Maybe northwest Louisiana state Reps. Richard Burford, Thomas Carmody, Jim Morris, Alan Seabaugh,
and Jeff Thompson
finally will get serious about reforming Louisiana’s budget process so that it aligns
resources to needs in order of priority with a right-sized government. Because up
until now they have been all words and no deeds, and speaking fraudulently at
that.
These guys, who include every Republican member of the House from the
area save state Rep. Henry Burns, pledged
themselves as founding members of the Louisiana Budget Reform Coalition –
with Morris being tabbed its vice chairman – along with another 20 House
members. The group is an offshoot of efforts during the past legislative
session to pare down the size of the state’s budget principally by refusing to
scoop monies sitting in hundreds of dedicated funds to transfer to the state’s
general funds in order to pay for spending. It
failed, but got attention and produced impetus apparently to make formal
this group.
Unfortunately, that exercise was entirely disingenuous. The only
difference between most of the “one-time” money they declared taboo and
revenues coming into the general fund is bookkeeping in nature. Most of these
funds, like those going into the general fund, are recurring in nature, except
that the constitution or statute directs them to be spent on a particular
purpose. The problem is, some portion of these end up being in excess of what
is spent on those purposes, usually because those items aren’t that important
but got locked in because of the power of particular interests that wished to
see guaranteed financing of something. Then these dollars become useless, siphoned
from the public yet piling up year after year unless an appropriations bill
termed a “funds sweep” is passed rescuing a part of them for some often more
important purposes.
Yet these and other representatives falsely implied that money
collected from these were surprise bucks that would not recur in some
predictable fashion and so to use them was irresponsible. In fact, these
advocates were the irresponsible ones by cordoning off these funds arbitrarily
and avoiding any role (beyond producing a vague
list of generalities that actually included using one-time money) in
addressing specific cuts or other tactics to solve for the hole they wished to
blow into the budget.
Creating this false crisis happened either because they didn’t
understand their own jobs or because of political posturing, to contrive to
appear as “budget hawks” in order to please fiscally conservative voters and
other interests. Neither ignorance nor putting symbolism over substance
commends them in their positions. But there is every incentive for them to
allow perpetuation of this as, regardless of motive, it allows a fiscal structure
that permits them to avoid making hard choices every year, and absorbing the
potential wrath of those interests that lose out in the process.
But now with this new group they have the chance to move beyond hot air
and into constructive action. That won’t be accomplished with a continuation of
their jihad against one-time money
but rather in making fundamental policy changes. Chief among them would be stumping
to reduce drastically the number of dedicated funding streams that has left
nearly $3
billion sitting around in surplus. At the very least they need to call for
state government to follow R.S. 49:308.5, which
is supposed to mandate investigation of this matter but which has been ignored
by them and every other state policy-maker.
Along with that, they need to extend the work of another recently
established but official panel that seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of exceptions
to the state tax code. They need to run with its suggestions – chief of which should
be abolishment of the motion
picture tax credit that costs citizens a dollar for every 13.5 cents it brings
in – and shape them into a revenue-neutral reform package that cuts down on
both the exceptions and dedications. This includes formulating just what
genuine state needs are and coming up with a revenue code short on both
exceptions to it and on dedicated funding.
It is the job of the legislator to make decisions matching funding to
need and in what priority, most responsibly on an annual basis as the funds
available, needs, and priorities change year over year. It is not tolerating
the commission of about three-quarters of all revenues to various locked-in
raising and spending purposes, then each year throwing up their hands saying
there’s nothing you can do about government on autopilot except prohibit excess
money from being spent because it operates under slightly different accounting without
any thought being put into the spending side of the equation. And while every legislator
present and past for decades has contributed to building this inefficient
fiscal regime, those who claim they are fiscal conservatives and organize as
such have the duty to try to change it, as outlined above.
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