The lone Democrat among these major
candidates, state Rep. John Bel
Edwards, at least once a minute reminds audiences of his God-fearing life
and/or he’s against abortion and/or he’s big on guns and/or he served in the
military. When subjects last night concerned fiscal matters, he manages to
squeeze in that the state doesn’t have to adjust Taylor Opportunity Program for
Students awards, that transportation needs can be solved by not allocating
money from the Transportation Trust Fund to state police, that New Orleans can
have better police presence, that charity hospital partnerships can get a shot
of additional funding, etc., without revealing from where the money to pay for
all of this will come. In other words, he preaches that all is well on the
spending front, there’s no need to cut anything regardless of its policy value
as revenue magically will appear to resolve it all.
The magic, of course, is the opaque
idea that a reduction in tax credits will solve everything. Some of these are
counterproductive and need excising. But Edwards is perpetrating a confidence
game if he thinks these of this kind will be sufficient to balance the budget
without any spending cuts. The only way to raise enough revenue would be to get
rid of enough in credits to the point this becomes a net tax increase on the
public, as those former recipients of credits will pass along their increased
costs to the people.
In previous debates, Edwards also
refused to adjust spending in problem areas, such as pensions, or to forswear policy
that increased costs to Louisianans, such as indicating he would raise the
minimum wage. Edwards should be truthful: he wants to raise revenue revenues on
the backs of Louisiana’s people without any real regard for reforming
unnecessarily redistributionist spending policy.
At least Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne was refreshingly more
candid than Edwards. He talked about making spending adjustments, such as on
TOPS, but also openly of tax hikes, such as on income, for revenue although
saying those were last resorts. While appearing more honest than Edwards, last
night he differed only in quantity, not quality in less willingness to raise
revenues with more willingness to make spending adjustments, perhaps with more
emphasis on the latter than the former.
If Edwards’ strategy was to
obfuscate ideology and Dardenne’s approach minimizes it, by contrast Republican
Public Service Commissioner Scott
Angelle’s has been to maximize it in a way to display conservative
credentials. Of the three, he has spoken most resolutely against tax increases
and emphasized, as he did again last night, that he would cut spending. And while
in general philosophy he may have strived to separate himself the most from the
other two, he is as nebulous on specifics of what programmatic changes he would
make to curtail spending as Edwards is in terms of where he will find revenues
that do not entail Louisiana’s citizens paying more directly or indirectly in
taxes, where he typically asserts he will create efficiencies, such as last
night’s mention of reorganizing transportation spending along regional lines.
Which means, if you want a governor
who will pursue a broad strategy of reducing or ridding the state of
unproductive tax credits and counterproductive spending choices while not
taking more of what citizens earn, and can give specific examples addressing each
of these concerns, you didn’t see that guy last night or at other debates. Yet
they kept bringing up the one guy who might fit that bill.
Republican Sen. David Vitter, again, begged off the
debate for Washington work reasons, but he was talked about in passing almost
as much by the other candidates as they talked about their own agendas,
reminding that the election
continues to be all about Vitter. But because he has made just a couple of
these, neither televised in every market in the state, it’s hard for the general
public to confirm that.
Apparently, he’s going to make an
appearance at next week’s confabulation, and if he acts to fulfill the heretofore
missing archetype many voters will give him a good reception. Admittedly, few
people watch these events, but by his appearance at these he can provide this
choice. By his deferrals, the attentive portion of that segment of the
electorate is left wondering whether he’s the guy. Maybe he will answer that in
the near future.
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