Desperate Democrats think public buys stupid stunts

Desperate people do desperate things, and that statement describes well the reactions of Democrat dissenters to the expected easy reelections of Republicans Sen. David Vitter and Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Knowing that the direction of public opinion and recent records makes the longshot candidacy of Rep. Charlie Melancon unlikely to triumph against Vitter and that the emergence of any serious challenger to Jindal improbable, Democrats continue to revert to the tired strategy of manufacturing presumed shortcomings not based on issues of the day that they try to tie to Vitter and Jindal, regardless of any credibility that such charges may have to anybody who can rub two brain cells together.

In Vitter’s case, it’s that his operatives blew the whistle on the Orleans Parish Executive Committee which tried to hoodwink the University of New Orleans into hosting a campaign event for Melancon, despite UNO’s long-standing policy of not allowing use of university facilities for such things (I remember discussion of that when I was there over 20 years ago). Burned and publicly humiliated, Democrats have tried to claim that somehow Vitter’s office threatened that to allow the rally would result in his preventing federal funds from coming to UNO.

This is laughable. Federal funds coming into the university directly are either in the form of student aid or the spending bill funds of 2009, none of which any senator can influence because of the nature of the grants. Indirectly, money may come in for research but, again, the procedures are such that if any senator wanted to try to influence these results it would require a tremendous effort to try to track every single request and then a considerable deployment of effort to try even to influence the competitive process. No senator would try to waste so many resources on the faint hope of affecting any grant decision, and no university official would believe anyone could even if such a threat was made.

Rather, Orleans Democrats and Melancon operatives got caught doing something dishonest. Following the dictum that if you do something outrageously stupid you then accuse your opponents of something as egregious to cover up your error, Democrats have done precisely that. As ridiculous as the charge is, it fits the pattern where Democrats are trying to throw everything they can at Vitter, no matter how absurd, to deflect from their own candidate’s shortcomings on issue preferences.

In the case of Jindal, a leftist group bankrolled by George Soros which, in order to claim “nonpartisanship,” criticizes Democrats using objective standards but saves most of its venom for Republicans using ideologically-biased criteria, calls his actions “unethical and incompetent.”

Never mind that a respectable and truly independent group studying ethics issues, the Center for Public Integrity, rates Jindal’s record as exactly the opposite. As well, note the supposed transgressions of Jindal, which bear little relation to objective conditions and/or are presented in a selective way:

• Supposedly undercut ethics enforcement by stripping adjudicatory power from a nonprofessional political body to give it nonpolitical professionals.
• Was “hypocritical” because the state accepted most spending bill money despite his argumentation against it – if this has anything to do with “ethics and incompetence,” they’ll have to tell us in which universe with its own peculiar laws this applies.
• That campaign contributors of his got jobs in state government – never mind there is no proof these donations had anything to do with selection choices, but just how exactly does this differ from their 39 governors, disproportionately Democrats, who did not get tagged by the group as “unethical and incompetent?”

It’s little wonder that Democrats, with the Louisiana public’s eyes wide open to their failed policies and arrogance emanating from Washington, wish to obscure their shortcomings with attacks of dubious validity. The only real wonder is how they think their crude motives aren’t so transparent to the thinking public.

Case, bill highlight need for state to act more efficiently

The state made the right call for disabled clients in its resolution of a court case concerning its evaluation methods, but it must pay heed to clients and taxpayers as well in this larger picture or draconian measures may cause more budgetary headaches.

In a case involving a severely disabled man, the state consented and as a result was released from being a defendant in a suit brought by the man’s family arguing his constitutional rights were being violated. Him being severely mentally retarded and prone to seizures, the state had cut back his in-home care hours from 24 to seven utilizing its recently-implemented resource allocation model (RAM). However, the state essentially admitted that the RAM had not correctly captured the full care implications of his conditions and will allocate him more hours.

The state has moved towards the RAM in the past couple of years because of spiraling home- and community-based care costs. A pair of court decisions mandated that the state provide approved federal waiver programs to use Medicaid money to provide this kind of care outside of institutions. However, it was done in a very uncoordinated way which poorly linked actual need to services received, wasting money. Further, federal regulation states that per client waiver costs over all recipients cannot exceed the average reimbursement paid to have that person in a nursing home, and use of the RAM is a tool to better align services to client that could remove unnecessary spending.

Higher education improvement clouded by LSU action

A warning sign of what may come from remaking Louisiana higher education sends a chilling message to those who advocate for improvement of standards.

Recently, Louisiana State University Baton Rouge yanked one of its professors from the classroom for reasons not disclosed, but almost certainly having to do with her insistence on high standards. This occurred as debate over the future of higher education in the state continues to intensify.

Reforms proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the Legislature leadership, the Postsecondary Education Review Commission, and a number of interest groups push for higher graduation rates. Part of the package strongly encourages schools to raise their admission standards and undertake other efforts that allows for more rigorous instruction and expectations of students pursuing baccalaureate degrees.

Hate crime on GOP staffer shows liberalism's true self

What those who believe in civility and reason in politics feared apparently is true – the assaults on a staffer of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s and her boyfriend were politically motivated, but it should come as no surprise given the political left’s acceptance of violence by theory and its susceptibility for its use of violence as a substitute for fact and logic to win arguments.

Jindal fundraiser Allee Bautsch and her companion Joe Brown were heckled then assailed by five losers, breaking her leg and his jaw. At the time it was unclear whether the attack was politically motivated as they had been attending a fundraising for the Republican Party but no overtly political statements had been made by the attackers.

But it happened in the middle of crowded weekend night revelry in New Orleans’ French Quarter so their singling out seemed hardly coincidence. (And puzzling was the New Orleans Police Department’s reluctance to classify the case immediately as an assault and the glacial pace it took to the investigation which has allowed valuable opportunities to gather evidence slip away.) Now statements are coming from others at the event and from the victims themselves that lend more credence to the assessment that thugs targeted those individuals in attendance on the basis of their conservative political affiliations -- a hate crime if there ever was one.

Yet this should surprise no one, because liberalism at its core is about division rather than union, preaches class warfare, and decades ago found itself at a point where it had been proven intellectually and factually unable to win political arguments. One of its central tenets absolves the use of government power to remake society in its own warped view that disregards the rights and freedoms of individuals. It specializes in identifying enemies, disparaging them, and, when left unchecked, in violating them using public policy.

This is in great contrast to conservatism, which seeks to have people united in a quest for individual achievement that, when pursued by all, maximizes collectively everybody’s life chances to the best of their contributions to society. Conservatism avoids the use of government power to create those ins and outs, winners and losers, instead focusing on as much non-interference in people lives by government, limited only by rules to maximize fairness when individuals deal with each other and protection of our natural rights. Conservatism emphasizes peaceful cooperation for people to pursue their individual ends (except when dealing with those who declare war on society like criminals); liberalism favors zero-sum clashes that encourages different groups to dehumanize those not part of theirs.

So it is no accident that modern liberalism finds it so easy to resort to physical violence because, given its roots and having lost the intellectual battle, bullying is all it has left besides trying to cloak its real motives and to deceive the public into thinking it is something that it is not (as expertly done in the 2008 elections). Scan the headlines; you’ll find that violent protests of political figures and institutions in recent years always have been the work of the left (you never see the right trashing Starbucks, shouting down and threatening speakers, or using force). You don’t see this from the right because it wins arguments through reason, not depending on emotive appeals that today substitutes for the use of fact and logic by the left that thus tempts it to extend the natural violence voiced in liberalism into practice.

As liberalism has regressed from intellectual foundations to emotive ones, deception of its true nature has become more important to its practice and also is on display in this case. One hallmark technique liberals use is to accuse their opponents of the very things that underlay their ideology to distract from the broader realization that its traits lie within them. Thus we see the latest attempt of trying to equate spirited opposition to liberal policy successes despite negative public opinion of them as causing, with not a shred of evidence to confirm, the very violence they implicitly countenance.

However, these words of distraction lose their power and credibility when the real ugliness of liberalism rears its head as it did in these attacks. Not that the organs of liberalism in the media, academy, or among the political elite will assist with any sense of urgency (consistent with their treatment of the incident, now 10 days old, to this point). There will be few if any calls to step up the investigation, to look into the NOPD’s fumbling of the matter, and to proclaim that the left must disengage its heated rhetoric and internally evaluate itself to correct its faults.

There is one larger implication from this event, and that is that the left is afraid. If you must resort to violence, then you've already lost. In this context, it admits defeat in the battle of ideas and an understanding that only intimidation can stave off a massive shift in political power. Hopefully, the ramifications of this incident will hasten that overdue transfer.

Jindal budget plans have practical, political problems

Until now, Gov. Bobby Jindal has shown about as good a hand as possible in directing Louisiana through budgetary difficulties. But he stumbles with his latest effort to resolve the recently-declared shortfall for this fiscal year and the related reduction for the next.

Jindal actually had to reallocate almost $47 million more than the $319 million certified by the Revenue Estimating Conference for this fiscal year because of unanticipated expenses. The bulk of this will come from one-time money, part from settlement expenses left over that were less than anticipated, but the rest from money that possibly will have to be spent next fiscal year on another settlement.

Adding that sum to the forecasted gap of $245 million for next year, Jindal plans to accomplish eliminating that by dependence upon predicted legislation in Congress that will shovel money to the states. Jindal has been a past critic of such plans for the depressive effect they have on the economy and escalation of public debt they create. Even though each chamber of Congress has passed different bills, a reconciled one that becomes law could give the state more than the expected settlement costs plus the forecasted gap.

But another major assumption by Jindal also changes the complexion of his strategy. The Conference believed this may be the last downward revision needed of state-generated revenues, which means next year the Budget Stabilization Fund could not be used to plug any shortfall. Yet Jindal is banking on using the Fund next year in order to offset the loss of other federal dollars used this and next fiscal year from the 2009 federal spending bill which are greater than the 2010 versions now active. This only can happen if two-thirds of each chamber of the Legislature goes along with that joined by a majority vote of the people to amend the state Constitution to do so.

As previously noted, it’s not a good idea to change the Fund in that manner (allowing it to be used when federal largesse goes down) and there’s no guarantee the two needed majorities will manifest to make that happen. Therefore, it would be smarter to invoke the fund this year, which will cover the expected settlement costs of next year, and leave that there.

Further, what of the more than $300 million “Louisiana Purchase” deal included in the ruinous Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010? Jindal did not budget for it not being sure that the bad bill to which it was attached could be rammed down America’s throat, a wise precaution, and being against it philosophically. But now it’s here, so should it not solve for the forecast shortfall? And to do so would allow Jindal to be consistent in his policy worldview of eschewing support for any spending bill in 2009 now apparently gone by the wayside as he budgets for 2011.

While continuing his sage and heretofore successful attempts to root out inefficiency and unwise expenditures in state government, Jindal should roll as many health care bucks forward as possible from one-time monies courtesy of the Purchase mixed in with Fund proceeds to budget for no additional federal spending bill dollars. If they then fall into his lap, more reallocations can be done to use the money as long as the priorities are sensible. This is a better course that relies on certainties rather than contingencies and lets Jindal stay true to his beliefs rather than set them aside temporarily for the sake of expediency.

Misimpression may have impacted big House vote

Give state Rep. Hunter Greene credit – once he gets incorrect information in his head, he’s not willing to let it go and insists on spreading it as Gospel, perhaps leading House members to decide an important matter on the basis of misimpression.

During the debate on his HB 292, which would reinstitute a blanket primary system for Congressional elections as was past practice and currently is done for state and local offices, on three occasions Greene asserted that “19 or 20” states had an “open” primary, although he also said there were “hybrid” systems that confused the count. That information was relevant because a point of contention against the bill was it would cause the possibility of Members of Congress to face general elections after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (as by federal law) which would put newcomers from Louisiana behind in terms of perquisites such as committee seats parceled out by the parties.

Greene continuously left the impression that “19 or 20” states also used the same system which meant they would suffer the same potential penalty, meaning the relative loss to Louisiana Members was minimized since so many other states’ Members could suffer similarly. In fact, because Greene did not call what he was proposing by its correct name, a blanket primary, legislators did not know that no other state has this electoral system. An elegant explanation of the difference is from footnote 1 of the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion concerning a challenge to the only system close to Louisiana’s, Washington:

The term “blanket primary” refers to a system in which “any person, regardless of party affiliation, may vote for a party’s nominee.” California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U. S. 567, 576, n. 6 (2000). A blanket primary is distinct from an “open primary,” in which a person may vote for any party’s nominees, but must choose among that party’s nominees for all offices … and the more traditional “closed primary” in which “only persons who are members of the political party . . . can vote on its nominee.”

The “19 or 20” states to which Greene refers do not have the kind of same system he is proposing for Louisiana. The correct answer he should have given when asked how many states had a similar system to Louisiana’s was “one,” Washington, and it manages to avoid scheduling a general election after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November because it essentially automatically permits more than one candidate to appear on that ballot on that day (and even this is still subject to litigation scheduled to be heard this fall). The open primary states (the exact figure is 22), because they have open rather than blanket primaries, do not have to have a general election after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November because their systems, unlike Greene’s proposal, comport to federal law on this account. In fact, the only state that currently may have a general election after that date is Georgia, an open primary state, because it requires any general election winner to have an absolute majority of the vote and therefore may invite a runoff.

And how do I know Greene knows the difference? Because I told him, in a series of notes sent back and forth after the committee hearing on the bill. Yet the way he presented the bill on the floor continued to imply the system he proposes is commonly used throughout the country. That simply is not true; it is the only of its kind.

Most worrisome is whether a major reason why the bill advanced, as it did comfortably, was because legislators labored under that misimpression. Perhaps some who voted for it if they knew for a fact that Louisiana would be one of only two states that could have later elections might have voted against it. If enough members did have a misimpression, it could have made a difference in the bill’s passage.

Hopefully, when the bill reaches Senate committee and potentially floor deliberation, this point will be brought out by senators. Bill supporters cannot be allowed to imply that the proposed system is like “19 or 20” others because federal law causes very different consequences between this and every other state electoral system in the country in terms of when elections must be held and the possible consequences Louisiana must suffer in its representation in Washington that no other state (except perhaps Georgia, with its different system) faces.

The question is not so much whether the bill is good public policy, but whether policy-makers will allow themselves to decide its fate without seeking accurate information about it. Surely Louisiana citizens wish their elected representatives to make decisions on the basis of full and factual information fairly presented.

Blanket primary restoration makes backwards step

Bills are picking up steam that would turn back the clock to prevent further erosion of the emphasis on personality rather than policy in the state’s political culture.

More than any other state, Louisiana’s political culture, much like with undemocratic political systems or in immature democracies worldwide, emphasizes the place of the politician rather than those of institutions or ideas. This means political behavior such as voting and other forms of participation is shaped more by the persons in politics, for the most part elected officials, than by aggregators such as political parties or interest groups, or by ideology.

Why this is considered a more immature kind of politics by students of political culture and particularly by democratic theorists is institutions and ideas are superior instruments to aggregate shared preferences in the mass public. By contrast, more personalistic systems place primacy on individual relationships to which most of the mass public do not enjoy sufficient access and also because policymakers deemphasize issue preferences that make it easier for them to evade accountability for their policies. Regardless, it’s no surprise that Louisiana political elites generally prefer that evolution away from this not occur because it’s the system through which they gained power.

Leftist analysis misdiagnoses LA fiscal situation

Edward Ashworth, who heads the left-leaning Louisiana Budget Project, claims that Louisiana’s current budgetary problems are as a result of the state’s recent income tax relief to middle-class-and-above families and an unwillingness to raise taxes to compensate, which results in “cuts in spending that hit the poor, elderly, schoolchildren, college students and the developmentally disabled hardest while largely sparing the wealthy and businesses.” Only the most careless reading of data and uninformed view of economics would support such a selective interpretation and recommend the wrong solution to the states’ budgetary woes.

Ashworth notes the estimated reduction in revenues from the 2007 act that allows none of the “excess” federal tax deductions to be taxed by the state and the 2008 act that reduced tax brackets on the middle class and above would be $681 million for fiscal year 2010-2011. In reality, this will be somewhat lower because of the recessionary/no-growth state of the national economy that shows no sign of abating any time soon. Note also this relies on a static, unrealistic view of economic behavior that insufficiently models dynamic human decision-making. Nevertheless, he produces the argument that state revenue sources are not being tapped to their full extent.

But this ability-to-pay argument is meaningless in a vacuum that ignores the spending side of the equation. For 2008, the latest year for which data are available, in per capita terms among the states for operating expenses Louisiana (minus its disaster relief expenses) was the fourth-highest, and reviewing only expenses coming from state-generated sources it ranked 20^th. In part, this stems from the large state apparatus tolerated in the state: the 12^th highest per capita in state employees. These statistics don’t scream out that the state taxes and spends too little.

Legislature should give yellow light to red-light cameras

While some are looking to find a way to give a green light to red-light traffic cameras and others the exact opposite, a yellow light is the direction the state should flash regarding this volatile subject.

These cameras are timed to take pictures of alleged violating vehicles that run red lights (meaning entry of an intersection after the light has gone to red). Proponents argue they provide greater safety while opponents dispute that, point out constitutionality and enforcement problems with their use, and wonder whether jurisdictions are more interested in collecting revenue from them than in safety. Several states and several communities in Louisiana have banned their use, while others use them.

The state administratively is reviewing their use for state-designated roads and suspended any use of them on state roads by local governments. However, several bills have been introduced this legislative session addressing the issue, all more regulatory than then present, all the way from banning their use entirely to standards for their use to maximum fines to having local option approve of their use in any way.

Bad bill seeks to remove hurdle to "dummy diploma"

Regardless that they talk out of both sides of their mouths, money is being put where it is the case of one of the “dummy diploma” concept backers – an effort that policy-makers must have the wisdom to reject.

State Sen. Ben Nevers was among the more vocal backers of a law passed last year to create the “career diploma,” which would significantly relax the kinds of requirements, in terms of advanced nature of coursework, to earn a high school diploma. They argued that for those planning on going into more vocational and technical fields this would be a better course – never mind that it would largely abrogate its holder from qualifying to enter a Louisiana university in the future, that occupations of all kinds continue to demand more and more critical thinking abilities and larger knowledge bases while the concept of this program of study retreats from these realities, students might change their minds but become trapped in a curriculum, etc.

All along, supporters asserted that it meant standards would not lowered even as suspicion grew that the main reason for doing this was so graduation statistics would increase and thereby make policy-makers look like they were doing their jobs better. Then, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education called their bluff by declaring that end-of-course tests would be the same for students for any kind of diploma.

Then the double-talking among the supporters truly manifested, and Nevers has led the charge with his SB 490. The bill would make BESE design “construction of end-of-course examination questions [to] reflect course content and method of instruction” for the career diploma. Translation: rather than test over classics in literature they would be over how to read directions, and rather than ask students to write critical essays they would ask them how they “feel” about the material, if that’s how the instruction is to be.

The majority on BESE’s idea of how the diplomas should differ is that the goal of attaining basic knowledge and critical thinking ability should be pursued in both and tested in the basic core courses, but that the traditional one elaborates and goes further in the core while with the career one those kinds of classes are jettisoned in favor of more vocational kinds. This would argue for using the same tests. But Nevers and his ilk seem to think, even as they protested otherwise, that the goals must differ because then no reason would exist for this legislation. They must envision core classes being taught at different skill levels, and it wouldn’t appear the difference would come from the career track classes being the more demanding.

A career diploma option need not devolve into a “dummy diploma,” but this bill surely sets up the process to push it that way. As such, the Legislature must reject it, and as a last resort Gov. Bobby Jindal would have to veto it. He actually supported the bill creating the option, but if he wants to maintain educational standards that slowly are dragging Louisiana into the 21^st century, he can’t allow the current bill to water that down.