House takes tentative steps to right-size LA govt

At least House Republicans have tried to stand on their own two legs to face Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards. Now let’s see if they actually can get upright and stay there.

Whether they can depends on what happens later today, when the entire chamber considers tax bills forwarded by the Ways and Means Committee. Rather than bottle up bills by declaring the unseemly ones involuntarily deferred, the committee allowed everything to proceed to the floor by the usual favorable passage for ones liked but also by signaling lukewarm interest in some that went through “without action” and hostility towards others passed “unfavorably.”

And that duel also will play out in the days to come with the House Appropriations Committee forwarding about $87 million more in cuts, encapsulated in state Rep. Cameron Henry’s HB 122, beyond the $190 million Edwards said they could pry from his hands. The mix and form of the tax bills and the final shape of HB 122 will determine the strength of the House GOP’s commitment to right-sizing government.

Inefficient EITC needs to go to cut LA spending

Concerning the dueling between bills to double or to eliminate Louisiana’s Earned Income Tax Credit, the state’s dire budget situation strengthens the already-compelling case to repeal it.

HB 4 by state Rep. Tony Bacala would end it for next tax year, while next-door HB 5 by state Rep. Walt Leger would send it to seven percent of federal adjusted gross income for next tax year. A House panel heard the bills together last week.

The program, estimated to give out $47 million to Louisianans claiming it this year with about half of that in nonrefundable form, at best represents a crude and inefficient way to alleviate poverty that in theory might work but finds itself in the scope of poverty programs working at cross-purposes. Its wastefulness comes from both inappropriate payouts and treating a symptom rather than the disease.

Will Democrats contest or satisfice in LA CD 4?

It’s early in the year for showers to bring flowers, but not too early for elections to spring forth candidates, as a population explosion of them has come in Louisiana’s Fourth Congressional District for its contesting in the fall.

Within the past month no fewer than five Republicans have announced and/or filed paperwork to organize their candidacies for the open seat. They include physician Dr. Trey Baucum, former state Sen. Elbert Guillory, Shreveport City Councilman Oliver Jenkins, lawyer Rick John, and state Rep. Mike Johnson.

Guillory perhaps has the highest profile, having recently run for lieutenant governor and of some renown as the only black Republican legislator in the state for over a century when he made the switch from Democrat a few years ago. However, he ran an underwhelming race for the state’s second spot, gathering only eight percent of the vote. Then again, he spent just around $56,000 when his opponents far more than he. This demonstrated either or both that he has a core of support, likely proportionally higher in the district than statewide, and that he did not do much to have potential donors take him seriously.

Meatless prison menu ploy provokes comic relief

As a columnist, sometimes there’s just no way to swing and miss with some ideas that present an irresistible mix of incredulity and ridiculousness. Such came our way when Hollywood personality Pamela Anderson made cuisine recommendations to the Louisiana Department of Corrections.

People for Ethical Treatment of Animals spokeswoman Anderson, who now eschews meat but some years ago didn’t mind a helping or two of it, with her organization apparently got wind of the state’s budgetary difficulties and magnanimously informed Gov. John Bel Edwards that he the state could save some dough by having its imprisoned population go vegan. No doubt the governor’s eyes popped out more than usual when he saw the estimated savings in the neighborhood of $620,000 and, perhaps had not the DOC counseled otherwise, he would have gone scurrying to legislative leaders proclaiming this bonanza would end all difficulties.

In fact, according to the DOC, “While there may be some offenders who wouldn’t mind the change, let’s just say that any savings realized from the switch to vegan would easily be surpassed by the extensive damage caused to our facilities by those not so appreciative of the idea,” with that response thereby throwing cold water on her gracious idea to come and cook a vegan meal herself for the guys and gals behind bars. Just as well; the response made no mention of the inevitable rioting that would occur should she do that, for example at Angola, given the relative deprivation in the air, with most if not all of Angola’s male inmates having not seen a female of her physique in some time, if ever in their lives.

The Advocate column, Feb. 21, 2016

Edwards bungles rollout of budget
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14917408-123/jeff-sadow-edwards-bungles-rollout-of-budget

Links:

https://lapolitics.com/2016/02/takeaways-from-thursday-nights-speeches/

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/02/board_of_regents_all_universit.html

http://blogs.theadvocate.com/politicsblog/2016/02/12/say-farewell-to-college-football-gov-john-bel-edwards-says-but-heres-why-you-shouldnt-tear-up-those-tickets/

http://www.nola.com/lsu/index.ssf/2016/02/john_bel_edwards_lsu_kornheise.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/education/2016/02/12/accrediting-body-says-louisiana-colleges-seriously-risk/80304062

Use Edwards' hospital cut request to exit charity model

Building on yesterday’s post, can liberal Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards also become the one who finally frees Louisiana from any vestiges of its archaic charity hospital system?

Until a few years ago, Louisiana insisted on continuing its outdated model where anybody could walk into what then comprised a system of ten hospitals, mostly in urban areas, and receive free treatment for whatever ailed them, regardless of severity. That system delivered subpar medicine, in no small part because, as the laws of human behavior dictate, make something free and people engage in overconsumption of it. This produced queued care as hospitals became treated like primary care centers and for any ailment, no matter how minor or even fictional, squeezing out the more serious cases and promoting wasteful resource use.

Unfortunately, way too many policy-makers preferred this inefficient use of taxpayer dollars because it provided superior symbolism, if inferior service delivery, of some asserted commitment to the “poor,” and also because this could act as a patronage sink and job machine that politicians in these areas could crow about to secure reelection. So it took another misfortune, Congressional repeal of a law that favored Louisiana’s Medicaid funding (ironically because of the economic bump resulting from the heavy influx of federal aid from the hurricane disasters of 2005) to shock them out of their complacency, and former Gov. Bobby Jindal wisely used this leverage to exit halfway the system.

Legislature should run with Edwards' TOPS budget

Is liberal Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards the guy conservatives have been waiting for, at least as far as reform of the Taylor Opportunity Programs for Students?

Last week, the Edwards Administration announced that for fiscal year 2017 Edwards would budget the program that pays full tuition for students with mediocre-and-above credentials at only about 20 percent of its predicted demand, using only funding dedicated to it. It forecast that would mean that instead of an American College Test score of 20 to qualify, the standard would go as high as 28. This would occur unless a combination of cuts elsewhere and tax hikes freed up money, with the more pledged the lower the ACT cutoff score until it reached the legal minimum of 21.

To which those who care about efficient use of taxpayer dollars and rewarding quality should respond, “Please, can we?” TOPS, with its four-ninths dropout rate as a consequence of allowing marginal achievers to capture free tuition to attend a state university (guaranteed admission as the TOPS standards exceed entrance requirements for most state universities), acts much more like an entitlement program than a true scholarship program and thereby carries the same ills: it discourages more than marginal achievement, 40 percent or more of it gets wasted, and it forces taxpayers to subsidize a number of indifferent students who might better serve society and themselves through not attempting collegiate work. Even worse, unlike most entitlement programs, its façade of merit standards – so low they hardly meet the definition – ends up having taxpayers subsidize higher-income families, who defend it by saying they pay enough in taxes and ought to have at least one program that directly benefits them.

Edwards' budget promotes ideology over real solutions

Rather than construct a budget putting Louisiana first, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards built the executive fiscal year 2017 document based on pursuit of liberal ideological imperatives.

His strategy of no pain, no gain – in other words, he cannot gain expansion of government without dishing out as much pain as possible to frighten people and their representatives into tax increases to fund a bigger state – calls for some roughly standstill spending for some parts of government and bigger drops in others, with the notable exception of a huge increase in health spending, most notably on Medicaid given his decision to expand it.

That alone actually boosts the budget much higher than the amended FY 2016 version currently limping along by over $1.5 billion higher to reach over $26.5 billion total. While a good chunk of that comes from increased federal funding that raises the amount of national debt each Louisianan owes, forecast at $2.2 billion more, some of it also comes from the state. A 2013 study, now understood to underestimate actual costs to the state, including administrative costs already consented to by the Edwards Administration not part of the research, forecasts net change for FY 2017 caused by Medicaid expansion to cost $41 million extra.

The Advocate column, Feb. 14, 2016

Lawmakers should look at true reform
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14848384-123/jeff-sadow-lawmakers-should-look-at-true-reform

Links: 

http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/14777881-32/gov-john-bel-edwards-sets-special-session-for-feb-14

http://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/docs/2016-Special-Session-Call.pdf

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_2016bF0a

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2014/12/federal-spending-in-the-states

https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/spi/2015/pdf/spi0315.pdf

http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2015/04/you-want-directions-on-las-budget-just.html

 

Edwards promotes panic, false choices to grow govt

Viewers of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ televised speech to the public prior to the start of the Louisiana Legislature’s 2016 First Extraordinary Session should not let the transparency of his tax-and-spend agenda and the insufferableness of the way he pursues it distract them from what needs to doing to resolve the state’s current and future budget difficulties.

At different points in the address, which probably few people saw, Edwards said “nor would we falsely claim ‘the sky is falling,’” “I don't say this to scare you,” and “These are not scare tactics. Then he proceeded to try to say things exactly to frighten viewers, by describing all sorts of scary scenarios that bear only passing resemblances to reality, framed by a distortive statement at the start that the state faced its largest budget deficit in history.

Correct in absolute numbers – but only representing about 4 percent of the budget this year and 8 percent next year. When former Gov. Buddy Roemer took over in 1988, the roughly $900 million shortfall stood at 12 percent of a budget then only 30 percent of the size of today’s that led to cash flow problems the state today is nowhere close to experiencing. As Louisiana slogged its way through the crisis then, this on face indicates the situation does not merit the doom and gloom Edwards assigns it today.