Committee top spots tilted to conservatives, reformers

Permanent standing committee chairmen-designates are out for the Louisiana Legislature, and with it perhaps some skewed regional news but good news for the conservative, reform agenda.

In the Senate, the partisan breakdown, 11 from the GOP of the 17, was fairly proportional to their presence in the chamber as a whole. But regional differences titled north and southeast. North Louisiana (and especially Ouachita Parish, with two) hit it big with seven chairmen, a part of the state with only about a fifth of the state’s population. And the 2010 census revealed that while the New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area had about a quarter of the state’s population and got about that many of the chairmanships, the Northshore picked up three spots and the River Parishes picked up another, so including Pres. Republican John Alario, half of the 18 meaningful positions of power are held by individuals within 50 miles of Orleans Parish.

The real shutout occurred with the Baton Rouge MSA where, despite comprising one-sixth of the state’s population, only one chairwomanship got scored there, and the remaining one was out yonder west. Demographics and partisanship had something to do with these skewed results, but also experience and, particularly in the case of the Baton Rouge area, compatibility with the Gov. Bobby Jindal agenda.

Bossier City tax hike punishes citizens for govt mistakes

If you're a Bossier City property owner or renter, happy New Year: anybody who read this space was warned. And, as a consequence of their past blundering, Bossier City lawmakers last year made it official: they’re raising taxes on the citizenry this year to make it pay for their mistakes.

In 2010, elected officials moaned and complained about how refusal to renew what was listed on the books as a 6 mill property tax would imperil funding of public safety services. That was their immature way of threatening voters to keep the gravy train rolling, instead of making sensible decisions they long resisted such as selling unneeded and underperforming real estate like the CenturyLink Center and Cyber Innovation Center. Even at a loss, the combination of curtailing the money these lost each year would more than have filled any budgetary gap by removal of the tax.

Voting down the renewal might have been the device to get it through those small brains with the giant egos that sit on the Bossier City Council and in the mayor’s office that they could no longer retain their venture capitalist attitude with the people’s money.

Partisan left calls Jindal partisan for calling them out

It’s always fascinating to observe how the left, imprisoned by its false assumptions about how the world works, views the events that invalidate its worldview. Members of the mainstream media and Louisiana Democrats provide a perfect prism by which to investigate this phenomenon in their parsing of Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s brief second inauguration remarks.

About the only prospective issue raised by Jindal in an otherwise image-laden, retrospective campaign concerned elementary and secondary education, reinforced by his backing of various candidates to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education who said the same or did not appear to oppose it. And it turned out to be about the only issue of which Jindal spoke in his address, saying “In America, you do not have a right to have everything your neighbor has, you do not have a right to a big house or a fancy car, and you do not have a right to redistribute your neighbor’s wealth. But I would suggest this. I would suggest that we long ago decided that every kid does have a right to a quality education from an excellent teacher. And by getting a good education, kids then do have an opportunity to pursue their dreams.”

Also, he stated that the “key to reforming education here in Louisiana is not massive spending and tax increases. Throwing more money at the problem has proven to be a failure ... All we need to do is muster the courage to change our ways and to abandon old, tired methods that failed generations of our children. Anyone who stands in the way of providing real opportunities to all our kids must now stand down. Anyone who stands in the way of giving all our parents and all our children more choices when it comes to education must stand down.”

Jindal gambles lying down with dog doesn't bring fleas

Thus as Gov. Bobby Jindal’s second term in office begins today, a little prior to his swearing in will come the Legislature’s organizational sessions, where expected to be named Senate President after his swearing in for a second term, state Sen. John Alario, represents a gamble by Jindal.

About to begin his fifth decade being visited on the state, Alario has gone from a populist, liberal Democrat who could tax and spend with the best of them, to a more circumspect moderate (according to his Louisiana Legislature Log voting record) Republican. His chameleon political nature at once simultaneously makes him suspicious and desired to lead the Senate on behalf of the governor, who signaled his acceptance of Alario’s taking the chamber’s top position.

In previous stints as a liberal Democrat House speaker, Alario proved effective in promoting a populist agenda.

Time seems right for bolder Jindal policy-making

Will Gov. Bobby Jindal in a second term shed caution in his agenda and throw deep? Indications are that there’s no better time to do and, if he doesn’t go for it this time with conditions such as they are, he never will.

Jindal’s first term demonstrated him as the most conservative in the state’s history and as its greatest reformer. Of course, the baseline does not offer any more than a couple of other governors right of center because they too fully accepted the populist premise of big government doing more than it needed, while several past governors only acted as reformers in the sense that they wished to make government more honest, not less intrusive. What distinguishes Jindal to date is he is the first to reject explicitly the populist persuasion and seek to remove government from areas in which it does not belong and/or where it cannot work as efficiently as alternatives can.

But, Jindal has governed as a cautious reformer.

Roemer has chance to confirm thesis or continue delusion

Clueless at 66 Hanover Street, Manchester, NH now has his chance. With the exit of one major candidate from the Republican nomination process for the presidency, and another saying he’ll skip the upcoming New Hampshire primary, where the first committed delegates will be awarded, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer finally can make that leap into the public consciousness, break out of the pack, and get his well-deserved attention as a serious candidate for the nation’s highest office.

Not. To be a serious contender, one needs a serious message, which Roemer never has had. He blames his poor showing on the bogeyman of “big money” and shadowy fat cats, financiers (which has been his occupation until recently) who control things with their bucks while he specifically rejects such input with his self-imposed limitation to receive contributions of $100 or less. The conspiratorial outlook, which has more in common with “trilateralism” of the last century and screeds against Jewish bankers of a century ago than with today’s reality, earned him a last place finish in the Iowa non-binding caucuses (behind a candidate already withdrawn, no less).

And that’s what has kept Roemer as a nonentity in the contest so far; the problem is not some cabal of wealth, the media (which, due to his microscopic polling numbers, keeps refusing to invite him to debates that he obsessively believes would permit liberation his message to turn the unaware into adoring throngs), and establishment party figures, but it is Roemer himself and his message. When a Gallup poll last month tell us, regarding “the biggest threat to the country in the future,” 64 percent said “big government” against just 26 percent for “big business” and 8 percent for “big labor” (the numbers were exactly the same for independents, and even Democrats were more likely to worry about big government than big business 48-44), you know anybody would says he agrees with the “Occupy” movement is on the wrong side of the issue.

Perry reassessment shapes LA, Jindal near-term futures

As Texas Gov. Rick Perry returns to his home state to contemplate the future of his presidential campaign – meaning its end almost is certain – this affects Gov. Bobby Jindal’s and Louisiana’s immediate political future.

Almost at the start of Perry’s bid, coming only (even if it seems like ages) five months ago, Jindal enthusiastically announced his support for Perry and matched that with energetic campaigning on his behalf. Some observers believed he came across more effectively than did Perry in that role, and they turned up the volume and frequency of those kinds of comments as Perry, who started out fast, began shedding support.

Had Perry kept blossoming all the way to the nomination, Jindal may have become the leading possibility for Perry to tab as his vice presidential running mate.

Changes needed to stop misallocation to higher education

Concerning mid-year budget reductions, higher education (because of a lack of political courage) in Louisiana once again will bear the brunt of these. And while structural changes to Louisiana’s rigid fiscal structure would provide a better matching of funds to priorities, changes in higher education policy also can provide for more efficiency in delivery, both in Louisiana and for the country as a whole, while sensitizing its consumers and governments to make better choices as well.

Within existing policy parameters, Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Legislature have improved the condition of higher education by laws that entice more efficient delivery. The permutations of the GRAD Act have assisted that tie present resources in to future performance, so long as the concept gets enforced. However, these policy-makers whiffed on structural questions, such as failing to merge next-door lagging institutions and duplicative governing boards,  as well as on more procedural matters such as continued wasteful tuition subsidization.

Desirable are these changes, but they still only would have a limited impact of inducing better resource use and allocation because of the nature of higher education policy in America, governed largely by national law.

Despite charter school success, ignorant elites still resist

Lost in the disappointment of trying to fulfill another mid-year budget shortfall in Louisiana was good news about progress in Louisiana’s education – but coupled with another reminder about how the upcoming changeover in Board of Elementary and Secondary Education with cooperation from the Legislature still is necessary to combat the revanchist attitudes present in the state’s education establishment.

Late last year, the state had to address yet another shortfall in revenues and higher expenses when it took its annual look at how the budget matched to reality. The Constitution requires this review and corrective action in spending cuts to comport to its balanced budget imperative. As has become typical in the past several years, education expenditures were more than budgeted because enrollments in public schools appeared higher than predicted months ago.

But, interestingly, perhaps public schools attracting more students away from private schools caused the underestimation, as one of the members of the panel responsible for reviewing actual vs. budgeted numbers suggested, with the presence of better-performing charter schools the cause.

To defeat school reform, opponents try false portrayal

You could accuse supporters of the educational establishment in Louisiana, invested in a one-size-fits-all, command-and-control monopoly of secondary and elementary education in the state because it serves the needs of special interests comprised of politicians, unions, education bureaucrats and liberal ideologues, of just not getting it. You could argue that the massive repudiation for their failed ideas suffered at the ballot box this past election cycle they refuse to acknowledge. But that would sell at least some of them short as they try to stave off defeat by other means.

One such example comes from an opinion piece circulated to major newspapers across the state, dutifully reproduced by outlets. In it, the communications director of the leftist Louisiana Progress presents the group’s strategy to cope with forthcoming policy changes that threatens its worldview and that of its ideological fellow-travelers – by using straw men and distortions to attempt to create a consensus rejecting expansion of the very ideas that haltingly have begun turning around the system.

Several of its assertions present problems in coming to an honest appraisal about education policy in the state.