The Advocate column, Mar. 27, 2016

Why Louisiana government gridlock can be a plus
http://theadvocate.com/columnists/allcolumns/15289707-125/jeff-sadow-why-louisiana-government-gridlock-can-be-a-plus

Links:
http://theadvocate.com/news/15259872-123/lsu-survey-compromise-not-a-priority-for-most-voters
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/fiscal-50#ind2
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_regional.cfm
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/dsrv?sm
http://www.doa.la.gov/opb/pub/FY10/FY10ExecutiveBudget.pdf
http://www.doa.la.gov/opb/pub/FY16/FY16_Executive_Budget.pdf

Cannot judge cheeky appeal as hypocritical yet

Certainly cheeky, but let’s not write off the recent fundraising appeal made by Louisiana’s Republican Party as hypocritical – yet.

After the special session that saw billions of dollars in future tax increases set into law, the state GOP sent out a request highlighting that Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards led the charge to make these reality, asking readers to donate to the party to fight hikes such as these. It left unmentioned that the two main pieces of legislation in this regard had majority Republican support.

Left at that, one might judge the appeal as a form of selective outrage. And certainly Republicans had alternatives besides most of them signing on to a sales tax increase for 27 months and stripping away some exemptions to that tax of varying amounts over that time span. In that session that could deal with tax matters, they could have created a more efficient and rational fiscal system by getting rid of the Earned Income Tax credit and zeroing out the Motion Picture Investor Tax Credit, among other things, than by tax increases.

Edwards outlay strategy complements tax hike desire

Yesterday this space reviewed a motivation for Gov. John Bel Edwards’ declaration that he would aim for only larger projects, not local ones, comprising Louisiana’s capital outlay spending for the future. He may have another related one up his sleeve.

By making this proclamation, Edwards may acknowledge political realities, in that, unlike past governors, he has no guarantee that he can summon majorities on the State Bond Commission. If unable to do that, he cannot use his influence over the body to have it decide as he wishes, meaning he cannot promise project approvals to specific legislators in exchange for their support on other issues. Thus, he may accrue more political capital by declaring his unwillingness to trade projects for other legislation in favor of concentrating on whittling down the considerable statewide project backlog.

But by making this switch, he also bolsters the chance of achieving another policy objective of his, growing government. Constitutionally and statutorily, Louisiana only may borrow up to six percent of its net tax supported debt, defined as revenues that flow into the general fund and from all dedicated revenues that go into their particular funds but not including federal funds or undedicated self-generated revenues. Two-thirds majorities of both legislative chambers may override the limit for a specific project.

Edwards faces reality with capital outlay pledge

So Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards wants to change the way the state has dealt with capital outlay projects, does he? We’ll see if this doesn’t end up part a bow to reality, part wishful thinking, and whether the idea ends up on the scrap heap.

Traditionally, when the Legislature sends its laundry list to the State Bond Commission in the capital outlay bill (and some other items could wind up in the general appropriations bill or even elsewhere), that instrument contains a larger request for dollars than the state’s bonding capacity permits. Then the SBC must decide which projects to fund, and the governor historically has had outsized influence in this process because of the panel’s composition – the treasurer (chairman), governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, commissioner of administration, leaders of both legislative chambers, committee chairmen of the two “money” committees in each chamber, and one other legislator from each chamber, or representatives of any of these individuals. As in the past the governor had considerable informal input into the process of selection of these legislators to their posts and usually the other minor state executives came from the same party as he, therefore he could command majorities on it.

Nonrecursivity if not incest marked this relationship. In part, he wielded this influence because of the governor’s line item veto power; he could use that against projects favored by a legislator in exchange for support for his initiatives before they even got to the SBC without fear of the Legislature overriding those (it never has). Thus, governors backed legislative allies into key positions by telling them their items would survive, thereby earning them spots on the SBC where they and the governor (and his employee the commissioner) would roll plenty of logs so that everybody’s projects got the green light. Note that acquiescence by the Legislature in not only stuffing too many requests into the bill but also then not rebelling against this custom made it work.

NW LA trails state in curbing harmful smoking impact

Attention now turns to northwest Louisiana as the last major holdout in the state to affirming the rights of nonsmokers, likely in response to an overblown fear of loss of casino revenues.

With a proposed ordinance backed by a majority of its Metropolitan Council, Baton Rouge soon looks to become the next major metropolitan area in the state to ban smoking essentially in any indoor place of commerce (except for some hotel rooms and smoke shops), including outdoor attachments to these, in some other outdoor spaces, and e-cigarettes included. When it happens, this will leave as the only major cities left in the state without a city or parish ordinance doing the same (in order of population) Shreveport, Lake Charles, Bossier City, and Kenner.

Not coincidentally, these cities house 10 of the 15 riverboat casinos in the state, and Shreveport/Bossier and Lake Charles monthly duel to have the largest market. Including the land-based casino, New Orleans, which banned smoking in this manner almost a year ago, as a market including the Kenner boat trails, and Baton Rouge takes in the smallest amount of revenue.

The Advocate column, Mar. 20, 2016

GOP lawmakers should take stand
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/15222322-63/jeff-sadow-gop-lawmakers-should-take-a-stand

Links:

http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/2015-16-state-tuition-and-fees-public-four-year-institutions-state-and-five-year-percentage

http://as400.regents.state.la.us/pdfs/ssps/fall15/spschfte215.pdf

http://theadvocate.com/news/education/15187693-123/gov-john-bel-edwards-proposes-curbs-on-louisiana-vouchers-charter-schools

http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2016/02/legislature-should-run-with-edwards.html

http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2016/02/use-edwards-hospital-cut-request-to.html

Edwards expansion savings claim seems questionable

In the final analysis, policy-makers should take Gov. John Bel Edwards’ surprising announcement in his state of the state speech that Medicaid expansion would save the state $100 million in fiscal year 2017 with a grain of salt, as well as understand it would predict costs, not savings, in future years.

Only two authoritative, publicly-released studies have occurred on this policy, both by the Department of Health and Hospitals prior to Edwards’ inauguration, and only the first, released in 2013, went into a year-by-year, component-by-component study of the issue. It presented four scenarios that depended upon the rates of enrollment of the uninsured population specifically newly eligible because of expansion, of increased enrollment in other Medicaid programs because of the publicity surrounding expansion, and of enrollment of the insured population from the private sector switching now eligible to switch to Medicaid. A second report a year later confirmed, utilizing data gathered from other states’ experiences, that the most costly scenario most closely fit reality. The extremely detailed report predicted for the last half of 2016, when Edwards wants to start the increased coverage, this would cost the state $38 million; by 2023, the state would pay an additional $373 million that year.

The public could access both reports – until shortly after Edwards took office. Echoing the communist world when a new regime would wipe away evidence from the previous, the reports mysteriously disappeared from the DHH website, and now locatable online only through other unrelated archiving sites.  Two months later came Edwards’ pronouncement that alleges a positive $142 million dollar swing in the forecast impact from the first for the last half of this year.

Abortion bills put Edwards in uncomfortable position

Even as Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards suffered political defeat during the recently-concluded special session of the Louisiana Legislature, legislation filed during the regular session provides him an opportunity to score some political points – or maybe demonstrate fraudulence of his asserted social conservatism.

Edwards called the session ostensibly to pursue fiscal reform, but his call defined that as extremely heavy on tax hikes and very light on spending cuts, with little emphasis on altering the practices and processes of state government that a genuine effort would entail. It ended in almost balancing the current fiscal year budget but leaving a substantial gap for the next because he refused to investigate seriously spending reductions, kicking the can down the road to his discredit.

Should the Republican-controlled Legislature come up with legislation that facilitates trimming state government – the deficit amounts to about three percent of total spending – Edwards will suffer a complete rout in his first half-year in office. Supposing he gets his wish to keep inflated government by having tax increases enacted in another special session, still he takes a political hit for both instigating higher taxes and lacking the leadership to reduce the drama produced by the necessity of a last-minute reprieve when he could have gotten the job done the first time.

Despite tight budget, shore up indigent defense

While Louisiana’s legislators generally have turned their attention to balancing the budget in the just-commenced regular session, under the radar flies an area that deserves urgent attention and cannot afford any more reduction: that of paying for indigent defense, which if not soon resolved may prompt an influx of criminals roaming the streets.

Years ago the state supposedly solved for the chronic underfunding of indigent defense. Constitutionally, if the law defines a person as indigent, the state must provide legal representation to those accused of crimes. In the past, the system depended upon the wildly varying funding source of surcharges on convictions with a backstop of state funding doled out by need. The reform included increasing the latter component, recognizing that enforcement choices of law enforcement agencies that by definition operate independently of the system made for too much instability.

But with budgetary difficulties in the past couple of years that have reduced the state funding and with changes in enforcement patterns that have reduced the number of cases that could result in the fee payment, last year’s atmosphere that saw only a handful of the 42 (one for each judicial district) public defense agencies in difficulty and just a couple approaching a crisis point has deteriorated further. Now, before the end of the year a few agencies may have to stop taking new cases, even as currently they work with more of these per lawyer than national guidelines recommend, and many others threaten to join them in 2017.

Edwards' speech reaffirms that voters made mistake

Maybe he lives in a fantasy world. Maybe he’s just ticking off boxes. Maybe he’s a true believer pathologically unable to brook dissent from his prejudices. Regardless of potential explanations to understand Gov. John Bel Edwards’ State of the State speech (version 2.0, perhaps if counting his address to the Legislature prior to the just-finished special session), the clear message from it reminds Louisiana of the mistake made in his gaining the office.

In what has become nauseatingly familiar to observers, Edwards framed the presentation along the twin rhetorical principles emblazoned upon his administration to date: blaming his predecessor for every bad thing, real or imagined, under the sun; and pugnaciously defining cooperation as the endorsing of his policy preferences while conflict occurs only when others disagree with him. Expanding upon the latter, to which he also made allusions at the end, he alleged that a “Washington” politics of divisiveness interfered with getting things done (read: having his agenda enacted) and that a “Louisiana way” should prevail.

Of course, the “Louisiana way” has facilitated spending the state’s way into oblivion: in the next-to-last year data were available (2012), the state ranked 12^th in spending as a proportion of state personal income. That’s high, but more remarkably growth in that measure over the previous two decades exceeded that of all states but Delaware. In Louisiana, consensus of Edwards’ type leads to overspending and a little more conflict seems in order to stop it.