If any blame needs distributing concerning the
impact of Louisiana’s dwindling solar installation tax credit, those wishing to
foist it should look first at themselves and then the firms that sold them the
solar energy bill of goods.
The New Orleans
Times-Picayune decided to poke
around for reactions to the effects of the 2015 change in the credit. Once
the nation’s most generous, until the middle of last year it essentially gave
back 50 percent of an installed system. Better, the credits were made
refundable, so to pay for much of the system many buyers would take out a loan
from the installers interest free for a period as long as reasonably expected
to have the refund show up after filing income taxes – in addition to the 30
percent federal tax credit. And if the buyer still could not manage the several
thousand dollars still owed, installers
would lease it or price it for sale in a way to eat the difference, with
the lucrative government giveaways still allowing them to profit.
But Act 31 of 2015
changed the game, capping the previously-unlimited program that had given
away hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at $10 million distributed in
each of fiscal years 2016 and 2017, and $5 million for the first half of FY
2018, then ending the subsidy permanently. This created a class of buyers who
paid for systems in the first half of 2015 – FY 2015 – but only could file for
the credit on their 2015 state income taxes starting the second half of FY
2016. Filings so far this calendar year, for systems installed in 2015, not
only blew straight through the FY 2016 amount, but also the FY 2017 amount and
all but $1 million of the truncated FY 2018 amount.
A good rule of thumb: whenever “activists” tell you
to do something, do the opposite. That seems verified by comments some trendy
folks made concerning policing tactics in Louisiana.
Last weekend some
individuals weighed in on police shootings in Louisiana, contrasting events
of this year in Baton Rouge with the high-profile shooting death of Alton
Sterling, collector of multiple arrests over the previous two decades. A
federal investigation will render a judgment in the next several months on the
appropriateness of police actions concerning that incident.
These same individuals represent organizations
that have brought suit against Baton Rouge police for their handling of
protests against the Sterling shooting, which they allege involved too much use
of force that denied free speech rights. They made remarks at the Louisiana
Green Party convention contrasting the relative hands-off approach they perceive
practiced by New Orleans police, noting no such excessive force complaints
against NOPD so far in 2016.
With the simultaneous acquisition of the Republican
nomination for president by businessman Donald
Trump and entrance into Louisiana’s U.S. Senate contest by former state
Rep. David Duke, naturally voices
opposed to conservatism had to make strained efforts to connect the emergence of
Trump and resurfacing of Duke as related representations of the political right
in general. Yet this demonstrates only tone deafness to the genuine linkage that
has more to do with liberalism’s failure to articulate a vision that genuinely inspires
and benefits all people.
The boilerplate that comes from both state
and national
sources is that Duke’s
belief that his time has come stems from the success of Trump’s prominent
nationalism as a campaign theme, which on some
occasions has led to accusations of Trump stereotyping minorities and
foreigners, most recently regarding
parents of Muslim army officer killed in Iraq. Of course, Duke stopped
apologizing long ago after failed attempts for statewide office for displaying unvarnished
white supremacist views that fit as a subset.
But to allege Trump harbors nativist sentiments
that connect to Duke’s racism through some current national mood on the right misses
the crucial role that the follies of liberalism have contributed in making this
linkage. Properly understood, naïve populism nurtured and sustained on the left
has acted as a Colistin-resistant E. coli
crossing over to the right.
It’s not so much that a resolution
by the Louisiana Republican Party’s State Central
Committee to prevent convicted felons and racists would be an empty
gesture, but that it promotes unenforceable mischief.
In the wake of disgraced former state Rep. David Duke running again for the U.S.
Senate seat up for grabs this fall, Republican officials appear set to consider
at their next meeting this ban on candidates qualifying for office using the
GOP label. According to preliminary reports, if two-thirds of the RSCC vote
accordingly, this change in bylaws will disallow individuals fitting these
categories from running as Republicans. Had not the judiciary
recently struck down the state’s ban on felon participation in elections
for a period after end of sentence, Duke could not have qualified.
It won’t work. The American system drafts parties
as instruments to conduct elections and, like other states, Louisiana defines
what parties to recognize for registration and candidacy purposes. Party bylaws
can’t change that. In Louisiana, candidates who meet
qualifications for an office must employ their party designation according to
their elector registration, paying an extra filing fee if they registered as a
member of a recognized political party that has chosen to impose one. Pay the
fee for the particular office consistent with registration, and legally that
affiliation appears on the ballot next to the name. A party cannot change that
law unilaterally, and only change in statute would make such a restriction
effective.
