by 2008 estimates) 23rd in total population and among the prime college-age group of 18-24 years old 22nd, at 58 has the sixth-most number of public community colleges (which includes technical schools) and at 17 eighth-most number of public baccalaureate and above institutions of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia (which has no community colleges).

This ends up being reflected in the enrollments per public institution. Among the states, Louisiana ranks 47th, ahead of only three significantly smaller-populated states, in terms of enrollment per school at the two-year level, and 31st for the four-year-and-up schools. Simply, there are too many institutions of higher learning in the state – and population increase projections are marginal at best. Contrary to what is often stated, while there does appear to be some minor problem with too many four-year schools, the much bigger problem is with the number of two-year schools unless you can argue that too many students who should be at two-year schools have ended up at four-year schools.

All right, we can’t wave a magic wand and change this overnight, so what about the short-term situation of budget cuts? After all, the argument often used by higher education is higher education has been underfunded historically so cuts now would reverse any progress and retard it for the future. Well, there’s another troubling statistic addressing this: in terms of state operating appropriations per enrolled public student, Louisiana ranked 10th among the states (and it should be noted dollars into higher education increased disproportionately higher after 2006 in the state, and this does not count any monies paid by the state for the Taylor Opportunity Program Scholarships which may hit $130 million this year). To restate that, 40 states and D.C. were paying less per student into their higher education systems, not including capital outlay, than was Louisiana in 2004-05.

And while it’s often asserted that more money has to go into Louisiana’s system because of low tuition rates, that’s not entirely accurate. Among the states, Louisiana ranked 32nd in terms of tuition paid per public school enrollee (although for some it is TOPS money).

In this debate about higher education cuts, taxpayers have a legitimate question that appears to go unanswered by that sector: if the per capita appropriations are so relatively high and tuition not that low, why are the cuts so catastrophic? If other states can get along (and, it is argued, mostly do a better job) at lower levels of expenditures, why can’t Louisiana?

It’s a question higher education must answer in this debate or face the risk of not appearing credible in its protestations about cuts. And as part of it, care needs to be taken not to lump all 75 institutions together. Some of their per student state revenues are going to be much more in line with national averages, and others need to be compared against appropriate peers (such as doctoral-granting institutions, because their per student appropriations will be higher given the more intensive nature of their graduate programs).

A study bill is about to make its way through then Senate and then to the governor’s desk that’s going to ask these kinds of questions about overbuilding and efficiency in the next year. Higher education better have answers ready or the political and public backlash against it, it being perceived as out-of-touch and feeling entitled and privileged, will make the current budget cuts seem mild compared to what’s coming.

Politics, greed mark many representatives' smoking votes

2009-06-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

That stench emanating from the Louisiana Capitol isn’t from tobacco, it’s that from the hypocrisy surrounding how the House is treating the issue of smoking.

As noted previously, HB 889 which raises revenue from increased tobacco taxes itself is chock full of hypocrisy. It raises money off the destructive behavior of individuals yet does not adequate guard that the money will be used only to prevent or deal with that behavior. An honest bill would dedicate all revenues derived from it to smoking cessation, prevention, treatment of diseases believed associated with it, and research of those, that also does not allow for cost shifting, meaning these new revenues would be added to existing revenues for the same purposes and the old revenues not shunted to be spent on purposes unrelated to smoking. The bill doesn’t do that, so therefore it is more about raising revenue than dealing with smoking.

For some, it also is about politics perhaps more than revenue. Test votes on parliamentary maneuvers showed it does not have enough votes to pass the House, and that it is scheduled to be debated next week means there’s not much of a chance it can pass through the Senate in time to even get to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal prior to the session end Jun. 25 without extraordinary measures. And Jindal has promised to veto it meaning, given the timeframe, a special veto override session would have to be called to accomplish this which never before has been successful. Only a political payoff – trying to embarrass Jindal in order to hamper his political future – would justify anything more than non-public attempts by the bill’s author, Democrat party official and state Rep. Karen Peterson, to keep it going under these conditions.

But while she may be using the bill as a political cudgel, at least Peterson’s hypocrisy does not extend to the lengths of many of her colleagues. If members who support HB 889, as indicated on the test votes, truly did so not for political or revenue-raising reasons but simply because they think smoking needs to be limited if not outlawed, they also would have voted in favor of HB 844 by Rep. Gary Smith that would have restricted smoking in commercial establishments that sold food and drink to outside, except for Indian casinos. Instead, most did not (Peterson did).

It’s quite simple – for whatever reason one thinks smoking should be restricted, whether that be it is self-destructive, it is a habit that annoys others, or it is a civil liberties issue (people with pulmonary conditions not through their choice effectively are denied entrance to bars because the liberties of those who can choose whether to smoke are given precedence over theirs), this same thinking behind HB 844 support should translate into support of the HB 889. Therefore, if one did not support HB 844 – because perhaps one thought people should have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior, or they had a right to impose it upon others in public places, or their voluntary choices are considered more important than the less-fortunates’ involuntary situations, then it cannot be argued that a vote to continue HB 889 is anything but political and/or money-grubbing in nature.

This produces lists of representatives, one of those who backed not only the indoor smoking ban but also in voting to allow the tobacco tax hike to continue on motions who therefore may be doing it for political reasons but at least are consistent, and one of those who also backed every motion for the tobacco tax to continue but voted against the indoor smoking ban who therefore demonstrate they are putting greed and/or politics ahead of principle. Of the former, Republicans likely are to be principled as they would have no wish to attack Jindal, while the Democrats (and independent leaners that way) likely are injecting politics into their decision even if it comports with their principles. Of the latter, likely it is Republicans that emphasize the greed part since they should be against taxation and would not want to attack Jindal, while the Democrats may share the greed and politics motivations.

And so, the principled: Downs and Ernst.

And, the probable political maybe matching principle: Arnold, A. Badon, Baldone, Barrow, Hill, Hines, M. Jackson, Peterson, G. Smith, St. Germain, and Stiaes.

And the greedy: Carmody, Lambert, Perry, and White.

And the greedy and/or probably political as well: Abramson, Anders, Brossett, Burrell, Dixon, Doerge, Edwards, Franklin, Gisclair, Hardy, Henderson, Honey, Johnson, LaFonta, Montoucet, Norton, Richmond, Ritchie, Roy, P. Smith, and Williams.

Removing only the pair for which it seems certain voted for principle, that’s 25 names that had greed or politics at least as a factor in their decisions, and perhaps as many as 11 more of the 105 members. That’s why the stench from the first floor of the Capitol is so overwhelming.

Tobacco tax hike remains disingenuously political

2009-06-09T00:00:00.001-05:00

No doubt she gave it her best shot, which was pretty good in that she got a party-line vote to go in her favor, but despite that all of the conceptual and political flaws behind HB 889 by Rep. Karen Peterson still reveals it to be more about trying to score political points than any serious, workable measure addressing the state’s fiscal structure or health care issues.

The bill would take tax increases levied on tobacco and dedicate them to a number of purposes dealing with the health care area – a tax increase Gov. Bobby Jindal said he would veto and one which looks shaky to get the two-thirds vote each in chamber (or to override his veto) in any event. It is a scaled-down version of even higher taxes proposed in her HB 75 which was defeated in the House Ways and Means Committee, and reworked to avoid certain criticisms.

One was in the amount on cigarettes which was argued to cause business around the states’ border to flee to those surrounding states with lower taxes, thus largely negating the impact. Thus, the new cigarette tax was cut in half to 50 cents a pack to make the new total 86 cents a pack. Also, the money was not specifically dedicated to health care expenditures, so in the bill four different kinds of entities – providers, clinics, researchers, and treatment entities – were specified to receive the funds with half going to general providers of health care services. This was to counter the argument that it is unwise policy to base a tax on an activity for which the tax actually tries to discourage, because it creates an unstable funding mechanism and to some degree is hypocritical and there for only revenue-generating reasons, because if government truly wants to discourage this it would restrict or ban the practice.

None of this changed Jindal’s mind which means pursuit of the bill is pointless given existing political dynamics. As a demonstration of his influence, the bill’s consideration was delayed almost a month which means any further delay will kill it given the approaching end of the session. And, if the content and debate of and vote concerning the bill in committee are indicators, continued public pursuit of it by Carter will be primarily for political reasons.

Note that elements of hypocrisy, although reduced from the other bill, still hung over the original bill. For one thing, the half of the dedications that went to activities that could be related to smoking prevention/cessation and diseases from it was ill-defined in direction, specified to certain agencies but not activities. However, state Rep. Mike Danahay called the bill on that (graciously accepted by Peterson), getting amendments that specified the money had to go to activities dealing with prevention, cessation, and/or research. While that helps make for a more honest bill, it still isn’t quite so on this measure. This is because cost-shifting still could occur. For example, money that would go for prevention can supplant funds formerly used for that purpose, which then could be shifted to other agency purposes and then the money that formerly funded these could be shifted outside of the agency for any purpose in state government. So Peterson or any other supporter of the bill is being dishonest if they assert the new monies raised by it “only” would go to health care-related items.

The other hypocritical aspect is the other 50 percent, which goes to “funding to the Department of Health and Hospitals for payments to providers in the state Medicaid program, specifically for increases in provider rates.” This has little to do with smoking unless one could argue that smoking-related ailments would cause an increase in the total amount paid to providers to be offset by the new revenue. But the bill does not do that, it addresses not serving more people more often, but rather increasing the per person, per event payment, so it does not expand coverage to address smoking’s consequences in any way. Further, the dirty secret concerning the effects associated with smoking is that it actually decreases the health care costs of government because studies show the costs of treating people with smoking ailments typically are lower because, frankly, they die faster than non-smokers whose longer lives rack up in the aggregate greater health costs to government. In respect to this half of the new revenue, there’s no moral justification at all: it simply proposes that state government raise revenue off the self-destructive behavior of some individuals.

To some degree understanding of these flaws was demonstrated in the committee vote. All Democrats present voted for it; all Republicans except two (who had been no-shows a month earlier, denying the committee a quorum and causing the delay) and independents voted against it except Chairman Hunter Greene who followed the tradition of chairman usually not voting. With eight of each party and both independents on the committee, and with two Democrats absent, the amended bill therefore passed 8-7. Opponents seemed to recognize that, no matter how many promises were made in the bill, it represented a tax increase that would allow monies to be spent on activities that had nothing to do with extra money going to ameliorating and dealing with the debilitating effects of smoking.

If in the entire House Republicans maintain the same degree of party loyalty as in committee, the bill cannot succeed given the supermajority requirement. Given a small victory, Peterson has the obligation to try to change enough minds to win the next step, but if that’s not forthcoming, greater public efforts on her part will demonstrate little more than trying to score political points, generally to make opponents look like they are “against” health care particularly for the indigent, and specifically if it can get that far to try to make Jindal look that way by forcing him to use a veto. The latter would serve the larger purpose of Democrats, of which Peterson is a party leader, to sully Jindal’s electoral future.

Despite claims the bill is about health care, it disingenuously is more about revenues and thereby lacks justification to become law. Therefore, its continued life suggests it is more than justified primarily as a political tool.

Writer's ideology trumps pragmatism on Jindal tax views

2009-06-08T10:35:00.001-05:00

It always humorous to observe liberals, intentionally or otherwise, try to frame political issues in a format where following their liberal prescriptions is “pragmatic” but to practice conservatism is “ideological.” A recent opinion piece about Gov. Bobby Jindal demonstrates this attempt which, when analyzed, reminds us how the author got it exactly backwards which leads to a total misinterpretation of Jindal the politician.

To see where liberals go wrong on this, it’s helpful to understand what is meant by being “pragmatic” and “ideological.” To be “pragmatic” involves (invoking some 19th century philosophical musings) an attempt to derive philosophy from empirical experience, to set aside “idealism” in action. To be “ideological” in its political sense is to espouse and act upon a program of interrelated assertions – which does not stray far from what pragmatism tries to avoid, “idealism” which postulates there is exists a preferable end-state that is believed, but not proven, to be achievable.

This writer, Stephanie Grace, claims that because Jindal does not want two particular tax increases – one a roll-back of deductions on income that began earlier this year and another on Internet service to fund district attorney investigations – that somehow this is “ideological” because the “pragmatic” thing to do would be, in this instance of the first case, to spend the additional revenue raised on higher education, and in the latter to be used to better police sexual predation on youth. She asserts this behavior stems from a desire of Jindal to gain political support for nomination to the presidency in the future.

Of course, she entirely misses the point because she does not understand that that act of raising taxes is itself “ideological” and not “pragmatic” regardless of the uses to which the extra revenue is put. As history and empirical fact have demonstrated, taxation both infringes upon individual liberty (because it unambiguously takes property legally and morally earned by its owner) and the economic well-being of society (because it removes resources from their most productive users, their owners operating in a free market). Therefore, the appropriate level of taxation is an “ideological” question because it involves a tradeoff between a tolerance of how much infringement of liberty and damage to the economy will be permitted in the quest for a policy preference deemed to be more valuable.

Here, Grace also does some sloppy assuming/misunderstanding – she doesn’t seem to get that the retraction is of an already-existing (for 159 days now) tax reduction and any increase on Internet bills takes money out of the hands of the most productive sector of the eocnomy, she calls the revenue cuts to higher education “severe” (they aren’t, at only 15 percent of general fund allocations at most and looking to be lower than that which may be better phrased as “significant;” “severe” would be of a much higher magnitude), and that Jindal wants to be viewed as more conservative because it helps win primary votes for president (the GOP’s 2008 nominee did precisely the opposite). But it is a big government mentality that ultimately destroys her argument.

Grace appears to assume that to oppose increases for these purposes (higher education, enforcement funds) has no rational policy basis; therefore, she writes, “ideology trumps pragmatism.” In reality, there are very rational reasons for not funneling more money to government, especially in a down economy. It’s a subject about which she apparently doesn’t know much as she wrote that a governor should “focus more on the practical demands of keeping state government functioning, particularly during an acute economic downturn” – ignorant obviously that the last thing government should be doing is taking more money out of a slumping economy as this removes resources from the most productive users of it when their services are most needed.

It also doesn’t seem to occur to her that perhaps Jindal is right about Louisiana having the capacity to increase its efficiency. Is higher education really crippled for the foreseeable future by this cut (which still puts it well above where it was a few years ago with no more students than before)? Does the attorney general really need more money to perform this task or can resources be realigned from less useful areas to increase activity in this area without more money? Grace appears to have given no thought to these possibilities and just simplistically swallowed a mantra about cuts should be reduced in higher education and funding increased for the district attorney, without any understanding of the larger situation now and in the future, and perhaps playing to a bias that the higher producers of wealth in society should pay more in taxes.

Those are the kinds of views that are “ideological.” If anything, Jindal’s views are the more “pragmatic” of the lot – a refusal to stay captive to the notion that government must do more and take more to do it, an openness to the idea that government can do a better job of making priorities especially when the people have to do with less, a recognition of reality that in times of distress leaving more money in the private sector provides a better long-term solution to government fiscal woes than a short-term infusion of cash. Thus, Jindal takes what history and fact have demonstrated, and acts accordingly – pragmatically.

This is why Grace makes a completely misguided assessment of Jindal’s actions. Jindal pursues the policy end of keeping money in the economy and reducing the size of government because it simply is the superior option. Maybe it comports to any future agenda that Jindal may have, and maybe it doesn’t, but it stands apart from that consideration and needs to be analyzed as such. Captive to ideology herself, following the usual liberal misnomer about their policy preferences being “pragmatic” but conservatives’ being “ideology,” Grace is unable to do so adequately. Thus, while Grace opined for Jindal it was “ideology trumping pragmatism,” that phrase more accurately describes her attempt to make this assertion, as thinking readers recognize.

Myths drive politically preening senators favoring SB 335

2009-06-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

A majority in the Louisiana Senate nearly broke their arms patting themselves on their backs, bringing a new epitome to the idea of self-congratulation when they voted for SB 335 which would roll back a tax break for people – nearly half of all taxpaying households – on deductions, some affecting the most disadvantaged in the state such as those who have high medical bills. In fact, such a vote displayed a virulent mix of disingenuousness, ignorance, irresponsibility, and self-deception that sets new standards even for that body.

From the rhetoric emanating from many in that chamber, a vote for the bill was based upon one or more, perhaps all, of the following myths:

That it does not change the current tax structure in Louisiana. This is a lie repeated so often by its author state Sen. Lydia Jackson that either she must be entirely brazen or uncompromisingly stupid, perhaps both. She asserts that the current standard of 65 percent of the deductions would not be changed to 100 percent as is current law but stay the same, so therefore it’s not a tax increase. But the law did in fact change 158 days ago and for tax year 2009 people already have made financial decisions with tax consequences based upon the 100 percent level already in place. Changing it back is nothing more than a bait-and-switch. It’s a tax increase obvious to anybody who can fog a mirror and rub two brain cells together.

That this was a “hard” vote requiring expert balancing of preferences. It was actually a very simple vote as state Sen. Buddy Shaw pointed out: vote for it and be a hypocrite, or not. It was nauseating to watch several senators try to squirm their way out of this reality, droning on about how difficult it was (Bob Kostelka challenged opponents to try to do a better job on these kind of issues than he – uh, not a smart thing to say; the line of capable people from his district who could would be longer than that of legislators with state-reserved tickets queuing to get into the Baton Rouge super-regional college baseball action), looking for all the world like ugly stepsisters cooing to glass on metal, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall ….” New flash to these ignoramuses: political preening doesn’t turn the gamesmanship (as noted below) into statesmanship.

That it is in response to some “lack of plan” in place to deal with significant cuts to higher education. This also is at best confused, at worst maliciously false. The governor has a plan for handling cuts: have higher education absorb them now before they get worse in the coming years. The House has a plan as well: have higher education absorb somewhat fewer of them. Just because you don’t like politically other credible and realistic plans doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

That it sends money to higher education. Absolutely nothing in SB 335 directs money to higher education. It merely puts the money into a fund which the bill stipulates may be used only to fund higher education. It does not appropriate the money, and that portion of the bill could be changed at any time.

That is it is constitutional. Besides the problem of creating a retroactive tax increase, the Louisiana Constitution’s Article III Section 16(B) puts it bluntly and unambiguously: “All bills for raising revenue or appropriating money shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur in amendments, as in other bills.” It’s ludicrous that its Senate supporters can’t even see or admit the contradiction in their rhetoric when they say it will raise revenue for higher education, yet claim it’s a constitutional bill when it comes from the Senate with a fiscal note showing it raises revenue. It is irresponsible for the Senate to be wasting time and taxpayer resources on a matter that clearly is unconstitutional.

That too many senators continue to believe in these myths shows either they live in a fantasy land with no connection to reality (not a new charge levied against them, to be sure) or they temperamentally are unsuited for their offices. Let a citizenry riled by this insolence judge which is what for whom.

Whiners might win pay raise battle, but lose layoff war

2009-06-04T09:40:00.001-05:00

When around 500 Louisiana state employees showed up at the State Civil Service Commission meeting to protest the possible excising of their “merit” raises and the Commission responded by taking no action on a recommendation to do this, they may not want what they wished to get.

Every year, evaluation of most state civil service (comprising about 70 percent of state employees) is supposed to produce “merit” raises. Because of budgetary difficulties this year, Commission staff had proposed forgoing this. (While the Legislature can control money going to agencies, only the SCSC can determine whether merit pay will be distributed.) But the siege of whiners may have changed their minds for the next fiscal year, without another regularly-scheduled meeting until then – which may have unforeseen consequences some won’t particularly like.

The whole “merit” process has been a sham for decades. As explained elsewhere (and depending on how you define the pool of eligibles) anywhere from 96 to 99 percent of classified employees “earn” this added pay every year, turning the concept in the minds of many into a cost-of-living entitlement. And this is on top of the generous situation they already have. If we look at 2006 state staffing levels and 2007 average earnings, Louisiana state public employees, despite being in a state in the bottom five of family incomes, are 36th in average monthly earnings.

(This doesn’t include a benefits package adjudged one of the most generous of all states including for many retiring as early as 60 at full pay averaged over the last three years of work. And maybe you’re wondering why 500 of them could get off work to attend the meeting? Because most state civil service employees get two days off a month, no questions asked. Throw in state holidays and the minimum vacation most get, a week but it can go up to three, do the math, and you’ll see a great many state employees get the equivalent of a minimum of eight weeks of vacation a year. That’s something for all you in the private sector who might get two week’s worth a year, and especially you small business owners who might get next to none, to think about.)

This is why they were so up in arms over what they view as their birthright. And certainly one thing the Commission could do is rewrite the rules not to make a standard 4 percent increase for all who qualify (scoring in any of the top three categories). Instead, it could, like most states, graduate increases by giving out, say, 5 percent increases to those at the highest level, 3 percent to the second-highest, and 1 percent to the third-highest (lowest acceptable) level. Better, the Commission could also institute rules that ensure agencies actually realistically appraise performance so you don’t get the ridiculous and obviously on face unrealistic outcomes of the present where as many as 99 percent of all employees fall in the top three categories.

However, it’s too late for such changes to be made to affect this upcoming fiscal year. But there is an area in which the Commission has acted that may signal a sensible step that will make many of the protesters rue this recent non-decision. It made a change to promote the use of performance (even if it is biased upwards) in layoff decisions, where previously in a layoff plan an agency could have gone basically on seniority only for those with acceptable ratings (in other words, about 99 percent of non-probationary classified employees). It’s a tepid change, forcing out people in the two lowest performance categories and then allowing as many as 20 percent of layoffs to occur on the basis of performance first, but at least it’s a small step in the right direction that needs to be extended in the near future.

Yet if the money crunch will not be made up with no pay raises, it will be made up by laying off people. And few states are more in desperate need that Louisiana in cutting fat in its civil service. Among the states, in per capita state employment, Louisiana ranks 10th. But remove the states with populations under a million, whose small numbers tend to skew upwards that statistic, and Louisiana ranks behind only Hawai’i, Arkansas, New Mexico, and West Virginia – all of which (except Arkansas, at about two-thirds which itself is no model of efficiency) have about half of Louisiana’s population. Put Louisiana in the same category as the dozen states with populations between 3 and 6 million and it’s not even close with Louisiana far and away having the highest per capita number of state employees.

Perhaps what will happen is with the new rules in effect, the state’s response will be a healthy round of layoffs that can much better than in the past get rid of underperforming deadwood that has survived for so long because of seniority that will create a more reasonable staffing levels. (There’s also a small amount of wiggle room that may allow for raises not to be given if they would come at the expense of layoffs.) That’s not a bad tradeoff, raises for many but more pink slips that would have occurred otherwise, and pink slips based more on actual quality than ever before.

Then to keep up the momentum, the SCSC should adopt the merit raise and additional layoff procedures outlined above. And if this makes mad those in the civil service who have slouched along for decades doing just enough and/or knowing enough of the right people to get an annual raise, there’s a whole big private sector economy out there just waiting to properly price your actual abilities if you’d like to leave the cozy confines of state employment.