It seems like things don’t change: the University
of Oklahoma just keeps on winning gymnastics
and softball
national championships.
But things do change: Oklahoma’s winningest
football coach of all time – consider this at a school with seven national
championships – Bob
Stoops is stepping down after 18 seasons.
At no time in its history has this tension played
out more significantly in the Louisiana Legislature than in this month of June,
which has featured one rearguard action after another by big government
advocates to keep the good times rolling to inflate the budget. But when a
budget agreement crystallizes sometime today (asseems inevitable), it appears another milestone in right-sizing Louisiana
government will have been attained.
Essentially, transforming bloated government that
takes too much to do unneeded things into one that fulfills only genuine needs
while letting people keep more of what is theirs follows three steps. The first
demands a change in attitude, from thinking of government as a vehicle to
redistribute power and wealth to something that removes obstructions to give
people the opportunity to acquire power and wealth on their own. This means ridding
government of both corruption and inattentiveness in steering dollars to best
uses.
If we learned anything from the Louisiana
Legislature’s stab at tax reform during this regular session, it’s that key Democrats
mistake tax increases for it, denoting a harmful unseriousness about it all.
As the 2017 session draws to a close, it will end
with no
fundamental change occurring to the state’s tax system. This came despite a
big buildup over the previous year, with a special panel created to study the
issue. It produced a report
that emphasized both creating a more efficient system that would spur economic
growth yet somewhat contradicted by its desire to increase overall taxation
levels.
A raft of proposals came and went, dominated by
Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards’ package that hewed more to hiking taxes collected, in net effect
raising taxes on individuals somewhat but taxes on corporations substantially.
These went nowhere, precisely because of the overall tax increase these would
trigger; as such measures require a two-thirds majority in each chamber to
pass, well more than that proportion of legislators, almost entirely
Republicans, felt restraining the growth of government, if not putting it on a
diet, would work to solve any projected budget deficit for the next fiscal
year.
After northwest Louisiana’s Republican state senator
afflicted with political schizophrenia had a rough go of it by proxy this spring,
his Democrat counterpart upped the ante in wackiness.
Senate District 36’s Republican Ryan Gatti found himself covered by the
spotlight shone on his brother when Robbie Gatti made a failed
bid for state representative. Ryan Gatti squeaked into office in 2015 by
emphasizing social conservatism, deeming education reform overreaching, and
alleging adherence to “true
conservative principles of fiscal responsibility.” Apparently, he
understood that to entail voting for a raft of tax increases and increased
regulation on business, and as a result in 2016 earned a score of 22 out
of 100 on the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry’s
business-oriented legislator scorecard.
Fairly or not, that pro-government, anti-growth reputation
blew back on Robbie Gatti, but he lost more over doubts about his espoused
social conservatism than on whatever sins Ryan Gatti was thought to have committed
in office by his voting. Still, his brother’s unsuccessful run highlighted Ryan
Gatti’s as a catspaw for big government advocate Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, a personal
friend of the Gattis whom they assisted in his campaign.
Louisiana’s penchant
for overregulation strikes again, in this case concerning
new car sales, that a governor’s veto can correct.
SB 107 by
state Sen. Bodi
White, ostensibly to facilitate delivering specialty law enforcement
vehicles, went uncontroversially to Gov. John Bel Edwards.
But in the process state Rep. Tanner Magee
slipped in an amendment that clarified language regarding direct sales of new
vehicles.
State law mandates
that motor vehicle dealers obtain a license, and promulgates a long list of
qualifications necessary, such as having a fixed location with adequate space,
that it has a positive effect on the economic well-being of the state, and
specifies what it sells. However, statute creates an
exception to a violation of direct sales for “operating a dealership”
without defining “dealership.” SB 107 changes the language to grant an exception
only to “an existing, licensed, and franchised motor vehicle dealership.”
