Conservatives leverage LA into better budget

It’s a great first step, but the Louisiana Legislature can do a whole lot better when it comes to a responsible fiscal year 2024 budget and use of surplus dollars over the last couple of years.

This week, the state’s general operations budget HB 1 kicked off its journey to the consternation of free spenders. Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and his partisan followers in the Legislature – and not a few Republicans including chamber leaders – had grandiose ideas about the using the bonus bucks mainly on infrastructure and larding out all sorts of new commitments, such as pay raises for educators and local public safety personnel, in this year’s spending plan.

But to accomplish that, the state would have to bust its spending cap by several hundred million dollars, a move opposed by the Louisiana Conservative Caucus that is comprised of most House Republicans as well as the Louisiana Freedom Caucus, which likely overlaps in membership considerably with the Conservative Caucus. These legislators argue that the surplus money (past the constitutional mandates for its use) primarily should go to paying down unfunded accrued liabilities in the state’s retirement systems, which not only would avert breaching the cap but also would relieve local governments from having to pay excess contributions into the state systems for defeasance of the UAL constitutionally mandated by 2029 that would free up money for other uses such as raising salaries.

Fewer weeks unemployment paid better for LA

Taking the first steps to challenge Governor Nyet’s agenda of bloated, redistributionist government, Louisiana’s legislative Republican supermajorities look primed to start the party a year early in right-sizing state government.

This week, on nearly party-line votes, each chamber in the Legislature passed bills that could leave more money in the hands of the people. In the Senate, bills by GOP state Sen. Bret Allain have moved out of committee which collectively would phase out corporate income and franchise taxes and get rid of the inventory tax credit that would keep over $600 million in the people’s wallets over the next five years. Four years after that, during which annual net revenue decreases in the dozens of millions of dollars will occur, the lasting annual impact thenceforth is predicted as a $324 million reduction.

Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards can’t veto the phase-out of the inventory tax as it must take the form of a constitutional amendment, but he could try to attenuate savings elsewhere with vetoes of the other two measures. If all Republicans in both chambers stick together in voting for any veto attempt, they will frustrate him.

Rogue GOP senators aid nonsense insurance bill

In Democrat state Sen. Jay Luneau’s world, ideology is more important than people, to which his sponsorship of SB 81 attests. Why a pair of Republicans would sign onto that is anybody’s guess.

The bill would add the word “gender” to prohibited classification in the setting of vehicle insurance rates in Louisiana, as is the case in only seven others. It’s all that’s left from a string of demagogic bills Luneau kept proposing in past sessions that have tried to circumscribe rate-setting tools for insurers that, in every case, legitimately price risk, which deservedly bit the dust.

As is typical, the argument for this particular attenuation was intellectual mishmash. Luneau presented a single study as proof alleged discrimination occurred against women merely for gender, but then he and Senate Insurance Committee supporters also argued that nobody really knew what goes into pricing – a sentiment also shared by other on the committee against it. In regards to the fact brought out in testimony that most studies showed men nationally paid more and so this change likely would cause the same in Louisiana, Luneau replied that the (tepid) tort reform measures passed (over his objections) three years ago actually saw increases in rates in years following, implying this wouldn’t happen.

Bossier appointee gigged; police jurors next?

It looks as if it will have taken three years to get the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District to follow the law. In a similar situation, it will take at least over twice that time to get the Bossier Parish Police Jury to do the same.

This week, the Louisiana Supreme Court added another, and likely penultimate stop, to the saga involving CBB Executive Director Robert Berry, who problematically also serves as one of the five commissioners with power over the executive director. He was appointed by the Bossier Parish Police Jury with his five-year term expiring at the end of June.

It’s a long and convoluted story, but basically in 2020 Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry’s office got wind of Berry’s dual service and notified CBB that needed to change for it to stay legally compliant. That didn’t happen, but GOP 26^th District Atty. Schuyler Marvin did bring a suit to remove Berry. However, some suspicions arose that Marvin, as part of the Benton courthouse gang wanting to protect one of their own, did so in order to draw a ruling to absolve Berry, so Landry’s office intervened and filed a parallel motion.

Biden CAGW faith aiding LA GOP candidates

Just as the previous president of one party helped to keep as Louisiana governor someone of the other party, the current president of one party looks to be giving a leg up to someone of the other party winning the state’s governor’s race later this year.

Without someone like Republican former Pres. Donald Trump in office, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards never would have stood a chance to win reelection. Trump’s championing tax cuts through Congress and his easing of regulatory burdens put the nation’s economy into another gear from the historically-worst recovery under his predecessor Democrat Pres. Barack Obama. Despite Edwards doing the opposite and inflating the size of government, which resulted in a shrinking population, job loss, and rising proportion of able-bodied adults choosing not to work while almost every other state saw more people, more jobs, and higher personal income increases, he squeaked back into the Governor’s Mansion on the strength of Trump’s economy that blunted his policy mistakes.

Four years later, the same dynamic but in a different way has come into play. With inflation ravaging the savings and retirement nest eggs of Americans, triggered by the massive borrowing and hyper-spending of Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and (until this start of this year) a compliant Congress, Biden has ignored rectifying this and he and his administration continue to lob campaign slow softballs to Republicans seeking to succeed Edwards, in the form of executive actions that promise only to drive the cost-of-living even higher for no good reason.

Pull DEI out by roots to protect LA colleges

The Louisiana Legislature needs to take a broader approach than the Republican State Central Committee to ensure that sex, ethnic or national characteristics, or political or religious beliefs or affiliations stay out of decisions regarding its students and employees.

Earlier this month, the RSCC passed a resolution asking the legislature to ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) departments and offices within all colleges and universities in the state, both public and private. It declares such expenditures of tax dollars at state schools promote a particular political orthodoxy in institutions that by definition are to serve as repositories of robust inquiry and implies that money is spent needlessly on that proselytizing.

This request overlaps to a small degree with HR 13 by Republican state Rep. Valarie Hodges. The resolution, which actually can’t compel as a law could, would have all state education institutions in the state, from elementary through high schools and colleges, submit reports on programs and activities related to DEI, critical race theory and social emotional learning. The reports would identify whether dedicated DEI infrastructures exist at higher education institutions.

Maybe not new boss same as old, but fooled again

A new revelation from Bossier City’s contracted city engineer relating to a state grant and a water deal between the city and Port of Caddo-Bossier may explain why a City Council majority passed the deal despite numerous red flags at least one of its members seemed to miss, as part of campaign pursued by the Port, contractor Manchac Consulting Group, and the Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration.

It’s frustrating to me, and perhaps repetitive if not boring to readers, to have to go through this again, because the facts outlined below have been discussed time and time and time and time and time again, and well in advance of the Apr. 4 meeting that approved the deal. But it all necessarily deserves another look as a consequence of statements made at the last, Apr. 18, Council meeting shedding light on the possibility that a strategy of ambiguity engaged in by several parties with a vested interest in seeing the deal go through sought to steer, and seemingly successfully did, skeptical councilors away from a true and full understanding of the deal’s implications.

By now, details of the water deal are familiar: the Port would issue bonds to pay for a water facility for distribution and treatment that Bossier City would run, which would commit itself to a long-term liability equal to the total cost of the bond issue for the right to run it and keep all revenues past costs once that amount had been reached. While the deal would last 40 years, the obligation to rebate (legally necessary because of city ordinances that don’t let the city treat customers in the same water/sewerage class differentially in rates charged) would begin only if and when the city drew a single drop of water from the plant, which could be years into it.

Decree ready to take toll on Arceneaux fortunes

The issue of which no Shreveport mayoral candidate would speak now threatens to exact its toll on the nascent Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux Administration.

Almost a decade after the city entered into a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies, it finds itself in an increasingly deteriorating situation. With an end date at the tail end of his term – in fact, right around the election for the next – it’s far behind on the work to replace aging infrastructure that threatens water quality and wastewater treatment; so far, in fact, that Arceneaux revealed the city is getting ready to be hit with a $4 million fine for dilatoriness.

Progress drags because the remediation continues to escalate. The final price tag, which started with an estimate of $350 million, now has tripled and the work isn’t nearly complete. Of the 64 identified critical projects as of nearly the end of last year, only a quarter have been finished. An eighth only have started the planning stage.

Don't revive costly, wasteful LA film tax credit

The lobbying has begun in earnest for Louisianans to continue the equivalent of flushing their tax dollars down the toilet with Republican Speaker Clay Schexnayder’s HB 562.

Not only would the bill allow the Motion Picture Investors Tax Credit to continue past fiscal year 2025 it also would make it open-ended, where it currently has a limit of $150 million issued a year (with $180 million redeemable in a year). The credit allows for reimbursement of expenses in film or television production anywhere from 25 to 55 percent of expenses from a base amount of $50,000 to $300,000 on state income taxes; alternatively, these may act as a refundable credit at 90 cents to the buck (which is how the vast majority of the payout occurs given that few beneficiaries principally do business in the state).

The law requires an analysis every couple of years, and over the two decades of the credit’s existence those have shown it to be a black hole spending far more taxpayer dollars than what was returned to state and local governments, costing the state well over a billion dollars. The latest returned the typical dismal numbers for fiscal years 2021-22: total tax dollars collected were about an eleventh of what earnings were generated for, and the return on investment for the former year was 35 cents and the latter 39 cents, meaning for FY 2022 every dollar spent saw 61 cents evaporate.

End ITEP as part of LA property tax overhaul

Republican Treas. John Schroder got told by GOP state Rep. Richard Nelson that anything you can do, I can do better. Voters need to listen to that even if legislators don’t.

Both have announced a run for governor this fall, and both have spoken publicly about something that other candidates haven’t: reform of the Industrial Tax Exemption Program. ITEP allows the state to forgive local property taxes up to ten years for a concern that builds new infrastructure.

However, the governor has veto power over those arrangements, and since Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards took office he has shaped how the program has worked by saying he will veto anything that doesn’t feature fewer years, a smaller portion written off, and approval of major local government bodies. These actions have had an indeterminate but negative impact on it: a poorly-designed report attempting to show the rules changes didn’t scare off new business failed to assess that properly but in passing indicates those did discourage new activity.