The
maturation of Louisiana’s politics, the incomplete evolution of which has kept
the state behind the curve, still appears unfulfilled.
At
this time last week, it appeared the state’s political culture had reached
an inflection point. The state’s political class seemed willing to bridge the transition
from revenues driving policy to the reverse when the Legislature appeared
poised to budget below forecast revenues as a means to prevent shortfalls. A
week later, such hope turned out premature.
Yesterday,
by the barest
of margins, a revolt by Republicans-in-Name-Only allowed a budget
amendment to go through to spend all the money available. House leaders had
argued for holding back tens of millions of dollars as a hedge to prevent
budgetary deficits. If actual future receipts in the upcoming fiscal year
suggested hitting predicted marks, then the Legislature would have made the sequestered
money available.
This is what you get when you start carrying
around a mock severed head of the president.
A gunman
took dozens of shots at several Republican Members of Congress, staffers, and Capitol
police this morning, striking Louisiana’s Rep. Steve Scalise and other individuals. The members had congregated
for baseball practice in an Alexandria, VA park for the upcoming annual charity
match between members of the two major parties. Scalise
appeared not seriously wounded.
Improbably the incident, which ended when the
police detail subdued the alleged shooter after an exchange of dozens of shots,
had nothing to do with politics. GOP Rep. Garret Graves, having spoken to
several people involved at the scene or briefed on the incident, said the
suspect approached the field, specifically asked of the party affiliation of
the team, and only then began firing a rifle with a magazine. (Oh, by the way, Virginia
law prohibits the use of such guns in populated areas, particularly mentioning
parks and Alexandria. Yeah, that example of gun control really discouraged that attack.)
Graves opined that he thought overheated rhetoric
relayed in the media had, at least indirectly, contributed to the incident. He stressed
that the inflamed passions he believed behind the event found stoking across
the partisan spectrum.
Perhaps, but any sentient, attentive individual would
acknowledge, since the 2016 elections that resulted in complete GOP takeover of
power in Washington, that visceral expressions about the unsuitability, if not
conveying outright hatred, of political figures has emanated predominantly from
the political left and very often aimed at Republican Pres. Donald Trump.
The incident where a cut-rate comedienne on video paraded around a faux,
bloodied head of Trump represents just the tip of the iceberg; there are theater
productions alluding to his murder, open
admissions of hatred of him and justifications made for political violence,
and a rush
of bogus “hate” crime claims attributed to Trump’s presence and the electoral success
of conservatism.
Indeed, it appears that the apparent shooter, who
subsequently died from injuries sustained during his attack, loathed
Trump. Scalise, as the third-ranking Republican in the House, is seen as
one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress and shared in his skepticism of
catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, in which the believed assailant passionately
believed.
Haters will not stop being haters, but at least
the mainstream media can reconsider the ways in which it facilitates such views,
in coverage
decisions and the propriety
of remarks from their commenters. A little
more balance from a media overwhelmingly negative about Trump also might
help. Leftist
political elites in the media, popular culture, and politics additionally
could lend a hand in tamping down on the extreme rhetoric.
Graves’ call for civility merits heeding by all,
but clearly most pertinently applies to the political left. Today’s sad event shows that
particularly liberal elites must take greater responsibility to ensure they act to foster a
climate of respect in disseminating political information and participating in political
debate.
I
f Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
wanted to avoid political defeat on Louisiana’s budget, he managed to set
himself up to make it more inevitable and worse.
The regular
session ended without operating and capital budgets, as a direct result of
Edwards’ allowing his handpicked Senate leader Republican Sen. Pres. John Alario and the governor’s ally
Democrat Senate Finance
Committee Chairman state Sen. Eric
LaFleur to refuse any negotiations with the House of Representatives on the
fiscal year 2018 general appropriations bill. The House wanted to hold back a
little over $200 million as a hedge against disappointing revenue forecasts
that have led to regular mid-year budget cuts over the past decade, while the
Senate wanted no sequestering.
This led to the Senate trying to cram its version
down the throats of the House, with its Democrat allies a mere 15 minutes
before session’s end trying parliamentary maneuvers to bring it, without review
by the House, to a vote in that chamber. Throughout, egged on by Edwards, his
allies in charge of the reconciliation process refused to budge even as the
House was willing to halve essentially the amount of dollars to set aside. This
attempt represented nothing more than a bloodless coup on government spending,
trying to foist a product Edwards and minority Democrats preferred over the GOP
majority’s choices.
Democrat Sen. Karen “Pottymouth” Peterson strikes
again, illustrating the bankruptcy of ideas within her political party.
Until the past year, Peterson merely had earned a
reputation for boorish behavior while performing her senatorial duties. In
particular, and perhaps explaining why she captured the state party chairwoman’s
role, no matter how innocuous and nonpartisan a bill she could find creative
ways to inject partisanship into it, using her questioning/filibustering as a
means to bash whatever Republican appeared to have a bee in her bonnet at the
moment or the GOP agenda in general.
B
ut she
took it to another level of vulgarity last fall not long after the election
of Republican Pres. Donald Trump
when she declared herself offended at a colleague’s birthday cake. The
confection, in the form of a bikini-wearing woman poking fun at the advancing
age of the birthday boy, she declared obscene and rudely hacked it up. She then
engaged in her own obscenities by cursing at that colleague and making wild, unfounded
claims that she had seen a cake representing female genitalia present as well.
It seems like things don’t change: the University
of Oklahoma just keeps on winning gymnastics
and softball
national championships.
But things do change: Oklahoma’s winningest
football coach of all time – consider this at a school with seven national
championships – Bob
Stoops is stepping down after 18 seasons.
At no time in its history has this tension played
out more significantly in the Louisiana Legislature than in this month of June,
which has featured one rearguard action after another by big government
advocates to keep the good times rolling to inflate the budget. But when a
budget agreement crystallizes sometime today (asseems inevitable), it appears another milestone in right-sizing Louisiana
government will have been attained.
Essentially, transforming bloated government that
takes too much to do unneeded things into one that fulfills only genuine needs
while letting people keep more of what is theirs follows three steps. The first
demands a change in attitude, from thinking of government as a vehicle to
redistribute power and wealth to something that removes obstructions to give
people the opportunity to acquire power and wealth on their own. This means ridding
government of both corruption and inattentiveness in steering dollars to best
uses.
If we learned anything from the Louisiana
Legislature’s stab at tax reform during this regular session, it’s that key Democrats
mistake tax increases for it, denoting a harmful unseriousness about it all.
As the 2017 session draws to a close, it will end
with no
fundamental change occurring to the state’s tax system. This came despite a
big buildup over the previous year, with a special panel created to study the
issue. It produced a report
that emphasized both creating a more efficient system that would spur economic
growth yet somewhat contradicted by its desire to increase overall taxation
levels.
A raft of proposals came and went, dominated by
Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards’ package that hewed more to hiking taxes collected, in net effect
raising taxes on individuals somewhat but taxes on corporations substantially.
These went nowhere, precisely because of the overall tax increase these would
trigger; as such measures require a two-thirds majority in each chamber to
pass, well more than that proportion of legislators, almost entirely
Republicans, felt restraining the growth of government, if not putting it on a
diet, would work to solve any projected budget deficit for the next fiscal
year.
After northwest Louisiana’s Republican state senator
afflicted with political schizophrenia had a rough go of it by proxy this spring,
his Democrat counterpart upped the ante in wackiness.
Senate District 36’s Republican Ryan Gatti found himself covered by the
spotlight shone on his brother when Robbie Gatti made a failed
bid for state representative. Ryan Gatti squeaked into office in 2015 by
emphasizing social conservatism, deeming education reform overreaching, and
alleging adherence to “true
conservative principles of fiscal responsibility.” Apparently, he
understood that to entail voting for a raft of tax increases and increased
regulation on business, and as a result in 2016 earned a score of 22 out
of 100 on the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry’s
business-oriented legislator scorecard.
Fairly or not, that pro-government, anti-growth reputation
blew back on Robbie Gatti, but he lost more over doubts about his espoused
social conservatism than on whatever sins Ryan Gatti was thought to have committed
in office by his voting. Still, his brother’s unsuccessful run highlighted Ryan
Gatti’s as a catspaw for big government advocate Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, a personal
friend of the Gattis whom they assisted in his campaign.
Louisiana’s penchant
for overregulation strikes again, in this case concerning
new car sales, that a governor’s veto can correct.
SB 107 by
state Sen. Bodi
White, ostensibly to facilitate delivering specialty law enforcement
vehicles, went uncontroversially to Gov. John Bel Edwards.
But in the process state Rep. Tanner Magee
slipped in an amendment that clarified language regarding direct sales of new
vehicles.
State law mandates
that motor vehicle dealers obtain a license, and promulgates a long list of
qualifications necessary, such as having a fixed location with adequate space,
that it has a positive effect on the economic well-being of the state, and
specifies what it sells. However, statute creates an
exception to a violation of direct sales for “operating a dealership”
without defining “dealership.” SB 107 changes the language to grant an exception
only to “an existing, licensed, and franchised motor vehicle dealership.”
