Government must cut cyber venture capital losses now

Two ships up and pulled anchor this, leaving even more tattered the credibility of economic development promises made by Bossier City elected officials, and to a lesser degree their Bossier Parish counterparts.

Sports fans also tuned into the world of politics may have realized that the looming demise of the most successful non-baseball franchise in the area’s history, the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs minor league professional hockey team, also creates a big hole for Bossier City. For the CenturyTel Center to have any chance at all to pay its operational expenses, the 40-plus (because they reached the playoffs so often and sometimes went far) home game dates of the Mudbugs were crucial. With this anchor tenant gone, the gains unrealized from using the $56.5 million that the city blew on the arena for other purposes – roads work that could have been finished years ago, not having to raise water and sewerage fees on residents, etc. – now will be compounded by actual annual operating losses perhaps into the millions of dollars.

Maybe a last minute deal will keep the franchise alive (the tentative deadline being today), reviving the joy of area fans and relieving those in Bossier City government who were around to stump for the arena from more egg on their faces. But you would have had to been much more attentive to have learned that an even riskier gamble by the city, and parish and state, essentially blew up in the faces of Bossier politicians with the announcement that the U.S. military will place its cyber command headquarters at Ft. Meade, MD.

Sham "equal pay" bill would create more discrimination

Some truly bad public policy ideas just won’t go away, and over time people, including policy-makers who should know better, forget the reasons why and fall for puerile argumentation on their behalf. This is the case with HB 705 that presumes to address a problem that basically doesn’t exist with freedom-crippling big government but, worse, it also is a Trojan Horse for reviving the con job known as “comparable worth” and threatens to create more pay discrimination in the workplace.

State Rep. Barbara Norton’s bill would define a prohibited employment practice for employers of four or more where pay differs on the basis of gender, and sets up a procedure receive damages if a violation is present. The important operative phrase is this:

No employer may discriminate against an employee on the basis of sex by paying wages to an employee at a rate less than that of another employee for the same or substantially similar work on jobs in which their performance requires equal skill, effort, education, and responsibility and which are performed under similar working conditions including time worked in the position. (emphases added)

Political hijinks based on fates of education, tax bills

Political hijinks were on display yesterday around the Louisiana Capitol as committees tried specially to meet as the sun went down and members went on walkabouts.

Normally, during the session a third of the House’s standing legislative committees meet on Monday mornings, another third on Tuesday mornings. The final third, those considered less busy, meet on Wednesdays, while Thursday is considered a day to take care of extra business not otherwise covered earlier in the week. Only Appropriations tends to be irregular, sometimes meeting after adjournment of the floor and/or on Fridays and/or weekends. But yesterday, rare meetings of Education, a Tuesday committee, and Ways and Means, a Monday committee, were scheduled after floor adjournment, which occurred at nearly 7 PM.

Education was to take up several bills, most controversially two authored by state Rep. Steve Carter that would substantially affect operations of local school boards. It had heard many earlier that day, but not, as scheduled, Carter’s providing the rationale for reconvening later. Ways and Means also had several measures, but one stood out for its notoriety: HB 889 by state Rep. Karen Peterson that would raise tobacco taxes and dedicate them to a number of purposes including education and health care.

Two Republican members of Education, Carter and state Rep. Frank Hoffman (its vice chairman), also serve on Ways and Means. On a previous bill by Peterson which had tried to raise tobacco taxes even more and did not specifically dedicate funds, in committee Carter had voted for it and Hoffman against where it lost narrowly. Education’s meeting was delayed specifically to allow these two to participate in Ways and Means’, quite practically because the author Carter should be present for considerations of his bills. As it was, these two would be needed to make the quorum for Ways and Means.

But Carter and Hoffman never made it to Ways and Means, and neither committee met. Peterson asserted she heard the wayward legislators had been on the floor of the building containing the Governor’s Office. Gov. Bobby Jindal has expressed support of Carter’s two bills, but has criticized Peterson’s. Carter later answered ambiguously about his activities but said he was disappointed the bills had not been handled that day. Carter said he would try again, presumably next week. Education Chairman Democrat state Rep. Austin Badon said he got word he ought to adjourn without hearing them last night.

Circumspection by politicians on this matter means no clear answer will be given. But inferring from the sequence of events, it’s logical that Jindal has tied the fate of Carter’s bills to Peterson’s. In the morning, there appeared to be no fairly reasonable chance that Carter’s bills would go forward, and in that instance authors typically work for postponements. Similarly, the rush to hear HB 889 comes because the House is getting ready to deal with HB 1, the general appropriations bill. Unlike her previous effort HB 75, which suffered defeat from a cigarette pack tax hike of a dollar putting prices well above those of border states and without a clear dedication of funds, the 50 cent increase would put packs at prices comparable to border states and the dedications make it appear funds would go to worthy areas of expenditure hard hit by the current revenue shortfall in state government. In other words, this bill has the potential to go much farther in the process than it previous incarnation

Still, that bill has no chance at becoming law because even if the required two-thirds vote in each chamber got it to Jindal, his veto would make some supporters reconsider and there would be no override. But this would make Jindal look bad, part of Peterson’s objective as the Democrat Party official wishes to follow her national party leaders in tarnishing Republican Jindal’s image given his threat to blossom into a future national leader, this blocking of a tax increase that has popular support that would put funds in areas where there is consensus more money should go. Therefore, his objective is to cut off the bill as early as possible in the process.

Opponents of Jindal and supporters of the funding, largely but not exclusively the same people, wanted this quick consideration in Ways and Means because it could materially alter HB 1: if there seemed to be some guarantee HB 889 would make it out of the House, HB 1 could be amended in it to add in all sorts of new spending. But if HB 1 gets significantly farther along in the process than HB 889 (and it is scheduled to be debated tomorrow), there is less pressure on to pass the latter. Also, every day that HB 889 gets delayed in hearing is one day closer to the end of the session where its opponents can run out the clock on it before it gets too far.

Therefore, it appears the strategy was for Hoffman and Carter to play hooky to slow down the process. While for Carter delay also may have given him a chance to shore up support for his bills, it may also have given Jindal Administration operatives a chance to impress on Carter that the toss-up support for his bills might turn negative if he did not reconsider his past support for higher tobacco taxes. If so, this puts him in a tight spot because the present bill seems more moderate than its predecessor.

All in a day’s, and night’s, work at the Capitol. Only about another six weeks worth to go.

Indexing exemption won't work without other changes

It’s not entirely a surprise that Gov. Bobby Jindal would endorse bills generally indexing the homestead exemption, given his past actions in support, even sometimes grudgingly, of tax relief. But without change suggested by other bills, passage of this concept promises not to change much regarding individual tax liabilities and could make worse the state’s fiscal structure.

Louisiana presently has the nation’s highest homestead exemption at $75,000, which essentially relieves almost half of homeowners of the burden of paying parish (including New Orleans) and school property taxes and reduces it for all others. It has been this way since 1982, however, while the value of the exemption has been approximately halved. Other proposals would raise the limit, but Jindal’s endorsement of indexing by the rate of inflation from the present base assumes erosion of the buying power of the present level of the exemption has made it reasonable and small increases may proceed from here.

But the problem is that local jurisdictions presently can “roll forward” millages. If valuations increase the total take of property taxes, the millage automatically goes down to compensate unless a two-thirds vote of the governing authority (or an elected official such as a sheriff where appropriate) raises the millage anywhere up to its approved level. Indexing that takes away slightly revenues every year from a jurisdiction may prompt governing authorities to inch up millages, thinking voters won’t notice that the overall level doesn’t change on their tax bills (many of whom don’t notice anyway since they are paid through mortgage payments).

So this may look good symbolically, but mostly will have little substantive impact. It also represents a reversal of a healthy trend that the erosion of the exemption had created, spreading more of the tax burden around. Having a high exemption places too much property tax payment on a small proportion of homeowners and business, discouraging the latter. Therefore, assuming levels of revenue should stay the same, economic development would be enhanced by evening out the pain.

The former problem of implementation could be dealt with by passing any of several bills that would make it more difficult for authorities to roll forward, but that would exacerbate the latter problem. Both could be solved by adopting something like state Rep. Kevin Pearson’s HB 252 which would make the exception work at valuation levels between $10,001 to $85,000, and amending it to index at the higher level.

Bills like Pearson’s would spread more of the burden around yet maintain the greater amount of exemption. While some argue this would be injurious to lower-income homeowners, the fact is even in the highest-taxed parishes the extra tax on those presently not paying would be only about $12 a month. Amending this kind of bill to index would not change that and help anybody with property worth more than $85,000. Also amended to it or in separate bill passage could be the measures designed to make rolling forward more difficult.

Supporting indexing in and of itself may score political points among voters but likely will do little else. The HB 252 approach and other amendments to it would have a far more meaningful, and salutary, impact on the state’s fiscal structure.

Agency request displays Shreveport's business-unfriendliness

The Shreveport metropolitan area recently was named eighth-best mid-sized city for jobs growth by Forbes magazine -- perhaps despite Shreveport's city government as it took Caddo Parish's government to step up earlier this year to help maintain a business-friendly climate.

The Caddo Parish Commission had the wisdom to reject raising fees for certain kinds of planning requests. The Metropolitan Planning Commission, which has jurisdiction over zoning matters within Shreveport and emanating five miles outside its borders into Caddo Parish, recently got Shreveport to approve higher fees. Ordinance #174 of 2008 increased most typical fees $100 and most requests for exceptions $150, passing without discussion or dissent.

But Commissioner Matthew Linn, who unlike Shreveport’s councilors owns and operates a business that has had to pay close attention to zoning matters, objected to the parish following suit over its area (much of the parish) covered by the MPC jurisdiction. He pointed out that many of these requests, which already cost hundreds of dollars without the change, now would be that much more and questioned whether this would discourage business formation. At the very least, he argued there should be a graduated scale of fees by business size, as small business is hit worst by the increases. He persuaded the Commission to table the request meaning, for example, now to apply for a variance to serve alcohol would cost $900 in most of the parish but $1,200 in Shreveport. (And that is an application, not a guarantee that favorable action would be taken.)

The reaction of a representative of the MPC, however, spoke volumes about why economic growth is stagnant at best in Shreveport. “The city basically said [in approving the increase], ‘These are hard economic times. We want to reduce the percentage at which we subsidize these private ownership rights,’” said MPC staffer Rusty Jambor.

The presumptiveness and ignorance of this statement is astonishing on three accounts. For one, a service performed by government should have its fee reasonably related to the actual cost of the activity because if not, it is then government being subsidized by private interests forced by all-powerful government to come to it just to exercise their rights as free citizens. When government arbitrarily decides to squeeze revenue out of its citizens not in any response to the actual cost of services but just because it can, it becomes abusive.

(Nor is this rationale limited just to the western shores of the Red River. A few years back fees were raised on emergency medical services and on water and sewerage users in Bossier City to plug a perceived budget hole, their politicians arguing they shouldn’t dip into reserves and/or interest generated from monies saved from gambling revenues. But the draining of general fund reserves has continued and now the city is committing itself to expenses in the $130 million range to improve water and sewerage – the interest of which additionally must be borne by taxpayers, instead of using the fee hike in the provision of that service to cover it.)

Also, in making such an assertion does anybody stop to think about basic economics? If these are “hard economic times” that somehow force a government to raise fees, did it occur that the same hard times make business more sensitive than ever to higher fees? That these hikes may discourage not only application fees but applications whose successful implementation could lead to higher tax revenues? Not that the city should not already know this, as witness Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover’s admission in his 2009 budget message that higher recreation fees actually decreased overall revenues in that area.

Finally, it is a total misunderstanding to think that compelling payment for trying to do business has anything to do with “subsidizing” private ownership rights. Government itself is nothing but a leech off the free use of private property, as it never could exist without the taxes from activities involving property, so to think that reducing government’s burden on the exercise of those rights through lower fees translates into an increased subsidization of them is exactly backwards and denies the reality that private property rights precede government power. (You can look it up in the Louisiana Constitution.)

It’s not the amount of money in question – the change may stuff only a few tens of thousands more dollars into Shreveport’s coffers, and many fewer now forgone by the parish – but that attitudes such as this can exist within government. This business-unfriendly attitude appears to pervade Shreveport governance and explains the city’s trouble in keeping population and business activity. The worst thing it can do is begin a death spiral of making business more costly to do within its borders that chokes off and contracts business, and therefore city revenues, even more. No amount of plaudits from the media can change that reality.

Even with revenues woes, suspending tax cut bad idea

There is persistent talk that Louisiana should delay implementation of individual income tax cuts passed last year, and that now has an action plan associated with it with the filing of HCR 94 by state Rep. Michael Jackson that would suspend the cuts effects until probably the last week of August, 2010. This provides an explanation for past actions regarding the reduction and another opportunity to remind why this would be a bad idea.

The lowered rates actually went into effect at the beginning of this year for those employed who took a tiny amount of initiative. Typically, governments that levy income taxes create tables by which employers, charged with automatic withdrawal and remittance to the government for all but the lowest-salaried employees, use to determine what amounts are to be deducted. But the law curiously set a date of no earlier than Jul. 1, 2009 for the state to revise these tables, meaning workers had to fill out forms on their own to turn into employers to begin receiving any reduction beginning Jan. 1, 2009. While some have objected to this, it is not inconsistent with conservatism: conservatives believe that people, not government, should take charge of their own lives so to file the paperwork on their own was not too much of a burden to ask rather than be dependent on government to do it, in essence, for them.

But now another gambit to the delayed implementation has become clear: the state constitution allows both houses of the Legislature to pass a resolution suspending a law for sixty days past the adjournment of the next regular session by the same rule (in this case, majority vote) without any gubernatorial intervention. It could be the delayed implementation was a means by which to facilitate this strategy, as having fewer people actually receiving currently the break (with the remainder having to wait until income tax filing for 2009 in 2010) could mean less popular outrage at a suspension for reasons of financial exigency (as is stated in the resolution).

No matter, for three reasons this is a bad idea. First, lower taxes inevitably lead to economic growth which will mitigate revenue problems for government. But starting and stopping them not only delays the effect, it makes it less pronounced as the populace will become wary of the permanence of these cuts and therefore less likely to use the proceeds for economic development purposes, as caution will reduce their willingness to invest them.

Second, it siphons off pressure on elected officials to reduce the size of government. As is becoming apparent in the ongoing budget process at present, there is room for savings. Low priority or no priority jobs have been identified in state government, for example, and now are intended to be cut. Grabbing back the tax cut might take away the impetus to do that.

Third, it would intensify the immoral nature of the taxation enterprise in the worst way. Taxation is a necessary evil, but it does not become immoral until it happens for unnecessary purposes and disproportionately punishes some people. The point above would indicate that unnecessary purposes are being funded through deprivation of people’s liberty by seizing their earnings, and worse is that the suspension would cause greater injury to those who already contribute the most. As of the latest report (which makes compiling exact numbers difficult because it doesn’t break returns down into single or otherwise categories), about a third of income tax filers benefit for sure under the reduction – who already pay a staggering nearly 84 percent of all income taxes. Anything that allows that minority who pull the majority riding in the wagon most of the time a little more rest has a positive moral component to it.

Tough fiscal times for the state do not justify the temporary reversal of this tax cut, so let’s hope HCR 94 goes nowhere.

Inane argument doesn't detract from civil service reform

I will be charitable – Louisiana’s state bureaucracy does not have the greatest reputation for quality of service or efficiency, and a reason for that perhaps was revealed by the number of civil service employees or their representatives that whined in front of the State Civil Service Commission recently about changes to introduce more merit considerations into their jobs.

The Commission is contemplating rules changes in part under pressure from Gov. Bobby Jindal and Legislature who says they’ll otherwise do it for them. While several changes are in the offing, the one generating the lion’s share of controversy is one that would alter the regulations regarding reductions in force (RIF) and other matters when layoff must occur at an agency. Presently seniority is the paramount consideration under two of three plans and is widely used on those occasions while the proposed alteration would make categorical grading of a few years of job evaluations primary and mandatory (there is a five-category scale of which the top three are considered to constitute acceptable performance).

This sounds perfectly reasonable, if not standard practice in other states. At the federal level, for example, four factors are used for RIF of which seniority is just one of equals. But in addition to this, performance scores at the federal level actually are used to add in extra RIF service credit that add seniority. In other words, better performance adds seniority, a feature not present in Louisiana’s civil service. Conceptually, there is little difference between what the SCSC proposes as its sole policy and the guiding philosophy behind RIF regulations at the federal level.

Procedural bill gets politicized by policy provocateurs

The extreme irony of the situation is that those who were not trying to make it a policy issue were accused by those making it a policy issue of exactly that.

This center of contention was HB 60 by state Rep. Jonathan Perry which was clarifying state law concerning who may be listed on a birth certificate as parents of an adoptive child. The bill would make it a legal obligation that state practice follows the Louisiana Constitution’s designation of the kinds of married couples that may adopt, and therefore be listed on the certificate, which is a man and a woman.

A case making its way through the judicial system prompted the bill to clarify state procedure. Two males who by New York law may jointly be considered adoptive parents requested a birth certificate for their child born in Louisiana. The Constitution prohibited listing an all-male couple on the certificate but does permit the listing of a single individual since single individuals may adopt in the state. The males sued to have both names placed on it and a lower federal court agreed that brought an appeal from the state.

Proponents of the bill pointed out it merely was a procedural nicety to allow enforcement of the U.S. Constitution’s “full faith and credit clause.” Otherwise, since the procedures of issuing a birth certificate are not stated specifically in the law, just that the law says adoption is accomplished with a “married” couple and a “married” couple cannot be of the same sex by the Constitution, the transitive principle seems not to apply and New York’s interest would override Louisiana’s. But by having the explicit clarification that birth certificates are issued only listing names consistent with Louisiana law, as defined by the Constitution, Louisiana can successfully resist other states’ defining what constitutes a legal adopting couple in Louisiana.

But what is to its proponents a case of defending Louisiana’s rights relative to other states is to opponents a way to block their political agenda. These groups, which support the concept of same sex marriage prohibited in the Louisiana Constitution, found this case to be a means to chip away at this defeat. But defeated both politically and intellectually, the only avenue left for them were emotive and disingenuous arguments that were on full display at the House’s Health and Welfare Committee’s hearing on the bill.

One testified the bill would target children, “depriving” them of the “right” to have multiple parents listed on a birth certificate because Louisiana “didn’t like” their parents, and that the certificate was needed to access many services where either “parent” could be present to help access those services. Another claimed to not put both names, even if the pair had no legal relationship in the state, was “fraudulent,” and said the real motive was to “beat up on gays.” These fantastic charges were never evident in the rhetoric of the bill’s supporters and actually exist only in the victimhood-addled minds of these people that equate anybody who opposes their agenda as wanting to “beat up” on those who practice homosexuality.

As well, they were entirely disingenuous. Opposition witnesses had legal backgrounds so they surely know that custody rulings and powers of attorneys in every state would permit somebody who is not listed as a parent on a birth certificate to make any decision on behalf of a child where a birth certificate was required, no matter what state they were in physically. As shameful was the tactic of trying to argue the bill somehow was against children, because the bill had nothing to do with restricting a child’s rights in any way. This whole tactic, just as the actual court case itself, reprehensibly used children as political pawns – the old strategy of accusing your opponents of doing what you are to draw attention away from that – and mirrored the larger grand strategy of politicizing the issue by asserting your opponents of doing exactly that.

In the end, few on the committee bought this and the bill passed it, with the process revealing that in fact opponents treated the occasion as an opportunity to leave intact an attempt to change policy to their liking through judicial fiat. Thanks to the committee majority, rule by law, not by political power, got a little boost and hopefully the entire Legislature and governor will emulate that.

Landrieu's silly statements serve his electoral purposes

Perhaps it’s out of spite for an attempt to cut some aspects of his budget severely, or maybe because his big sister got herself reelected for another six years so he can speak freely without negatively impacting her chances, or it could be the siren song of the only office he’s really cared about is calling him again less than a year from its settlement, but regardless of the motivation for his remarks about the budget submitted by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, the content of them shows Democrat Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu can sound like a dunce yet simultaneously win over a preferred constituency.

Last month Landrieu, who has no constitutional authority over the state’s spending process, inserted himself into the budgetary debate by opining that it strategy of cuts was unwise. From his testimony, it appeared somebody had prepared some briefing for him, even if some of the assumptions and assertions were ludicrous. But after some remarks yesterday, it would appear on the surface that this preparation never happened, or Landrieu forgot what he read, or he has made a conscious decision to be as disingenuous and oblivious as possible.

Landrieu again took up the budget topic, declaring that the Jindal budget in the process of being tweaked by the Legislature featured across-the-board cuts. Landrieu might want to read, or have summarized for him, that very budget because in it the Jindal Administration went to some lengths to target cuts, focusing on priorities subject to existing constitutional and legal strictures. In no sense did Jindal decide to cut indiscriminately, so Landrieu either is ignorant about this or spreading false information.

He also criticized that the cuts fell disproportionately on health care and higher education (and, he didn’t directly add, on the few state government functions he oversees) – but given the strictures, that can’t be helped. And that’s probably a problem Landrieu himself helped to create while serving in the Legislature. It would be interesting to review how many times Landrieu voted for eventual statutory and constitutional funds dedications, or for the laws that set up the process for handling projected budget deficits. It’s a sleight-of-hand – create the problem and then blame others for not handling it the way you would like on the terms you imposed – of which observers should note.

It seems that Landrieu also is clueless about state needs, which he claims the state has many that are unmet. That ignores the obvious that for many years they have developed not from revenue difficulties, but from stupid spending decisions, on things like reservoirs, sports teams, rounds of golf, slush funds, and the like. Again, it would be interesting to go back to Landrieu’s voting record in the Legislature and to discover whether he approved of spending tens of million of dollars to dig holes in the ground and fill them with water, to give the governor a fund to let legislators dole out money to privileged interest groups, etc. The stench of hypocrisy might by overwhelming.

Finally, Landrieu gave a full demonstration with just how out of touch with reality he is. He asserts that cuts in services will anger many “voters,” and that the Jindal budget typifies a mistaken strategy that “the outcome is not just to make expenditures meet revenues.” Thus, he supports repealing for three years the income tax cuts passed last year, and lauds governors like California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger who earlier this year won approval of a $14 billion tax increase to cover in part his state’s $42 billion deficit – a telling example as California repeatedly has raised taxes so that they now are the highest in the nation, yet the state still has hemorrhaged money for years in part because of an every-escalating tax burden that discourages economic development coupled with large spending increases.

Note the assumptions made here by Landrieu, the most prominent of which being that state spending is not deserving of being cut. It would be interesting, if not unprecedented, for Landrieu to justify all the spending presently going on in state government and saying we need tax increases to support it. (This could provide comic relief he if took the same approach as when defending his own department.) Here he continues to depend also on the fiction that the Jindal budget was put together haphazardly with only an eye on cutting spending to the exclusion of all else. I will now type this slowly so that even Landrieu can keep up – the Jindal budget made careful weighing of priorities inclusive of the idea that tax increases would do more harm to the state’s revenue situation over time; just because you don’t like them does not negate that fact, and to therefore say the cuts were without thought betrays either political gamesmanship on your part, or outright stupidity.

And there is a reason why cuts of this nature fall so disproportionately on these areas – because the dedications that constrain deficit reduction came about because their constituencies were relatively less able to make compelling cases to prevent their exclusion. Perhaps no state, measured both in quantitative terms regarding the proportion of its citizenry who attended college and in qualitative terms given prevailing attitudes about the value of higher education, treasures less higher education than does Louisiana, and the vast majority of health care expenditures on which the state must fund being for the indigent were shaped more for political interests than for the indigent. So any service cuts to those areas at best will rile distinct minorities (the higher education establishment and institutional health care providers), not the public at large that has little contact with either, so Landrieu’s prediction of voter anger has little chance of coming to pass.

However, these kinds of statements he needed to say to appeal not to the state as a whole, but rather to his narrow constituency – the New Orleans electorate, its majority comprised of people who pay little or no income taxes anyway and who disproportionately utilize government benefits that are scheduled for reduction. While Landrieu may have demonstrably silly ideas about the Jindal budget, do not mistake this lightweight posture masks a calculating politician. More than anything else, Landrieu wants to be mayor of New Orleans (having failed twice already), but recognizes his white face presents challenges with a majority-black electorate. He may spout nonsense, but it is based on the worldview widely believed in New Orleans and responsible for the city’s steep decline over the past decades.

In the final analysis, while Landrieu’s commentary on the budget seems entirely puerile, do not forget that with them his real objective is not to add compelling substance to the debate, but to position himself for his next electoral aspiration.

Dumb down bills' idea betrays lack of understanding

From the content of the bills they support and the rhetoric they promulgate on them, it is clear that the proponents of bills that would significantly remove and/or downgrade requirements for graduation from Louisiana high schools either do not understand the purpose of education and/or are trying to hide their true motives.

Bills HB 612 by state Rep. Jim Fannin and SB 259 by state Sen. Bob Kostelka would mandate three fewer classes in core subjects being taken and five in classes demanding reduced competency in basic concepts than with the present Core Curriculum. They also would have these curriculum completers take an exit exam based upon these lowered expectations than the present Graduate Exit Exam in order to matriculate.

It has been explained elsewhere that this tactic is the last thing to do in the present situation as American students begin to lag many worldwide, especially in the areas of math and sciences. This contradicts the trend of a world becoming increasingly ever more complicated where even the most menial jobs are requiring more native critical thinking and communication abilities of out individuals. There also already is a Basic Curriculum less than two years old that students may take that slightly alters the core requirements and structures electives to a vocational area, although they must pass the same GEE.

The idea behind the bills seems to be this approach is not enough, that some students need to be put into a track that emphasizes not so much how to think, but how to do. By all means, let the Americans diagnosing automobile difficulties, for example, learn in high school the basic principles of running the machines to do that, while it’s the Chinese, Indian, Russian, etc. children who learn the principles that allow them to program the machines. And then who must Americans depend upon when they need to recalibrate or improve the machines ….

What these advocates who bristle at the suggestion they are dumbing down the curriculum don’t understand is that you get much more out of education and the capacity of a human being by making this backward-chaining rather than forward-chaining. That is, once you learn advanced concepts, it is much easier to apply them to a wider range of situations and to do it better, including to those that require less critical appraisal. For example, the current requirements for math make it possible for students to both continue to move forward in its use in college, such as for engineering, architecture, etc., and backwards, such as how to calculate loan interest, principle, etc. In the case of the latter, why not teach the general theoretical concepts that can be used to understand the calculations rather than limit understanding to a mechanical computational function that does not reveal how to get there in the first place? The former approach will create an employee better able to handle novel and deviant situations with enhanced ability to expand their responsibilities and contributions.

Worse, one gets the suspicion that enthusiasm for this new curriculum is as much generated by dismal dropout statistics of about a third of high-school-aged children, so by changing the curriculum you artificially reduce the rate. This constipated view, however, tries to cure the disease by redefining the symptoms. The real reason why the dropout rate is so high is a combination of failure to demand more accountability from teachers, lack of commitment to discipline, and a culture within many schools that does not focus sufficiently on achievement. Political considerations therefore threaten to sabotage essential policy that has brought slow but steady improvement to Louisiana education.

The state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education gave a cautious endorsement of these bills, although the more sensible members of it successfully pushed for changes that may or may not solve the essential fault of these bills that they allow students to be less prepared for the realities of the world. Regardless, the current rules which scarcely have been tried seem more than adequate to address the increased flexibility to provide vocation education. Therefore, there is no need for either of these bills in any form.