The Press-Herald column, Mar. 21, 2018

The senator who saved East Bank
http://press-herald.com/the-senator-who-saved-east-bank/

Links:
http://bossierpress.com/open-container-plans-face-new-challenge/
http://press-herald.com/bossier-citys-downtown-project-is-mired-in-lack-of-planning-follow-through/
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=233455
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_53663bd8-0acf-11e8-b484-6b5ffb54727f.html
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/04/new-rules-on-la-breweries-need.html

Cantrell can jumpstart campaign donor reform

If LaToya Cantrell doesn’t do it, the state should.

The present New Orleans City Council member and incoming mayor, Democrat Cantrell during her campaign pledged maximal transparency from her administration. That promise got off to a rocky start when she made her transition team members sign nondisclosure agreements.

At least she has released information about who has donated to her transition, which neither state law nor city ordinance requires. At that dissemination, which revealed a list chock full of city contractors, Cantrell reiterated another campaign talking point, that she would seek to ban contractors from donating to political campaigns. She mentioned that the relatively late date of her formal induction into the office, May 7, made impractical an effort to do so through state legislation as the regular session ends about a month after that, but noted she would look at other options to achieve this goal once in power.

Disaffected Democrats driving LA pessimism

Democrats in particular are driving frustration in the Louisiana public, perhaps egged on by unkept promises from Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Such a conclusion comes from data gathered by Louisiana State University’s Public Policy Research Lab. The first release from its 2018 Louisiana Survey came last week, focusing on questions of trust in politicians and government and assessing its performance, as well as perceptions of the population’s political views and attitudes.

Of note, after last year where those respondents thinking the state headed in the right direction exceeded marginally those who thought the opposite, this year’s results followed the reverse trend of recent years. With half thinking wrong direction, 11 points more than the opposing view, this overall negativity adhered to the pattern since 2012. The year before had slightly more saying wrong direction, but this may have been a product of an election year).

Term limits encourage unneeded elective post

Louisiana’s Republican Sec. of State Tom Schedler confirmed how one goes about giving away a job for life, at least during good health.

Last week, Schedler announced he wouldn’t run for a third term, as a result of a sexual harassment suit brought against him recently. An employee accuses him of, if not stalking-like, obsessive behavior towards her that interfered with her personal and professional lives, while he says they had a consensual sexual relationship.

If there’s one statewide office the least infused with politics that enables it occupants to stay as long as they like – since the aftermath of the former Gov. Huey Long era previous office occupants left only out of progressive ambition or ill health – it’s this one. Typically, when desired, holders cruise to reelection.

The Advocate column, Mar. 18. 2018

How did Louisiana dig up its budget hole? Overspending; Luckily, there's a fix for it...
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_3869ddd4-27db-11e8-99c6-7be7596305cb.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_67026458-2313-11e8-b187-93d623f42c0f.html
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/time-series/statistical_abstracts.html
https://www.nasbo.org/reports-data/state-expenditure-report
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/popest/nation-detail.html
https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/spi/2006/spi0306.htm

The Press-Herald column, Mar. 14, 2018

The Democrat Caucus left Reynolds long before the special session
http://press-herald.com/the-democrat-caucus-left-reynolds-long-before-the-special-session/

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_8b7b4cea-4a07-11e7-b97a-4f7e53fad861.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_c85e1d4a-61b8-11e7-b4e7-d3f0004ffc3a.html
https://www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/2018/03/05/house-democratic-chair-im-not-mad-im-just-tired/394489002/
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_698ddc1a-22e7-11e8-b8c9-57f6aa24c85e.html

Tax cuts brought LA real economic benefits

As we have come to expect from the left, caricature and oversimplification make for lots of red meat thrown to the unthinking masses, but it’s a lousy method for valid understanding of public policy ramifications.

Just such as example comes from a leftist opinion writer named David Leonhardt on the pages of the New York Times. In a recent piece, he attempted to use Louisiana’s income tax cutting during the former Gov. Bobby Jindal years as an indictment against that option, alleging that promises that “tax cuts would lead to an economic boom” didn’t pan out and produced the state’s budgetary difficulty.

Such a view has both theoretical and empirical difficulties. Liberals almost always misunderstand, if not intentionally misstate, the role that tax cuts have on public finance. What now popularly is called the Laffer Curve argues that, past a certain point, punitive tax collections discourage economic growth by providing incentives for tax avoidance and stunted economic growth. Especially when dealing with such low rates relatively speaking – Louisiana’s top individual rate of 6 percent is about 15 percent of the highest federal rate – chances are state rates don’t make it to the right side of the curve; i.e. where they lower revenue by going higher.

Amendment makes overspending more likely

It’s a blast from the past under one proposal scheduled for hearing this 2018 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature, concerning the content of legislative sessions.

The current 1974 Constitution, when originally implemented, inverted a two-decade interval of biennial fiscal-only sessions offset by sessions of general subject matter by having alternating general and non-fiscal sessions. However, a 1993 amendment restored matters to that of two decades prior, putting in odd-numbered years a shorter fiscal-only session. In 2002, commencing in 2004, the present calendar came forth with passage of an amendment to switch up years and allow each legislator to file five general bills not prefiled and an unlimited number of special and local bills during the odd-numbered year fiscal sessions.

This strategy supposedly would allow legislators to concentrate more fully on fiscal matters. The timing of having fiscal-only sessions – which really barely restricted lawmakers as long as they hustled to prefile – originally during even-numbered years would allow newly-elected legislators to move quickly on priorities they had stressed in their campaigns.

Edwards speech serves up familiar pablum

More the second act of the speech he gave to kick off the special session recently concluded early, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ 2018 State of the State address just can’t let go, a broken record just sounding along.

Edwards’ remarks contained a rehash of several items allegedly reflecting his administration’s accomplishments, selectively chosen to claim credit for the work of his predecessor, that deflected from a fair-to-middling — at best — state economic performance, or designed to gloss over warts of his policies, warning about the supposed consequences if not following his policy prescriptions. He also defended recent criminal justice reforms he championed under fire that put the cart before the horse — reducing incarceration rates to save money without having place the infrastructure to ensure minimal consequences from criminals’ early releases.

Given the divisiveness that his policies have introduced, Edwards understandably went after low-hanging fruit, such as laws against hazing, expanded bureaucracy to study various public policies, and occupational licensing reform. Additionally, he voiced perennial agenda items of his: weakening educational accountability, a job-killing minimum wage hike, and putting into law intrusive government based on the myth that unequal pay unadjusted for other factors exists between men and women.

The Advocate column, Mar. 11, 2018

Gov. Edwards' lack of leadership does not bode well for solving Louisiana's budget crisis
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_698ddc1a-22e7-11e8-b8c9-57f6aa24c85e.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_c2428726-20d9-11e8-b4e0-0bf4c4f7d1a1.html
http://thehayride.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/barras-conditions.pdf
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_c199a298-13fd-11e8-96f7-63d78d9dec35.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=233201
http://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=233180