Solar industry fights loss of subsidies with bogus claim

Recipients of Louisiana’s second-biggest transfer of wealth by the state’s tax code, facing their lifelines potentially attenuated even further, are pulling out all the stops to keep utility ratepayers in the state to continue padding their bottom lines.

The last year has not been kind to solar energy system installers in the state. In 2013, the Legislature sunset the absurdly generous tax credit of 50 percent for installation, which when combined with the federal version meant 80 percent of an installation (roughly $25,000 on average residentially) could be paid for. This made installation companies sprout like mushrooms with money that would have gone to the state instead going to purchase their services, for a technology that continues to be low yield for high price.

Wisely, the credit was reduced to 38 percent, but even better it will go out of existence after 2017. This puts companies on notice that they need to be competitive in the market by then, this weaning being the intent of these kinds of credits. Understandably, this has caused a crisis among them, knowing that a lot has to happen in the next 42 months to allow them to become so or else most are going out of business.

Puff piece on LA Medicaid expansion serves poorly

The political alchemy continues coming from Democrats through tactics of distraction and distortion to make the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) not serve as a liability to its midterm election candidates – and, in the case of Louisiana, aided by at least one media outlet.

Yesterday, the Pres. Barack Obama Administration’s Council of Economic Advisers released a document purporting to show the impact of states not accepting expansion of Medicaid, listing how many of the indigent as a result do not have health care coverage, procedures they could receive with it, and alleging that it would create jobs. Louisiana is one of the almost half of all states that have refused to do this.

Naturally, the slanted information produces a cornucopia of omissions and selective use of data, with the last assertion of job creation being the easiest shibboleth to demolish. Theoretically, it fails because the reasoning used – more government spending creates more jobs – would mean then we should proceed immediately to end-stage Soviet communism by eliminating the private sector to achieve full employment and maximal economic growth through making government the only economic producer, and we know well that worked out in practice. The argument also fails analytically because it does not take into account the jobs destroyed by taking more of what people earn that they could use through their own market-based decisions to create wealth and jobs.

Accusers of intolerance toss stones from glass house

So it turns out that a special interest is aggrieved at having a northeast Louisiana family business sponsor the Independence Bowl. Unfortunately, that exemplifies the continued impoverishment of political debate.

Still trucking along approaching four decades, earlier this year the organization inked a new sponsor in the form of the Robertson family’s Duck Commander hunting supply business based in West Monroe, which is featured as part of a reality television show. This came not too long after the founder of the company, Phil Robertson, made some controversial remarks. In essence, he asserted that blacks were happy before the civil rights movement in the 1960s and that homosexual behavior was sinful. Since then, he has reiterated in public several times his belief in the sinful nature of homosexual behavior.

This seemed to be too much for Shreveport’s People Acting for Change and Equality, whose spokeswoman mused publicly whether the Bowl having Duck Commander as its title sponsor (the contract is through 2019) was for the best. PACE lobbies for increased legalization of aspects related to homosexual behavior, such as supporting same sex marriage.

Reform away use of bonus money for operating budget

It’s not so much as how not to run a railroad, to echo the vernacular used by Louisiana’s Treasurer John Kennedy, but in running the railroad better when it comes to using revenues coming from one-time events.

Kennedy made this characterization when releasing information about monies still owed to the state even as the fiscal year was coming to a close. He claimed the amount to be $134 million, out of $413 million derived from property sales, legal settlements, lease payments, loan repayments and other financing arrangements.

Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols reminded that, for accounting purposes, any budgeted money collected prior to Aug. 15 would be credited to fiscal year 2014 completed today. Only then would the state face a shortfall if that didn’t come through. She predicted that, except for money from the sale of Southeast Louisiana Hospital that got delayed and slightly reduced for legal reasons which could be compensated from greater proceeds from an anti-fraud initiative than figured, the other missing funds would come in by then.

Line item vetoes show continued Jindal policy relevance

Even as the need for casting line item vetoes in the mind of Gov. Bobby Jindal seems to have greatly diminished, his treatment of Louisiana’s fiscal year 2015 budget shows he continues with no less enthusiasm to use them when needed that hints maybe a hypothesized inability to influence policy concerning the Legislature seems exaggerated.

The edition of the state’s spending plan drew only eight line item vetoes from Jindal. This contrasts with the 258 from the first one that came his way in 2008, when he had laid out guidelines to govern the funding of nongovernment organizations which many line items didn’t follow. Very quickly legislators got with the program and in recent years most of his vetoes of this kind have come over policy disagreements about what government should fund and where.

One was to close off an attempted carving out of funds for a University of Louisiana at Lafayette organization that didn’t make the final cut, another to axe a favoring of one area New Orleans NGO at the expense of others, and still another was to prevent an apparent sweetheart deal concerning a nursing home that could keep its reimbursement rates higher than otherwise that had germinated in the House Appropriations Committee. But the two most consequential dealt with emergency room reimbursement rates and a continuing feud propagated by a legislator.

Landrieu big govt narrative denies N.O. junkie status

Chalk it up either to embarking on an impending campaign for state office or to set the stage to squeeze more money out of taxpayers, or both, but New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s assertion that Louisiana somehow shortchanges the city he runs is nothing short of ludicrous.

Landrieu made these remarks at a Bureau of Governmental Research supporters’ meeting, a group often critical of the spending choices and priorities of the city and the local governments associated with it. He spun a story of constituents querying him about why basic needs get delayed if any attention at all if the city makes so much money off numerous high-profile special events, with his answer being that it’s all a mirage. Using the 2013 Super Bowl as an example, he argued, “Even though the Super Bowl is a multimillion-dollar event, this city's general fund, your bank account, only netted $500,000, barely breaking even for the army of police, fire, EMS, sanitation, public works, permitting and other city employees who work day in and day out to make sure everything went off without a hitch.” He then funneled the topic to all of his glorious achievements even if the city doesn’t make much, and concluded with a diagnosis that the state holds the city back, opining that “Something needs to change. We need to cut loose. We need to get the state out of the way, realign powers so New Orleans has the resources that we need to stand on our own two feet.”

Which is an absurd comment, for no large city in Louisiana sucks at the teat of the state taxpayer as does New Orleans. Given the data available, it’s difficult to make a comprehensive comparison, but in taking the largest area of state expenditure, health care, Orleans Parish in Medicaid spending had the most (using the latest available fiscal year 2013 data) dollars showered upon it – almost a half-billion – of any parish and the most people in the program, even though its population was smaller than both Jefferson’s and East Baton Rouge’s. Further, it ranked tenth highest in the percentage of population receiving Medicaid, with only substantially smaller jurisdictions having higher proportions. And if you want to throw in the second-largest state expense, elementary and secondary education, keep in mind that the vast bulk of spending in New Orleans on this comes directly from the state, because most schools are in it are in the Recovery School District and all of those in that will be charter schools for the foreseeable future -- with a large portion of it accruing to the New Orleans economy, and the resulting conversion into city tax revenues.

Wackiness keeps CD 5 race from getting serious yet

Wackiness by omission and commission continue to illuminate Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District contest, leaving the distinct possibility that the field remains entirely unsettled and the race unpredictable.

Within hours of each other – probably not entirely coincidentally – a rerun declared himself out of the contest and another semi-rerun inserted himself into it. Given his showing last year and the apparent ease at which he raised money. Had he chosen to try again state Sen. Neil Riser at the very least would have made a runoff and become the likely winner. His deferral leaves the field presently absent of any heavyweight, and wide open.

Eschewing a prize well within reach can lead to plenty of idle speculation as to why. Mentioning a non-specific opportunity in the future, it could be risking a losing run, or even a run in general, might devalue or make more difficult his ability to pursue that, possibly connected to another political elite wanting to enter to contest. Only time will tell upon Riser’s subsequent actions and who else gets in the race what his main motivation might be.

Enjoy "Duck Dynasty;" LA ponies up plenty for it

If the New Orleans Times-Picayune can, so far, on 13 occasions in 15 months stump for expanding Medicaid that would cost taxpayers more money for worse outcomes for anybody put into that program, then this space can continue to point out the stupidity of corporate welfare for the film/television industry.

That’s what comes across from the revelation that the hit television show (although the ratings are beginning to erode from all-time record highs for a nonfiction series in TV history) Duck Dynasty pockets an estimated cool $70,000 an episode from Louisiana taxpayers – and it now is in its sixth season. Having completed 61 episodes through season 5, by the end of this season (just kicked off with a special guest appearance by Gov. Bobby Jindal), taxpayers will be estimated to have plunked down over $5 million to subsidize the show.

Courtesy, of course, of the film and television tax credits that the state has given away now for a dozen years where the total amount forgone is approaching $1 billion. The Robertson clan that heads the Duck Commander franchise on which the show is based (and who dabble in politics) gets $200,000 an episode for its participation, but chances are that would include no taxpayer dollars without the subsidy because, hey, with their northeast Louisiana home base if you want to do a series about them, the producers and A&E network have to come to the state anyway to do it regardless of any subsidy.

Media choices on their Medicaid narrative disserve public

While the state and national media go nuts over a non-story that fits its narrative, the Louisiana media ignore a real story that doesn’t. Business as usual, as explained below.

Last week, in front of a press gathering, Sen. David Vitter who is running for governor in 2015 mentioned he could be in favor of Medicaid expansion. Gov. Bobby Jindal has opposed unshakably this under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for good reason.

So does Vitter, as he has for a long time, but you wouldn’t have known it from the breathless coverage that went out in the state media, across wire services, and on national Internet political sites. Lost in all of the manufactured hubbub was Vitter invoked the same framework as has Jindal when it comes to the issue, which he would confirm in a subsequent media appearance shortly after, that there would have to be fundamental reform of the Medicaid program before committing any extra state money to the federal-state effort. Jindal specifically calls for loosening grant restrictions that allow for a premium support system that does not feature the same constrictions as seen, for example, in Arkansas’ attempt to expand Medicaid of last year.

Reaction to bill reveals true agenda of collectivists

Never is the disingenuousness of the political left more on display when given something it declares it wants – except that only serves as cover for its true goal that it tries to sneak past the public and policy-makers, as the reaction by some to a bill waiting Gov. Bobby Jindal’s decision demonstrates.

SB 359 by state Sen. Jack Donahue started out its legislative life uncontroversially, as a means to tighten penalties in employers that fail to pay wages on time. However, late in the session a good portion of the text of HB 956 was read into it, unanimously. HB 956 would have expanded equal wage protections for women by state law where none existed, essentially by adopting language from the federal Equal Pay Act. As a result, it really only would have had symbolic value, in that the state already had to follow standards at least as protective as the federal law, although states may impose even greater controls in the name of pay equity.

HB 956 had started out its legislative life problematically, as it did not originally include an important passage from 29 U.S.C. 206(d). Lacking that phrasing meant the bill could have served as a vehicle for introducing the noxious notion of “comparable worth” into the state’s jurisprudence. This meant that unequal pay could be alleged on the idea the value of the work depended not upon its actual production and value of it by the marketplace, but upon abstract criteria that ignored these realities. Fortunately, that flaw was amended away.