Katrina exposes populism/liberalism's legacy: flooding and looting

Earlier this week, first when Hurricane Katrina damage looked tractable, then when it became anything but, I posted some questions about how, operationally, things were handled leading up to and after the event, with their long-term consequences. Now it’s time to come to grips with the political ideology that has aggravated this whole unfortunate situation.

In some ways, we have brought this on ourselves by permitting and tolerating a political culture that endorses the ideas that there are free lunches, that’s it’s easier to get power by being entertaining and taking care of your friends rather than by pursuing ethical, efficient policies, and that you always can blame your shortcomings on someone or something else (the “wealthy,” “big business,” insert your favorite racial/ethnic and/or religious slur here, etc.) rather than taking responsibility for your own affairs and failures.

While in a global sense we associate these attitudes with political liberalism, more specifically in Louisiana we see its variant populism. And where liberalism/populism deserves blame in all of this is in measures taken before this disaster that were supposed to mitigate it, and in the things that have happened since this horror.

We’ve known for decades that the lack of emphasis on efficiency and/or the outright corruption that so often afflicts public works projects in Louisiana may have contributed to road and bridge collapses, pump failures, and levee breaks that caused the vast majority of damage in the greater New Orleans area. We know that the state would rather spend funds on favored constituencies and slush funds than to use them more wisely, one aspect of which could have been better preparation for something like this. We know that aggressive state taxation and overburdening regulatory policy have been punitive towards exactly those whose energy and activities precisely could bring a change to these inferior sets of attitudes. We know that patronage and preferments run rampant in policy-making.

Nowhere have these attitudes flourished more than in New Orleans, leading to waste, inefficiency and corruption, most egregiously in its police forces. As a result, school achievement sank (when the public schools were not being abandoned), business fled followed by people, and the city began to take on a Third World aspect with burgeoning underemployment, an increasing number of squalid neighborhoods whose people lived in fear lacking confidence in the city and police, and whose industries congregated in the categories of industrial and entertainment and tourism – two of the lower growth, lower value sectors.

And at present the city gets to demonstrate these attitudes further with an unacceptably-large portion of its population now devoted to looting (which is itself another sign of their stupidity; everybody has to leave the city, you can’t take your stolen guns, appliances, cars, even apparel, with you, and they may well be ruined by the disaster’s aftermath or confiscated while you’re gone, so what’s the point?). These thugs have learned the lessons of liberalism all too well, its call for class warfare encouraging these people to think they are oppressed and thus deserve to help themselves to things that they have not earned because they have not contributed enough to society, and its preaching that moral precepts supported by religion be removed from the public square and thus prompt their elimination as a concern in our daily comportment.

Certainly no politician in Louisiana must have wished any of this on the affected area and people. But the fact is, the majority of our statewide officials and legislators, and particularly those in Orleans Parish, are political liberals who share the same basic attitude on this subject of wealth redistribution and religious belief’s relationship to government as do the looters. They must look at themselves in the mirror and come to grips with the fact that, while they prefer to use government to correct what they see as “unfairness,” that looters use direct means, with violence if necessary, to accomplish the same purpose. They need to understand this is how, in the real world, their core ideological beliefs translate into action and consequence.

That realization, along with the complex of liberal attitudes which encourage envy, selfishness, and meanness as part of public policy, should be sobering and encourage these officials to abandon these and instead to pursue policy that lets people keep what is theirs, that provides incentives for productivity, that allows people to live with minimal government interference, and that supports efforts to encourage moral behavior. Others both nationally and internationally don’t get it; let’s hope that our Louisiana politicians do.

Previously reeling, Orleans schools troubled even worse after Katrina

Foreword: This was the posting I wrote Monday morning, when it was apparent Hurricane Katrina missed New Orleans and the direct damage from it seemed minimal, which I had intended to run later that day:

As if things couldn’t get any worse, the Orleans schools cleanup needs may be more extensive than those created by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

It’s not enough that 65 percent of the Orleans Parish School District’s schools failed state accountability standards, and that the budget is tens of millions of dollars on the negative side, and that the federal government is investigating the whereabouts of $70 million. Now we have confirmation of the system’s financial corruption that shows nobody who should know does know what is going on there – or perhaps that they even care.

The most incredulous aspect to all of this is that the practices of “gaming” the system where allowed to continue year after year. How unaware were the system’s top officials. Summing it all up was the remark made by Interim Superintendent Ora Watson: “I've never worked in a school district where stipends played that big a role in how people got paid. It seemed that it had become, in my opinion, something people began to consider a right.”

How long has Watson worked for this system (I don’t actually know; the district’s website has no biographical information on her)? At least the past couple of years as the deputy superintendent, and she never had an inkling of any of this? This is going to be a real problem if she’s got more of a clue than anybody else in the system that doesn’t even know how many employees it has.

But what should we expect from a school board who fired the previous superintendent who had least tried to make progress, who then assented to Watson in the interim position then nearly replaced her, who fought the appointment of fiscal turnaround experts by calling the enterprise “racist,” and whose president did everything he could to prevent bringing in the experts Alvarez and Marsal?

None of this should have been any surprise to anybody years ago. In 2003-04, Orleans, with 9.36 percent of the average daily membership in state public schools, spent 15.84 percent of the state’s education expenditures. In other words, while the other 67 districts spent $4,709 per student, Orleans averaged a whopping $8,583 per student, over 82 percent more, to deliver the state’s worst education, according to test scores.

Even people with education administration degrees should have figured out a problem existed in Orleans schools long ago and begun to work to correct it. Then again, they probably got favored in this top-heavy, wasteful system. Interestingly, of all education employees statewide, Orleans only had 8.68 percent, but of theirs, 3.47 percent were top administrators – an incredible 27.4 percent of all such positions statewide being in Orleans.

And now there’s the complication of the Katrina aftermath. No doubt millions of dollars will have to be spent on repair of school facilities, by a system whose resource burden already groans under its weight.

Even with the first round of layoffs will 500-700 more to go, somehow the two years Alvarez and Marsal have doesn’t look long enough to salvage this incredible mess. Even if the streets were clear of water and school buildings habitable.

Afterword: Obviously, this analysis has been superseded. Likely the whole fall semester has been wiped out; there is no school system in operation to reform now, and won’t be for weeks. Maybe there won’t be a budget deficit now without any expenses, but infrastructural needs now must be in the tens of millions of dollars. It’s unclear whether the state even has the power to step in and run an entire school district on the basis of this kind of emergency. The cynical could say maybe the dirty flood waters will wash the system’s problems clean away and everything can start anew. Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be that simple or easy.

Bad Katrina news gets worse for state

When I wrote yesterday’s posting, the worst it appeared the state would see was in the greater New Orleans area a lot of broken windows, a few flattened structures, and some flooding. It appeared the real destruction in the state would have occurred in the sparsely-populated area near the mouth of the Mississippi.

But that was before more levees broke in Orleans today, and now the place is filling up with water. Unfortunately, the city having been a crime haven, it has shown that again with noticeable looting. As I wrote of yesterday, there will be more political and policy consequences as a result of the further devastation.

At the local level, embattled politicos such as Mayor Ray Nagin and the Orleans Parish School Board will find a reprieve from their critics. Even U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson may find the heat reduced in a federal investigation that seems to have targeted him.

However, the ripples will be felt all throughout the state. As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, the federal government does not pick up all disaster-related costs; states are expected to pay some. Given the magnitude of the impending disaster, they will not be inconsiderable.

Further, the big bonus the state’s treasury expected from oil now will be curtailed. Prices are up relatively slightly, but the falloff in production even if only for days could cost the state millions of dollars in severance taxes.

This hit to the state budget mostly will be born by current revenues. The state’s emergency spending mechanism would provide only a pittance up against damage of this magnitude. Or, to put it another way, if there’s any special session of the Legislature to be called, it will be to deal with this, not a teachers’ pay raise. That money probably is gone.

I pray for my friends and former colleagues in the New Orleans area, including avid reader of this blog C.B. Forgotston and New Orelans Bulletin blogger John Vinturella and his wife Dr. Susan Howell that the trials they face as a result of this be minimal.

Katrina leaves policy, political questions in her wake

I hope and pray that all are safe and damage is minimal in the Mississippi River delta area of the state and offshore, as well as to another of my former areas of residence, southern Mississippi.

As New Orleans and the rest of the area wrings themselves out, there are some things to ponder:

The contraflow system seemed to work much better than last year. This turned highways into double-sized, unidirectional thoroughfares for evacuation purposes. Still, problems remained, specifically, citizen knowledge about the system (available at the State Police website), more efficient diversion of traffic (too many headed only west), and that going west the system stopped after the I-10/I-55 interchange at LaPlace while eastward traffic on I-10 still was embargoed (frustrating many and causing some reckless folks to treat eastbound lanes as westbound lanes)

The Superdome lost parts of its roof, and one must question whether the repairs to it a decade ago were adequate to withstand the winds of a Category 5 storm. When built 30 years ago, the whole structure was supposed to be able to. If not, then it’s a classic example of Louisiana state government, just like with our highways, being pennywise and dollar foolish.

And what of its use as an evacuation center? Emergency protocols should be such that it ought to be able to hold many tens of thousands for days – there’s not a larger or (supposedly) safer structure in the city for this purpose.

And what does this mean for the Saints? Will they have repairs done in time for their home opener 9/18? Even more intriguing, will this affect the negotiations between the team and the state to get out of the lucrative deal the Saints have with it?

Many have argued New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin waited too long to officially issue an evacuation order. Of course, sensible people don’t have to wait on an elected official to tell them what to do and it’s a tough judgment call, but the fact of the matter was the contraflow plan was terminated at 4 PM Sunday, only a few hours after the call went out, in order to protect and better deploy public safety personnel. While there’s no real right or wrong in this situation, political opponents of Nagin may use this against him in his presumed reelection bid next year.

With the breaking of at least three levees in the area, questions can be raised about the quality of them. One never can build a levee that will block all surges from all hurricanes, but were these built to specification, and were the specifications stringent enough?

How much will this disaster cost the state, as ever strapped for money? There will be disaster cleanup costs, of course, despite that the majority of money to accomplish will come from the federal government, some (as much as 25 percent of the total) will come from the state. Also, already an estimated 1 million barrels of oil a day for the short term will be reduced from the affected area and this could be more. This will delay, if not eliminate, this extraction which is taxed by the state the proceeds from which go into state coffers.

Finally, no doubt flood insurance rates will rise as a result – how will this play out in the Legislature, the Department of Insurance, with the federal flood insurance and mitigation programs, and even the costal restoration issue at the federal level?

Like it or not, the answers to or resolutions of these questions will have policy and political impacts in Louisiana.

To the Caddo Sheriff and Commission: nice try, but try again

Appropriate to my plea that they get on with it, Caddo Sheriff Steve Prator has made an offer to the Caddo Parish Commission that everybody drop legal maneuverings concerning who pays what at the Caddo Correctional Center by ridding the controversy over its central arguing point – housing of one kind of non-parish prisoners.

Essentially, the parish had tried to make Prator pay for “fixed” expenses of the operation of the jail when the law said he only had to cover security operating expenses, minus extraordinary items such as medical care and transportation of prisoners and other potential expenses that can be averted by having labor performed by sentenced prisoners. The courts negated that tactic but said Prator could not bill the parish for other expenses which the parish argues he still does. Prator then informed the parish that he could bill them for some others items he claimed he did not bother to charge the parish. The punch line, of course, is that the ultimate payer in all of this is the same, the Caddo parish taxpayer, regardless of what entity actually sends out the bill and to whom.

Basically, what Prator has suggested is a kind of “nuclear option.” Since the haggling seems to come over the disposition of expenses related to non-parish prisoners, then Prator suggested simply that the CCC not accept any state prisoners. Of course, at an average of 240 such prisoners per 365 days a year at $22.39 reimbursement each by the state, Prator wants to turn down $1,961,364 a year in revenues (Prator estimates the revenue reduction to be $1.8 million annually although because of lag time it would be a year before this fully would be realized).

Give teachers pay raises only if they prove they're worth it

Have you ever heard a bigger bunch of crybabies in this state than some public school teachers?

Let’s see – you get to work a little over half a year 6 hours a day (8 maybe if you count grading and aren’t involved in extracurricular activities), you have no service or publishing requirements, after a short period of time you have a job for life unless you’re caught with a live boy or a dead girl (or just a live boy, depending on gender), and in Louisiana your average salary with most having just a bachelor’s degree is higher than mine with a Ph.D. and 18 years of teaching at the university level.

Nonetheless, we get bleating like this:

Tessie Adams Domangue of Houma, the state Teacher of the Year, said she has a second job selling cosmetics because her school salary is less than $34,000 a year. Domangue, 34, said she sells Avon products as a second job and even considered leaving the profession before she was picked as Teacher of the Year.

Unless you have several children and/or medical problems in your family, you’d have to be a spendthrift to be unable to live on close to $34,000 for a little over half a year of work. I know several people who would do anything legal and moral to make $34,000 a year even working 2,000 hours a year. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out of the profession.

Simply, the typical public school teacher in this state has done nothing to deserve any kind of raise, given the results we get from the public schools. Still, if so many people have bought into this argument that public school teachers in this state deserve pay raises, at least they seem to have it straight that the reason why they didn’t get – a flawed plan by Gov. Kathleen Blanco to jack up taxes on an activity that had nothing to do with education, while the money was there all the time to fund this.

Nonetheless, I’d be happy to support a pay raise for teachers – if they’d accept accountability measures designed to ensure only quality and knowledgeable instructors continue to be employed, measures used by many other states, measures against which too many teachers and sybaritic unions have fought time and time again. A recent report of the National Governors’ Association reminds of the federal mandate involved in improved teaching, and specifically notes that

states are moving away from the notion of licensure as a way to ensure basic competence. They are designing performance-based licenses that require demonstration of subject knowledge and teaching skill, rather than basing licenses on course credits and hours of professional development. More than 30 states now require a candidate to pass Praxis II written tests of subject knowledge and pedagogy to receive a provisional teaching license. States are also beginning to use performance-based systems to create tiered professional designations—initial, provisional, professional, and master teacher licenses, for example.

Louisiana, it should be noted, does not require periodic testing of teachers for competency in their subject areas. And the standards for initially being licensed in an area are set so low (like most other states) it’s difficult not to pass them. Until standards are raised and periodic testing of teacher knowledge in their subject areas is instituted, teacher pay raises in this state simply are not warranted.

State must try harder to reduce obesity-related taxpayer costs

Once again, Louisiana makes the news for unenviable reasons. But whether public policy can change this situation is uncertain.

The state ranked fourth in obesity in a recent, if somewhat controversial, study. More disturbingly, the report notes that the combined health cost to taxpayers to pay for those on government health care from conditions resulting from obesity was $39 billion. Given that the state has nearly 1.5 percent of the country’s population, we can estimate the state paid $585 million to deal with the problems created by obesity (and it’s probably higher, because of the higher proportion of obese people in Louisiana comparatively and indicated by related diseases – for example, the state ranked tied for fifth in the proportion of adult diabetes sufferers, at 8.4 percent).

Louisiana has taken some steps that can improve the situation, mainly in the area of education. Health and physical education are required in schools and limitations are placed upon provision of “competitive” (non-school-provided) foods (which likely are “junk” foods in nature) by schools. In addition, producers of these products have a liability shield, ensuring that the proper incentives and disincentives for reduction of obesity rest where appropriate – with the consumer himself, who chooses to overeat relative to his level of activity.

Still, more can be done, according to the report. In schools, the state could require nutritional standards of both school-provided and competitive foods, or at least enforce such standards in regards to Title I (free or reduced-cost meal) recipients. Most controversially, as nearly a third of states have done in various forms, a “snack” tax could be imposed on foods of dubious nutritional value provided that the money raised be dedicated to state health care needs, raising money to offset health care costs and discouraging, even if just incrementally, these foods’ consumption.

(Unfortunately, of all the states that do this, only one – believe it or not, neighbor to the north Arkansas – does this. Almost all of the others dump the extra revenue into their general funds. This is precisely what got Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s cigarette tax into trouble this past legislative session, as the money raised would have gone to something totally unrelated to health, teacher pay raises.)

To do this favor to taxpayers, what the state should not do is permit behavior such as obese patients complaining about physicians advising them of their condition or passing laws that would encourage overeating. Whether state government can pursue policy that does not threaten citizens’ liberties which can encourage the reduction of obesity is an open question, but with budgetary constraints crying out for use of some portion of the $585 million that could be saved from this reduction, it needs to try.

GOP should hint thanks, but no thanks to Ieyoub

In one of the strangest deliberations in Louisiana politics, former Attorney General and lifetime Democrat Richard Ieyoub has let it be known that he is thinking about switching to the Republican Party.

Political parties don’t cast anybody aside, with the exception of the very rare David Duke, but there are not many well-known politicians in the state that would be an odder fit than Ieyoub to the GOP. He’s no U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander, who was a card-carrying conservative who criticized the GOP mildly in the years up to his switch. Instead, Ieyoub as recently as his failed gubernatorial run in 2003 did things such as:

Called then-candidate, now Gov. Kathleen Blanco a “Republican pretending to be a Democrat” and urged listeners to turn to him as a true Democrat

Advocated a tax on tobacco, precisely what the Republicans prevented from being enacted last legislative session

Gained the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO which is loathe to give one to any Republican with any Democrat opposition, as well as New Orleans’ Black Organization for Leadership Development, which endorses Republicans even more rarely, so he could kiss those goodbye as a Republican

This doesn’t count such rhetoric from previous campaigns but, suffice to say, except for a pro-life view, Ieyoub definitely does not fit the Republican profile. Party chairman Richard Villere has voiced noncommittal remarks about this, as well he should. Such a switch would do little to aid the party, and promises of assistance to Ieyoub for a switch need not be considered at all.

Given his past, Ieyoub only could be interested in running for governor in 2007 or U.S. Senator in 2006 and he could possibly pick off a few votes from the Democrat incumbents by doing so. But the party would have to guard against the distraction Ieyoub might create regarding “true” GOP candidates in these races. Since both Blanco and Sen. Mary Landrieu look vulnerable and are not likely to draw opposition from the left, it would be better to have the party work to clear the field as it did concerning Sen. David Vitter’s 2004 run and removing GOP competitors for these contests.

This strategy will work because of quality candidates have begun surfacing within Republicans ranks. With more quality, homegrown GOP politicians out there now where it seemed just a few years ago the best the party could do to win statewide office was to send out a RINO, it would serve the party and its conservative base ill to do anything in addition to welcoming Ieyoub on board if he chooses that, and just leaving it at that.

Increasing turnout tough job in Louisiana

Allow me to assist Shreveport Times assistant editor Martha Fitzgerald and Secretary of State Al Ater, whose musings about increasing voter participation in elections Fitzgerald herself mused about.

One solution would be for them to show up in my American Government class around the middle of November when we’ll spend a good part of one class period discussing voter turnout in America and why it’s relatively so low (as well as determining whether it’s even a problem, but for the moment we’ll accept Ater’s position that it is). But likely their schedules may not mesh with this opportunity, so I’ll give them a rundown of it now.
First, we must understand both the general factors which determine political participation, and then the ones specific to voting. The first set essentially are demographic in nature, they being that the older and better-educated a person, the more likely he is to participate in politics.

On that score, Louisiana seems to have a mixed message. The state’s average population relatively is younger than the country’s as a whole and following a trend where a demographic bulge of a disproportionately younger population is on the way in America, but educational attainment was on the rise and the gap closing slightly with the rest of America. All in all, this probably means voting participation factors here are moving a bit against any increases in turnout in Louisiana.

The specific factors basically are attitudinal, and include attitudes about the importance of elections, the competitiveness of elections, strength of identification with candidates, and strength of identification with parties. The last is easy to answer – with the nonpartisan blanket primary, Louisiana has the weakest political parties in the country, so such attachments by the citizenry also will be weak.

Recent data also addresses tangentially the idea of competitiveness. The Center for Voting and Democracy rated the state low on “democracy” in Congressional elections partially because of the low degree of competitiveness of these elections. That’s not uncommon in the state, particularly with judicial elections. Again, this would argue for lower turnout.

It’s hard to say about the other two factors without hard data, but my guess is there’s more upside to these. With a political culture more infused with politics than in most states, that ought to make people feel elections are important (but, then again, given the pervasive attitude that the state has too much political corruption that could work the opposite way here). And, Louisianans often place a great deal of stock in candidates, even (perhaps especially) the rapscallions.

All in all, Ater has a tough task. Not only must he fight demographic trends, but the necessary attitudinal changes may be even more difficult to overcome. Focus groups and surveys are fine, but the things that really count us political scientists have known for a long time and he needs not get bogged down in reinventing the wheel. The causes are well-known; it’s the solutions that will require creativity, if they even are possible.

Marketplace of ideas bankrupting liberal radio in Baton Rouge

So Baton Rouge’s National Public Radio affiliate WRKF got rid of three news/talk shows. Not living there, I must admit I’ve never heard the three programs in question, “Here and Now,” “The Connection,” and “News and Notes with Ed Gordon,” so this change to me at first seemed unremarkable.

But being that NPR also goes by the moniker of “National Peoples’ Radio” because of its relentless left-wing programming bias, I wondered if this was consequence of the long-term trend of an American public, being given options in their media consumption through talk shows, increasing cable and satellite radio capacity, and the Internet, to throw off the yoke of liberal media and to consume material more in tune what their education and experiences have confirmed to them in how the world really is and works. So I did a little digging and, sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed.

I listened through archives of “Here and Now” and discovered the show’s leftist tilt. Scrolling through its listings, for example, one finds a number of stories about the war in Iraq, which usually involve interviews with people against the war, or who don’t like the idea their relatives or friends are over there, or interviews with Iraqis themselves expressing dismay over the situation. Rarely does one hear anything close to a positive affirmation of the war from any source.

The same goes with “The Connection” which if anything is even more relentlessly trendy lefty. To get an even better sense of the show’s offerings, one also can peruse the message forum postings addressing the show’s demise, which in part gets hijacked by posts regarding the, at worst, anti-Semitic nature of the program or, at best, its relentlessly pro-Palestinian tilt.

These two shows were outright cancelled by their host producer Boston’s (it figures) WBUR and thus WRKF had no choice here. That the other program which continues on elsewhere does so is telling because it’s the only one where there seemed to be any balance and is produced nationally by NPR. Ed Gordon, the host, who is perhaps most famous for being the guy whose interview helped fan the flames of the controversy that cost Sen. Trent Lott his majority leader’s position, tries to bring in all sides of controversies. This, of course, angers the loony left who believes it’s their right to colonize NPR (on the taxpayer’s dole).

Gordon’s show is out at WRKF (although it may be brought back if underwriters – that is, it can’t pull its own weight in advertising so must be subsidized – step up to prop it up) because of the telling admission that classical music outdraws all three programs and news/talk competition was too tough. Classical hardly draws any listeners, and Moon Griffon and other local talk shows draw much better. And, of course, Rush Limbaugh steamrolls the competition, particularly (intellectually as well as by the numbers) the left’s puny offerings on other stations.

These decisions illustrate the continuing decline of a media controlled by elites in everything except their ability to understand political ideas and human beings in a valid way. A very few listeners around Baton Rouge may be upset because their talking points about certain things will not make it to them over the air on weekdays, but they’ll have other sources. Or, without these programs to lean on, maybe they’ll open their eyes and minds a little wider and discover their views evolve in a direction away from what they used to swallow uncritically.