As
recent tragic events remind, some spiritual leaders in Louisiana must act
to increase the safety of their congregations.
At last year’s end, a gunman opened fire inside a
church in the Metroplex area. In a few seconds, those bullets killed two
worshippers. But that was all, because armed members visited the like on the
shooter.
Texas recently relaxed requirements to enable churches
to provide their own security. In essence, any individual with a concealed carry
permit may take a handgun into a house of worship, unless the organization with
responsibility over the church explicitly bans these. Not only does this event punctuate
that broad Second Amendment rights can save lives, but it also signals to other
malevolent people that in states with such laws houses of worship may not offer
soft targeting, thereby discouraging these acts of violence.
It keeps getting worse for Medicaid expansion in
Louisiana as further research fortifies the conclusion that it operates largely
as another form of welfare designed to redistribute wealth.
Earlier
this month, the Foundation for Government Accountability issued a report
highlighting the facet of expansion its advocates desperately don’t want the
larger public to know: a significant portion of those made eligible and
enrolling in it already had or could afford insurance, and in enrolling merely
relieved themselves of that expense which they transferred to taxpayers, many
of whom must foot their health insurance out of their own resources. And in
that document, Louisiana figured prominently.
That research focused on the segment of the population
most likely to take advantage of the sweet deal, those families earning 100 to
150 percent of the federal poverty limit. Any under 138 percent qualify for
expansion, but from 100 percent up to that – about 85 percent of the total
cohort – they also can qualify to receive (very generous, often on the order of
90 percent or more) premium support to buy insurance through exchanges.
However, the law forces them into Medicaid if they qualify for it.
That the explanations keep changing surely indicates
the inherent dishonesty by those forwarding the rationalizations, Louisiana’s
Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards keeps reminding.
Remember when Edwards insisted that Louisiana
needed to keep, if not all, at least part of a sales tax increase to prevent
emergent budget deficits? Instead, federal
tax law changes made that retained increase superfluous and prompted a
historic run of overtaxation.
So, he, his administration, and his allies
searched for new justifications behind the tax increase that will hang around
the people’s neck and the resultant over-funding government for the next
five-and-a-half years. Several versions have come out since: the overflow can replenish
the Budget Stabilization Fund and pensions funds, it can go towards capital
outlay, and/or it would provide a buffer in case of a national economic
downturn (to match the one already underway during Edwards’ term).
