Fairness asks benefit recipients to pay taxes in support

The leftist Center for the Budget and Policy Priorities, in a study reported by its affiliate the Louisiana Budget Project, identifies Louisiana as one of a minority of states where households whose reported income falls below the poverty line pay state income taxes. Which should elicit a huge collective yawn from citizens and policy-makers considering the report’s incomplete picture and lack of context with larger policy concerns, but should generate concern if then used to justify having fewer people pull the wagon while more jump on it.

The report notes that, while the majority of states create no tax burden on households defined as poor and in some of these, through an earned income tax credit, they actually receive money from the state for not paying state income tax, in Louisiana the cutoff for not owing tax is slightly below that of the poverty level, although slightly above it for earners of the minimum wage (which comprise a very small proportion of all adult earners in the state). The same holds true for families at the 125 percent of poverty level, a small amount of tax due.

The national group generally, and the state group specifically, express concern that the “poor” (who in many cases, in comparative perspective, are anything but) must pay any income tax at all, and worry that a trend may develop where more states extend that taxation to lower income households.

Roemer sees rejection as chance to stroke ego more

While Louisiana has had more than its share of oversized personalities inhabit the world of politics, a run to demonstrate the biggest ego and need for relevance of them is coming from a surprising source whose personality otherwise pales in comparison to those others.

By now, one would have thought that former Gov. Buddy Roemer’s crisis to be someone and to achieve at a level he believes commensurate with his ability in politics would have become satiated, if not permanently altered to a more realistic appraisal of himself and his place in the world, by his quixotic sojourn for the presidency. The Republican running generally on a reform, anti-Washington/big government platform, his main campaign plank touts that too much money goes into elections, and, as such, he accepts no more than $100 donations from individuals and none from political action committee.

Thus, this explains partly why, as of the end of 2011’s third quarter, he had raised only about $233,000 – less than another Republican with no PAC donations Fred Karger’s $356,000 or so, although this candidate has largely self-financed his.

Caldwell suit faces Constitutional, political problems

Maybe Louisiana Atty. Gen. Buddy Caldwell read this space a couple of years back and decided after he got reelected it was time to go for it. But his suit to redo the apportionment of the House of Representatives based upon the 2010 Census not just is a huge long shot on constitutional grounds, it’s impossible practically to achieve a remedy.

The suit asks that Louisiana be restored a seventh congressional district, on the basis that if citizens only were counted in the census, because of relatively low numbers of non-citizens living in the state compared to others, it would have not lost one of those seats in recent reapportionment. Caldwell insists data collected in this census exists to provide this relief.

This is a tough argument to make.

Another gubernatorial try for Jindal likelier than Senate run

So Gov. Bobby Jindal’s former chief of staff Timmy Teepell heads out into the private sector world of political consulting and about the first thing that comes out of his mouth is he thinks Jindal will run again for governor of Louisiana, after sitting out at least a term. Do not write this statement off as mere intrigue or wishful thinking.

Teepell has been with Jindal since the beginning of the latter’s political career and should read the political calculus of his former boss better than anybody. Or maybe he’s just stirring the pot in league with Jindal, to confuse potential future rivals for other offices available within a year either way of the end of this second term as governor. But an understanding of Jindal’s career specifically and of progressive ambition in politicians generally suggests much earnestness in Teepell’s statement.

In figuring out what successful political figures foresee for themselves one must consider the opportunities available for the individual in question and where that will get him.

Rejecting govt empowerment trumps flexibility on change

Especially given the presence of Amendment 1 on the previous statewide ballot, the presence of the upcoming Amendment 1 on the next statewide ballot raises interesting principled questions about how specific should taxes, taxing powers, and spending discretion be rendered in the state’s constitution, with the answers providing a guide to the approaching vote.

This Amendment 1 would prevent a local governing authority from imposing a tax on real estate transfers, grandfathering in the Orleans Parish version as it will be in place prior to Nov. 30. 2011 (and apparently giving Livingston Parish the opportunity to do so under state law if it acts prior to that date). Most states permit them, but Louisiana’s constitution currently makes no mention of them.

It also stands philosophically the opposite from the previous Amendment 1, which wrote into the Constitution a tax of 1/20^th a cigarette sold with an affirmative popular vote last month.

Politicized meeting no help in broadband funding quest

If one had hoped that discussion about the state’s recent loss of a federal government grant opportunity at the recent Public Service Commission meeting could produce positive activity to produce more widely available broadband capability, that got dashed with the spinning of wild conspiracy theories that entirely lack credibility, contractors and agencies trying to cover themselves, and a state government that only too late realized it had headed in the wrong direction and then ran up against partisan political realities when it tried to salvage the situation.

Although the PSC has no jurisdiction over the matter, Commissioner Foster Campbell wanted it discussed. Almost two years ago the state, using the Board of Regents as the lead agency, was awarded a grant to link broadband access off of a high capacity line connecting the state’s northern universities that would have expanded access to public state and local agencies as far west as the Texas border and as far east as Baton Rouge. It was hoped that the lowered costs would encourage private sector providers to latch on and lower provision costs so more households and businesses could get this kind of service, supplementing slower current networks.

But as the project fell way behind, months ago the Division of Administration stepped in with, compared to the original, a very different plan that removed the state in large part from building and operating the network to a leasing arrangement.

Uncompetitive assessors' races deserved more scrutiny

While higher profile races may have gotten more attention, voters in Caddo and Bossier Parishes delivered a verdict on an intriguing question in the contests for the same minor office – do they care about what a parish assessor does or can do?

Democrat Incumbent Caddo Assessor Charles Henington got his first challenge in a dozen years from Republican attorney Royal Alexander, a past state Attorney General candidate and who worked on Capitol Hill. Alexander made as his main issue the fact that Caddo residents paid the most in property taxes and declared that, generally speaking, comparable properties in Caddo were assessed at a higher value than elsewhere.

Henington responded by saying Caddo never had been cited by the state for having values out of line with what assessments ought to be.

Dardenne policy should focus on taxpayers, not ambitions

So Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne breathes a sign of relief, after two statewide elections in two years, and four in the past five, now that he appears to have plenty of time to govern rather than campaign. Mind you, the campaigning part was his own choice – he didn’t have to run for Secretary of State in a special 2006 election, then run for the regular job, only to seek successfully to abandon it in 2010 for this job. And now this progressive ambition threatens unwise prioritization of Louisiana tax dollars.

Unsatisfied with the opportunities provided by the secretary of state’s job, when assuming his current position after the special election in 2010, Dardenne must have felt even less fulfilled. Given this job-hopping pattern, it’s unlikely that Dardenne does not aspire to something even higher and with far more policy-making importance than this or his previous job. And to parlay his current position into that future, he must depend upon a historical fluke that without would make the leveraging power of his position virtually nil.

The Louisiana Constitution provides the lieutenant governor with no power. This was as the guiding force behind the 1974 (the latest) Constitution, then (before becoming Prisoner #03128-095) Gov. Edwin Edwards, intended.

Songy record problematic in achievement, legal issues

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education District 6 runoff between Republican incumbent Chas Roemer and Democrat challenger Donald Songy has taken the most ideological tone of the remaining undecided contests. But also the “professional” vs. “outsider” theme needs reviewing to judge the qualifications of the candidates.

Roemer, a businessman, has argued that his approach, promoting school choice such as by facilitating charter school operation and dismantling counterproductive institutions and processes by means such as tying teacher evaluation more closely to performance, will move the state out of dwelling at or close to the bottom of educational achievement statistics. Songy opposes many of these reform efforts and contends that his three decades of working in public schools, the last four year before retirement as superintendent of Ascension Parish schools, makes him more capable of creating improvement.

Songy, of course, must address the obvious question of using his career and approach as examples of qualifications when they took part in an educational system that has performed poorly; was he and his outlook then not part of the problem?

Grant discussion wise to resist politicization, find solutions

While perhaps the request by Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell does not really fit the mission of his governmental body, it does provide an opportunity to help chart a course to salvage a federal government grant awarded to the state, now revoked, by avoiding politicization of the issue.

Campbell asked that at the Nov. 9 meeting of the PSC it discuss the matter, even though the regulatory purview of the PSC makes it questionable whether it has any legal input at all regarding the issue of build out of telecommunications infrastructure by the public sector before it operates. It concerns a statement from Washington that the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s grant office has told the state it had serious reservations about whether the state could come up with a plan it deems workable for a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant by its deadline.

The BTOP program, created by the initial Pres. Barack Obama spending bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, funds in three areas, two of which Louisiana pursued: