And this
is why term limits are a good idea. And why the
time had come for two longtime Louisiana legislative employees to go out the
door.
In 2000, my wife took a position at the University
of Illinois Springfield and I took leave at Louisiana State University Shreveport
to go with her. The UIS folks cobbled something together for me for what would
be a trial period of a year: to see if I would leave my LSUS tenured position while
she embarked on a potential tenure-track career with them.
Part of my duties included serving as faculty
adviser to Model
Illinois Government. This program allows students from across the state to
participate in a mock legislative session of the Illinois Legislature, right at
the Capitol not long after the real thing’s regular session ended. As the representative
of the host institution, the advisor had to delve into not only a lot of
logistical matters but also have a good working knowledge of the legislative process.
I’m not going to say that the time has flown by, but
something should be said now that this blog has surpassed its 15th
birthday.
That makes it the oldest blog on Louisiana politics
out there, or at the very least the oldest that has published continuously and
regularly (if anybody thinks I missed something here, let me know). Not that there
were many out there 15 years ago; the only two that were with any frequency of
publishing were John Copes’ Deduct Box and C.B. Forgotston’s Forgotston.com (both
of whose authors sadly have gone onto their rewards).
Circumstance more than anything else led to establishing
Between the Lines, which is the moniker I long have used for my columns. In
2002 I published under that every other week for FaxNet Update, which didn’t
have a real Internet presence but largely circulated by e-mail. This roundup of
political news and commentary lasted until the beginning of 2018, when its
proprietor Lou
Gehrig Burnett unfortunately cashed in.
The crew knows the ship is sinking, so they’re jumping
overboard while Louisiana Medicaid’s clients and taxpayers will find themselves
taken in the undertow unless the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
Administration makes a change from politicized ideology to practicality.
At the end of the month, Department of Health
Secretary Rebekah Gee will leave her job, undoubtedly for one where the
consequences of her preference for statist solutions won’t redound as they have
in Louisiana (as well as give her greater license to support
propagation of abortion as she did prior to her stint at LDH). Long-time
director of Medicaid for the state Jen Steele already has decamped.
Edwards’ decision to expand Medicaid turned out as
the most consequential policy enacted in his first term. It committed the state
eventually
to spend an extra $3 billion annually –in one fell swoop adding 10 percent
to the operating budget – of which Louisiana taxpayers now directly contribute an
extra over $300 million a year they didn’t pay before, essentially raised by
increased taxes on insurance policies.
