Foreclosure reminds of Bossier City officials' stupidity

The chickens continue to come home to roost, more egg piles up on Bossier City elected officials’ faces, or choose a non-fowl-related metaphor if you please, but the fact remains the errors of their strategy to trust government, not people, as the engine of economic growth continue to compound.

After spending wildly – nearly $120 million for a decade on things the city didn’t need and should have been done by the private sector but tellingly were not since they are money-losers – the economic incompetents that have managed to stay in office in the city were forced to make public the bad budgetary situation they created during the 2010 budget deliberations. Propped by years of not being Shreveport and benefiting from out-migration from it, national economic difficulties exposed a huge deficit in city operations. Had the city not gone into so much debt, the crisis largely would have been averted. Making matters worse, 2009 was the exact year that, because of the timing of the city’s past profligate ways, that debt service leaped dramatically.

Now the public has gained more insight into the making of the crisis with the revelation that the Louisiana Boardwalk in its several years of operations has performed so poorly that its owner managed to pay off only $4 million of its $128 million debt, forcing it into foreclosure.

Jindal again defeats effort to slip bad policy into law

For all of the talk about how the 2011 Louisiana Legislature’s regular session showed a degree of assertion by lawmakers, Gov. Bobby Jindal just keeps outfoxing some of its members by swatting away counterproductive legislation.

Despite rejection after rejection, objectionable legislation had made its way into the operating budget, which last week Jindal cast a line item veto against. The measure’s backer, state Sen. Lydia Jackson, then moaned and complained about being caught out with a rhetorical attack on Jindal, avoiding addressing that what she had gotten placed in was unconstitutional in the first place.

This week, Jindal knocked down a bad bill with his regular veto, SB 6, which would have unfairly foisted extra expenses on charter schools and other agencies for which they had no responsibility.

Even isolated, N.O. elections draw better than most

The League of Women Voters almost from the start has shilled for liberal causes, but its New Orleans chapter actually seems to have done something useful in calling for investigating New Orleans’, in state law reinforced by its charter, idiosyncratic dates for municipal elections. I’m happy to oblige.

Its study points out several impediments to maximizing turnout for the present dates, first fixed in 1986, of February for the initial general election and March for the general election runoff. It points out that events such as, if played in New Orleans, the Super Bowl the day after and the possibility of it being on a Carnival weekend in some years could depress turnout, as well as having elections coupled with national elections in the fall might boost turnout. But putting them back to where they were before 1986 might erode turnout due to lack of attention as other contests compete, and it could interfere with the budgeting process for the next fiscal year.

The fiscal timeline, however, is not a concern of other large Louisiana cities.

Independence Day, 2011

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday after noon (sometimes even before; maybe even after sundown on busy days) U.S. Central Time except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Independence Day or Christmas when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, there are six of these: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas.

With Monday, Jul. 4 being Independence Day, I invite you to explore the links connected to the link above. (P.S. Through 2008, the White House used to have an excellent page elucidating the relevance and meaning of the holiday. Since 2009, that has vanished.)

Sore lawmaker puts politics over constitutional integrity

Gov. Bobby Jindal reacted relatively quickly to presentation of HB 1, the state’s operating budget, in casting his line item vetoes. In particular, one of them rankled an opponent who tried to accomplish surreptitiously and unconstitutionally what exposed to the light of day was defeated.

That concerned the item on p. 176, lines 6-11, which would take a part, $27 million, of the general fund allocation to pay for the Taylor Opportunity Program for Scholars and shunt it into Go Grants, already allocated just a little less than that, if later this year the voting public passes SB 53, a constitutional amendment that would divert money presently going into the Millennium Trust Fund to fund TOPS. Go Grants are state need-based aid to attend college while TOPS is a merit-based program to pay for college tuition.

The only problem with that was, as worded, it’s unconstitutional, as Jindal noted in his veto message with the constitution’s prohibition of contingency spending.

Speakership derby can do without disingenuous Greene

So now joining the field – assuming any of them can get reelected – of a couple of Republicans, a Democrat, and an independent for next term’s Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives is a flim-flam man.

That would be state Rep. Hunter Greene, who three months ago didn’t even want to be in the House. Continuing his quest begun in 2008 for a job as an elected official in with full-time pay, the Republican tried to land a job as a family court judge. Problem was, he couldn’t win the election so I guess now the full-time job he wants is House Speaker (the top two officials in each body are paid full-time salaries; everybody else has to make do on $1,400 a month plus a $500 monthly allowance plus a per diem for every day in session or on committee worked plus mileage expenses – in busier years this can approach $30,000, so that’s not bad for a part-time job).

This should be a nonstarter. Not only does Greene have trouble with facts – even when corrected he continues to repeat the same falsehoods – but he also likes to say one thing while working to do another, such as cloaking a stealth future tax increase by refusing to cut taxes and spending in the present.

Further legal action unlikely to stop fall legislative elections

The citizenry and Gov. Bobby Jindal can breathe a sigh of relief, as the U.S. Justice Department did the expected in approving reapportionment plans of both chambers. Now if other forces wish to waste their own resources on prolonging the inevitable, so be it.

Given the jurisprudence, even with political motivations to decrease Republican and conservative voting strength from the Democrat administration of Pres. Barack Obama, the odds were long that the federal government would step in and try to alter the outcome.

If it happens, meet TV's newest reality star ...

I can visualize this now, the new reality series featuring former Gov. Edwin Edwards, appropriately titled, “Silver Zipper: The Real Resurrection” …

EWE walks into Anna’s house. She shoots him a dirty look while silently handing him a stack of messages, some of the ubiquitous phone call kind, others more personalized with the outline on their envelopes of red lips. He saunters into an anteroom and sits down behind an enormous desk flanked by a safe even bigger than his ego. “That Leach sure is a slave driver,” he remarks as the cameras continue to roll, his feeling as if he needs to say something – after all, he is supposed to be the star of this show. “All of that consulting, wait, I mean advising on Democrat, sorry, I mean his business activities, and at minimum wage. At least it won’t be for much longer.”

Cut to some well-dressed men filing through the door. EWE sits as Socrates must have in the good old days, his students standing all around, waiting for profundity to happen.

Shreveport unionization to exacerbate its fiscal problems

The Louisiana Legislature, although tepidly, finally began to address a ticking time bomb this session. That's better than the city of Shreveport, whose elected officials from last year decided to make matters worse. Shreveporters need to understand that relationship unless they blindly want to accept considerable tax increases.

The announcement earlier this year that enough city employees had signaled affirmation for a union presence came as a consequence of the idiocy of the previous City Council to pass an ordinance allowing for unionization. Introduced by former Councilman Calvin Lester, it predictably had the support of the two other black Democrats on the Council at the time, and, inexplicably, lame duck Republican Michael Long while fellow Republican Ron Webb, who had worked for unionized General Motors, found a way to be absent for the vote.

Whether Webb, assured of reelection with no opposition, would have voted for the ordinance is speculative, but Long’s parting gift represented a big Bronx salute to the citizenry.

Hardly ended, myths about legislative session circulate

The 2011 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature hardly has rested in the grave without misinformation about it suddenly sprouting above it. Fortunately, we have this space to keep things accurate for the record.

In summarizing the session, from one interest group we have the proclamation that “There was no new payroll tax on government workers,” which is kind of odd to see since no bill authored offered that. Perhaps its author was making reference to the likes of HB 479 by state Rep. Kirk Talbot that sought to increase the proportion of salary state employees would pay towards their retirement. But that’s not a tax, according to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Further, for some local public safety personnel, the contribution rate did change, even downwards in a few cases.