The Press-Herald column, May 2, 2018

Not so fast, DiamondJacks
http://press-herald.com/not-so-fast-diamondjacks/

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_5c3ef04e-4808-11e8-9080-a792fde26a12.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_2ed1d93c-48a8-11e8-b831-6b81a98b48a1.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1080429
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1089822

TOPS changes continue going the wrong way

An issue the Louisiana Legislature continues to address poorly a House of Representatives panel this week kept that pattern going.

Yesterday, the House Education Committee passed along HB 399 by state Rep. Gary Carter. It would alter, whenever the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students did not receive full appropriation, the present across-the-board reduction algorithm. Instead, higher-achieving students, defined as those earning the top two categories, would receive no cuts although losing their extra stipends while the remainder would keep theirs only if their families had annual incomes below around $50,000, although they could recoup some from Pell Grants.

Speaking against it, James Caillier of the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation said the change would subvert the merit-based principle of the idea. Before the state took it over, the Foundation distributed awards on the basis of merit, although to lower-income students.

Democrats trying to subvert efficient LA govt

It’s now clear: Louisiana Democrats don’t want fiscal reform because it reduces their chances of propping up big government.

For years, policy-makers have lamented the straitjacketed nature of the state’s fiscal system. With nearly 400 different constitutional and statutory dedications, relatively little in the way of discretionary revenues exists. That makes the areas of health care, higher education, and corrections rely heavily on these dollars and unprotected when general income, sales, or excise tax revenue falls, thus disproportionately making that kind of spending vulnerable to cuts.

While a small number of dedications channel a large chunk of nondiscretionary bucks – perhaps the Minimum Foundation Program serving as the best example, creating the single largest expense in state government at around $3 billion – the many smaller ones do add up to hundreds of millions of dollars. And among these, no objective observer would dare to argue that a handful of them at best should have greater priority over those three larger concerns.

LA Legislature should push Schedler out the door

Refreshed embarrassment has come the way of Louisiana’s Republican Sec. of State Tom Schedler, and perhaps it’s more appropriate that he be ushered out the door rather than hoping he’ll do it himself anytime soon.

Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate got ahold of cards sent from Schedler to and email messages between him and his former executive secretary, who has filed suit against him for sexual harassment. It had submitted a public records request for these, but according to it these arrived with redacted key passages that could shed light on the relationship. However, it also obtained unredacted versions, which, in the words of its editorialist, showed “a pattern of lewd and embarrassing language by one of the state’s top elected officials” that displayed “a powerful public official making sex jokes and tasteless propositions on agency time.”

The snippet placed online by The Advocate, spanning just months, doesn’t reveal that egregious of communication, but I’m confident it wouldn’t have described the nature of the entire set of conversations errantly. (For readers otherwise unfamiliar with this, I am a weekly columnist for it.) And its stories about the release of these and reporting on an interview the former employee gave proved convincing enough for a very high-profile Republican, Sen. John Kennedy, to add his voice in calling for Schedler’s immediate resignation.

The Advocate column, Apr. 29, 2018

The next two months will either make or break Gov. Edwards as Louisiana's budget deadline draws near
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_9313d772-48cd-11e8-b960-8b91dd68d567.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_3da79cdc-4680-11e8-bc95-6bb9c623cf10.html
https://apnews.com/0c6b7e06c4c74cad92f32aa2e056b31d/In-tax-negotiations,-Gov.-Edwards-rejects-sales-tax-renewal
http://house.louisiana.gov/housefiscal/DOCS_TENYEAR/Means%20of%20Finance%20Trends.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

The Press-Herald column, Apr. 25, 2018

Prayer in school issue still not fixed
http://press-herald.com/prayer-in-school-issue-still-not-fixed/

Links:
http://press-herald.com/student-led-prayer-passes-committee/
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/04/teacher_prayer_bill_passes_sen.html
https://www.ktbs.com/news/bossier-school-board-to-consider-school-prayer-policy-thursday/article_e964563a-4295-11e8-906e-db5b2bd32b3c.html
https://www.ktbs.com/draft-of-new-bossier-schools-policy/pdf_8f78ca48-4425-11e8-bdff-fb8cc27bbfb2.html
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/ktbs.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/f7/8f78ca48-4425-11e8-bdff-fb8cc27bbfb2/5ad91fba9cf15.pdf.pdf
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1081432
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1078082
https://www.teacherswhopray.org/your-legal-rights/

Solving LA Obamacare harm to spread out pain

Like herpes, the misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) keeps on giving. And Louisianans, who gained some relief from it courtesy of recent reforms, to varying degrees find themselves paying more one way or another.

Designed to redistribute income and to fail in making health insurance affordable for all but lower-income households to put maximal pressure on moving towards a single-payer system, upon its 2014 implementation it sent insurance rates skyrocketing. But even as legally people had to purchase this product (the “individual mandate”), only relatively few in the individual market did because of subsidization for lower-income households. This meant some people had to pay four different ways: not only with the higher rates, but also to government for the subsidies received by lower-income policyholders that made their costs close to zero, to subsidize a federal reinsurance fund ameliorating rate hikes, and to finance subsidies to insurers to do the same.

Yet that last expense contravened the Constitution, and Pres. Donald Trump wisely cut those off this year. This transpired after 2016, when the reinsurance fund expired by law. Combined with federal statutory changes that removed the individual mandate beginning next year, with fewer subsidies to insurers and a patient mix likely to change that increases costs per insured person, rates likely will continue upwards.

Vulnerable Edwards seeking reform compromise

What may appear as negligence and ineptitude to some in fact shows a politically realistic strategy for Louisiana’s Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and his endangered reelection chances.

Well past the halfway point of his term, Edwards has little to show for his time in office. He said he would put the state on firm financial footing, but all he did was raise taxes and spend more while failing to stop chronic budget shortfalls. He made more people eligible for free government-run health care, but even a report that overestimates its benefits and underestimates its costs can’t hide the fact Edwards raised taxes to support an expensive new entitlement, the benefits of which won’t exceed the costs, for a number of people who could pay for their own insurance anyway.

His most significant, potentially positive achievement therefore comes from criminal justice reforms, comprised of a series of shortening sentences, increasing use of parole and probation, and instituting administrative changes that had the effect of reducing the jailed population size. As long as those changes don’t permit more criminal activity while reducing costs, he can claim policy victory and hang his hat on that for reelection purposes.

Flood underwriting changes increase affordability

A new study concerning flood insurance policy, with any changes disproportionately affecting Louisiana, creeps closer to more appropriate pricing but still falls short of the optimal option.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration, using Census data, compared income data and current pricing to investigate whether to revise rates on affordability criteria. The National Flood Insurance Program chronically has run in the red, prompting changes over the past several years but remains in flux as Congress can’t decide how to alter matters to put it in balance.

The report noted nationally that policyholders earned about half again what non-policyholders made. This suggests an affordability issue, confirmed in that in flood-prone areas twice as many low-income households don’t have insurance than do, with a smaller gap in other areas, while the ratio roughly is reversed for those of higher incomes.

The Advocate column, Apr. 22, 2018

Louisiana's medical marijuana dispensing more about politics, money than medicine
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_f9c3e704-4400-11e8-b0e5-ab7c67beaa4c.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/business/article_f58fcb0c-41bd-11e8-bda3-736dbf68e0cc.html
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2338251
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?p=y&d=93078
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1086138
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_ecce681e-4291-11e8-b5fa-c7fcfd6880fa.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1087519