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2.1.20

Maximum legal carry needed in LA churches

As recent tragic events remind, some spiritual leaders in Louisiana must act to increase the safety of their congregations.

At last year’s end, a gunman opened fire inside a church in the Metroplex area. In a few seconds, those bullets killed two worshippers. But that was all, because armed members visited the like on the shooter.

Texas recently relaxed requirements to enable churches to provide their own security. In essence, any individual with a concealed carry permit may take a handgun into a house of worship, unless the organization with responsibility over the church explicitly bans these. Not only does this event punctuate that broad Second Amendment rights can save lives, but it also signals to other malevolent people that in states with such laws houses of worship may not offer soft targeting, thereby discouraging these acts of violence.

31.12.19

More proof of expansion's wealth redistribution

It keeps getting worse for Medicaid expansion in Louisiana as further research fortifies the conclusion that it operates largely as another form of welfare designed to redistribute wealth.

Earlier this month, the Foundation for Government Accountability issued a report highlighting the facet of expansion its advocates desperately don’t want the larger public to know: a significant portion of those made eligible and enrolling in it already had or could afford insurance, and in enrolling merely relieved themselves of that expense which they transferred to taxpayers, many of whom must foot their health insurance out of their own resources. And in that document, Louisiana figured prominently.

That research focused on the segment of the population most likely to take advantage of the sweet deal, those families earning 100 to 150 percent of the federal poverty limit. Any under 138 percent qualify for expansion, but from 100 percent up to that – about 85 percent of the total cohort – they also can qualify to receive (very generous, often on the order of 90 percent or more) premium support to buy insurance through exchanges. However, the law forces them into Medicaid if they qualify for it.

30.12.19

Next excuse up: surplus needed for the children

That the explanations keep changing surely indicates the inherent dishonesty by those forwarding the rationalizations, Louisiana’s Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards keeps reminding.

Remember when Edwards insisted that Louisiana needed to keep, if not all, at least part of a sales tax increase to prevent emergent budget deficits? Instead, federal tax law changes made that retained increase superfluous and prompted a historic run of overtaxation.

So, he, his administration, and his allies searched for new justifications behind the tax increase that will hang around the people’s neck and the resultant over-funding government for the next five-and-a-half years. Several versions have come out since: the overflow can replenish the Budget Stabilization Fund and pensions funds, it can go towards capital outlay, and/or it would provide a buffer in case of a national economic downturn (to match the one already underway during Edwards’ term).