If real, LA crime drop unlikely policy related

Presidential candidates clash over who will do best to reduce rising crime, Louisiana’s governor joined with the Legislature to make a raft of changes to combat this, while local leaders as in New Orleans preen over a measured drop in it as well as those in Shreveport. This begs the question: as some indicators show crime rates falling nationally with most jurisdictions reflecting that, can politicians in Louisiana or elsewhere take credit for that – if it even exists?

Last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released final statistics through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program that showed nationally violent crime declined an estimated 3 percent in 2023 from the year before, while murders and non-negligent manslaughter dropped nearly 12 percent. The overall rate now stands just above the 2019 level prior to the spike observed during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and is close to returning to reflecting the long-term secular decline in violent crime over the past three decades, although it basically has been flat since 2012. Perhaps better, preliminary numbers for 2024 show a continued decline.

While good news, it may not be all that it’s cracked up to be, beginning with that the FBI’s system (which underwent a major change as the pandemic took hold) is a measure of crime reported or discovered by law enforcement, while different measures tell the opposite story. The Bureau of Justice Statistics compiles the National Crime Victimization Survey which measures crime not reported to law enforcement as well, with the exception of homicides and manslaughter because the dead tell no tales although these generally comprise about a percentage point of total violent crime. NCVS numbers typically differ, sometimes significantly, from the UCR, and it reported a small proportional increase for 2023 after double-digit spikes in 2021 and 2022 but a big dip in 2020. In fact, for these years the absolute differences were for the NCVS starting in 2020 29.31 percentage points lower, 20.18 higher, 24.81 higher, and 7.63 higher.

Landry tax reform clears fence, if not bases

All in all, the fiscal reform package Republican Gov. Jeff Landry will present to the Louisiana Legislature, at least in its broad outline, charts an improved course towards economic development but falls short in restraining big government.

This week, Landry announced that he would call a special session around election day in November that could last until just before Thanksgiving Day to commit fiscal reform. The worldview behind it shifts revenue from income to sales taxation. It essentially wouldn’t levy any individual income tax to single filers below $12,500 and joint filers below $25,000, and above those levels impose a flat three percent rate, with the possibility of additional deductions. Plus, senior citizens receive double that level. But in exchange, it would keep the 0.45 percent sales tax hike from 2018 and would expand that to potentially many of the 223 sales tax exemptions currently in law – but not to the constitutional provision that exempts unprepared food, drugs, and utilities. A separate sales tax exemption on business utilities also would be retained, although perhaps not entirely.

Additionally, corporate income tax rates would be made a flat rate and the franchise tax eliminated, which overall likely would end up as a net tax decrease for most. The three percent rate would reduce one of the highest in the country at its top level, and of the few states that have a franchise tax, Louisiana’s is the highest.

Nothing compels LA tax bucks for CCUS research

Nice try, apologists for using taxpayer dollars to bankroll needless, if not pie-in-the-sky, carbon capture use and sequestration (CCUS) research that already has taken $25 million and more indirectly out of the hide of Louisianans.

Almost as if triggered by a recent post that critiqued this consortium of public and private interests overseen by the Greater New Orleans Development Foundation from sopping up more taxpayer largesse, H2theFuture made a case in a media article as part of a story about its CCUS efforts that would justify such reception. To date it has received part of that state allocation plus $50 million from the federal government designed to attack the nonexistent problem of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

CCUS is considered the middle way between CAGW craziness. that demands near-immediate decarbonization no matter what the cost, and climate realism, backed by research, that human activities have a minor impact on climate and any such spillover that could increase global temperatures can be mitigated at relatively low cost and in a way that actually improves overall global wealth. As CAGW calls for a dramatic reduction, if not total elimination, of fossil fuel extraction and consumption, CCUS argues this approach could be scaled back dramatically if in extracting and processing fossil fuels and in some instances their use an apparatus could extract carbon from that. Once removed, the carbon can be stored or used for other purposes; indeed, for decades carbon has been employed in stretching oil recovery.

Speaking truth to power on Edwards virus policy

Louisiana Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham spoke truth to power, and the mouthpieces of Louisiana’s political left were unhappy with him.

Last week, a state House select committee held hearings on the state’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, pursuing a comprehensive overview of the mechanics of the response as well as policies enacted. Against a backdrop of admittedly maladroit administration by the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness – then under Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards – perhaps the headline revelation was a federal inquiry has been launched into the use of the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center as an overflow facility for hospitals in the early days of the pandemic. Rumors of sweetheart deals in its operations and supplies that could involve city and state officials have circulated for years, with it hardly being used at costs running into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

But having a potentially higher human cost was the lockdown policy promulgated by Edwards under statutes granting the governor nearly unimpeachable emergency powers – fortunately with more checks added since – which lasted nearly two years although the most restrictive period was in the first 14 months. At its worst, all but the smallest indoor gatherings were banned and outdoor ones were restricted in size, face coverings were mandatory except in many but not all outdoor settings, vaccinations (really prophylactics) were required for a number of workplaces, and social distancing was enforced in certain situations and suggested in others.

Oath-violating BC councilors' tactic in peril

The new club that has formed as a subset of the Bossier City Council, the Oathbreakers, have kept true to their subversive and taxpayer-unfriendly strategy in the hopes for a political payoff – which may be thwarted because what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (not just in Springfield, OH but everywhere).

The Oathbreakers – or Councilors Republicans David Montgomery, Jeff Free, and Vince Maggio and Democrat Bubba Williams and independent Jeff Darby – resemble the namesake character of the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons who break their sacred oaths to pursue some dark ambition, in this instance to satisfy their cravings for power for them and for their allies by violating the city Charter in refusing on multiple occasions to resolve to put on the ballot language from a certified petition as required by the Charter, with the latest example coming last week. If voters approve the measure prior to 2025 city election qualification, this would amend the Charter to impose retroactively limits of three terms on councilors and the mayor that would disqualify all but Maggio from running for reelection.

Getting to this point has been long and convoluted, starting with a petition to accomplish this amending last year eventually invalidated over a legal technicality strictly interpreted but which prompted the first votes to subvert the Charter. That attack in all likelihood represented a chunk of over $480,000 spent on outside legal consulting from Jul. 1, 2023 to Jul. 31, 2024, which in 2024 was budgeted for only $10,000 within an entire Legal Department budget of about $536,000.

Automatic tax cuts help LA fiscal restructuring

So, now the latest salvo against right-sizing Louisiana state government comes as a result conditions behind R.S. 47:32.1 perhaps meeting fulfillment, yawps that policy-makers safely should ignore while instead they use the potential situation to their advantage

That statute, which kicked in this year, triggers automatic individual income and corporate franchise tax cuts when the rate of growth in those collections exceeds the rate of growth in personal income for the three calendar years preceding the fiscal year in question, if the prior fiscal year’s taxes, licenses, and fees exceed the FY 2019 baseline by more than that rate of growth in personal income and the Budget Stabilization Fund is at 2.5 percent of the total state revenue receipts.

Calendar years 2021-23 saw an average growth of over 4.9 percent, fueled by the false economy of supercharged Washington Democrat debt spending, although the highest component of that would roll off for the CY 2022-24 calculation. The BSF in May had about $975 million in it and could collect in earnings a little more or with a surplus declaration maybe a lot more before the end of the year. Total taxes, licenses, and fees for FY 2024 were then forecast at $16.124.2 billion, the actual total of which could go higher with a future forecast. These levels are such that state officials think the roughly $400 million forecast in franchise tax and $4.6 billion in individual income taxes could be pared $100-200 million for FY 2025 as the cut would happen on 2026 returns, accomplished by reducing rates much like with local property taxes having rates automatically rolled back if the value of continually-held and not improved property in the aggregate in a parish increased in assessment value.

Landry response to Regents flap encouraging

The encouraging sign given by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry concerning Louisiana higher education isn’t really who he just tabbed as chairman of the Board of Regents. It’s how he replied to criticism by a former Regent in light of the reaction of other Regents to the appointment.

So far, Landry has had the chance to appoint only one member to the board that oversees in policy terms state higher education. That was Misti Cordell, who in real life works in health care administration but outside of that with husband has been active in Republican Party affairs and donors to GOP campaigns, including Landry’s. All other members received their gigs from Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards.

After only a few months on the job, Landry appointed her chairwoman, falling back on Act 491 of 2024 that gave the governor the power to do so – if he so chose; otherwise, the boards affected can continue to pick their own – for bodies where he appoints at least the majority of members not otherwise specified in the Constitution. This perturbed then-Regent T. Jay Seale III so much that he resigned days later – and not gracefully.

LNG pause that hit LA hardest based on fraud

Americans, but particularly Louisianans, have been made victims of a baldfaced lie by Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and his administration, with damage done to labor markets, commerce, and local governments.

Early this year, Biden with Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris announced his Department of Energy would halt all vetting activity regarding exportation of liquified natural gas to countries without free trade agreements with the U.S. In practical terms, this meant that DOE wouldn’t advance permits to do this, on which new export terminal construction hinged. This caught up a number of proposed facilities already being slow-walked by DOE since Biden took office, including two major ones in Louisiana nearing the finish line.

Biden and Harris provided the rationale for the decision as DOE needed a new study of the matter to take into account what he asserted were higher costs based upon catastrophic anthropogenic global warming assumptions (summing these up as the country facing “the existential threat of our time”). He alleged since the last LNG export study occurred in 2018, four years after the previous, that none others had been conducted.

Landry signals no help for alarmist projects

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry needs to take the next step and ensure Louisiana doesn’t throw away good dollars after bad as an extension of his Governors’ Coalition for Energy Choice.

Last week, Landry as co-founder of the group announced its initial formation. Ten governors, all Republicans, pledges in their states’ policy-making to ensure continued energy choice, minimize permitting and other regulatory barriers, limit expensive energy mandates, focus on affordability and reliability of energy infrastructure, and coordinate to manage positively energy resources and the environment. It is a natural outgrowth of his articulated “all of the above” strategy to maximize energy availability at minimal cost, which other members also have enunciated.

Which, of course, brought apoplexy onto climate alarmists, who perceive this sentiment as empowering the production of fossil fuels, contrary to their faith in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and neglecting government assistance to ultra-expensive renewable energy consumption as well as to fund research to make it only overly-expensive. That would include the $25 million Louisiana taxpayers already sank into something called H2theFuture, which snapped up $50 million in federal taxpayer dollars to start up.

Bossier schools pull back from tax hike ledge

The Bossier Parish School Board seems to have, at least temporarily, discarded its tin ear, perhaps coming to understand a series of questionable policy decisions have led to its adding another to its undistinguished record might have electoral consequences.

Earlier this year, the Board advertised that it would entertain rolling forward millage property tax rates levied by the Bossier Parish School District. During presidential election years in Louisiana parish tax assessors reassess property, but the Constitution mandates that the difference in values for property held and not improved throughout the period not increase the total amount of taxes paid for that group, meaning millage rates would be adjusted automatically unless a two-thirds majority wished not to do so, effectively raising taxes since that aggregate value had increased over the time period.

As published, it would have been more than a $4.2 million increase, or nearly 6 percent. Despite declining enrollments, costs have escalated because unfunded pension demands and post-employment benefits have skyrocketed over the past few years. Worse, BPSD already has one of the highest property tax rates of local education agencies in the state, so Bossier property owners have been hit harder than almost any others in the state.