Losing whites bigger worry for LA Dems, data show

With the release of the latest census estimates, debate re-emerges over the impact of the hurricane disasters of 2005 on 2007 elections and beyond. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, Republicans can expect to get about a 50,000 vote boost relative to Democrats for statewide offices this fall. Do census data confirm this trend, and what will cause it? If you believe the conventional wisdom, you may be in for a surprise.

One notable thing to ponder is that the July 1, 2006 estimated white population (which includes those of a mixed-race background) actually shows a small increase over the same estimated July 1, 2005 population of about 4,000, whereas black population has dropped significantly by almost 139,000, over 9 percent. As far as elections go, this doesn’t quite tell enough, because we need to estimate how this affects the proportion of registered voters and of those who actually vote. Further, we need to compare by race, since the majority of whites vote Republican, and the vast majority of blacks vote Democrat.

If we look at registration totals, there hasn’t been that big of a loss in registrations from 2004 to the 2006 special elections despite disasters. The dropoff of both whites and blacks was around 43,000 compared to the 2,000 or so gain between 2000 and 2002, but of that dropoff, about 31,000 were whites. This is consistent with the trend of recent years: white registrations are losing ground relative to blacks’. Thus, all things equal, blacks voting power would be increasing.

But because of the storms, things are not equal. Further, there is the persistent turnout gap between races that one might think would be aggravated by this recent history. Statewide, over the 2000 federal, 2002 federal, 2003 state, and 2004 federal elections, the gap between the races in turnout averaged 8.75 percent. Yet in 2006 it was below this average, 7.9 percent. Remarkably, this was despite a huge dropoff caused by displacement in Orleans Parish among blacks: there, whites turned out 4.6 percent less than the statewide white average of 27.6 percent, but black Orleanians were 12.8 percent below the statewide black average, at a miniscule 6.9 percent. (In the past, black Orleanians typically voted at slightly higher rates than blacks statewide.)

This obviously means that blacks in other parishes were taking up the slack, so to speak, for those in Orleans in rates and thus to some extent numbers – but not totally. Consider also the proportion of the statewide electorate whites comprised – in 2002, blacks made up 26 percent of those voting falling 2.1 percent from that in 2006. This is consistent with the estimated population change that also saw a 2 percent larger gap open up white over black.

So, we have an overall white-black turnout rate gap holding steady, but relatively more whites and fewer blacks – even as the proportion of black registrations increases statewide. The latter is reflected in the estimated registration rate for whites in the state of 67.2 percent and for blacks of 62.3 percent, compared to 69.5 percent and 57.5 percent respectively the previous year – a difference more than halved.

To put all of this in perspective, this means that Democrats perhaps should be less concerned about retreat of its black base and more about white flight from the state and from their party. Even though the black base is down, the numbers indicate disproportionately it is non-registrants that have left the state, blunting this reduction. The opposite seems to have happened for whites: those eligible to be registered have disproportionately taken off. Further, turnout rates, even taking displacement into account, don’t seem to have suffered relative to whites.

Note that in my paper referenced above I surmised that the state would have lost about 135,000 voters for 2007 while the census figured a population decline of about 194,000 – in other words, using the registration rates above, very well predicted as of today. But of those 75,000 or so Democrats projected lost, adjusted for the figures above only about 40,000 of them are black. Republicans project only about 26,000 whites lost – 9,000 below the Democrat total.

In short, while Democrat losses among blacks are worrisome enough for them, statewide white departures will hurt almost as much in 2007. Further, since a disproportionate share of whites who left and won’t return were voters while blacks were the opposite, the nature of that kind of exodus going forward really hurts the party.

Report shows vested health care interests have no clothes

Once again, I am flattered that the Louisiana Public Affairs Research Council would take one of my ideas that appeared in this space months ago and run with it. The research outfit just issued a report that the Gov. Kathleen Blanco Administration and other political elites with vested interests in the current indigent health care system in the state are not going to want to see, but the recommendations of which are indispensable to improving outcomes and efficiency in the state’s biggest area of spending.

The report advocates putting medical education at the state’s public hospitals first, rather than the state’s current mode of giving priority to trying to get as much federal money as possible into the system from reimbursement for caring for the indigent. This change would occur through centralization of medical education in Shreveport, Monroe, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge and shedding the state’s interest in the other state-owned facilities. It also would broaden outreach opportunities for education facilitated in the non-government sector to take advantage of the latest knowledge.

It drew the usual pithy, shallow response from the Louisiana State University system which runs these hospitals, “If the Legislature does what PAR wants to do, the safety net would be dismantled,” and criticizes the statistics involved: mind you, only the state ever seems to have trouble with these numbers while every other public and private party involved with the issue affirms them. Most condemnatory from the report, which the LSU system can’t explain away, is that, unlike public hospitals in other states that show substantial increases in service volumes, Louisiana charity hospital trends since the mid-1990s show significant decreases in services delivered, although budgets continue to increase.

Further, the Louisiana charity system is heavily subsidized with state and federal funds. It relies on Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) funds and Medicaid for more than 80 percent of its operating revenue, compared to less than 40 percent for public hospitals in other states. Which all goes back to the questions LSU never wants to answer, and never has: why is it that Louisiana is the only state in the Union which maintains this two-tiered system; why is it that all other states have an adequate “safety net” structures without charity hospitals and Louisiana must have charity hospitals and rely on huge public expenditures? We’re still waiting, LSU ….

The report gives more ammunition to building a reasonably-sized new “Big Charity” in New Orleans, as well as a new Earl K. Long facility in Baton Rouge. It also backs up arguments made by those wanting to reform the system from its current money-goes-to-the-institution to the better money-follows-the-person regime. The state continues to make an (ineffective) case for a grandiose new Big Charity, and it is barging ahead with legislation that does nothing to reform away the two-tiered system.

As special interests more interested in retaining power and privilege dig in their heels at truly needed reform, this timely report adds to revealing both the weakness of their cases and the nakedness of their desires.

Boasso gamble likely finishes his political career

While the general consensus about state Sen. Walter Boasso’s switch from Republican to Democrat deemed him an “opportunist,” worth noting is that the move also involved considerable political risk for his career as an elective official. Simply, unless he wins the contest, that career is over.

Perhaps because it’s his business background where time means money and inefficiency means bankruptcy, or impatience, or even ego, but, as far as political ambitions go, he simply would not wait for the right opportunity as a Republican. As far as fitting ideology to party, he clearly melds more convincingly and gracefully as a Republican. He says he fiscally conservative (although he was the crucial vote in supporting a Gov. Kathleen Blanco “sick tax” measure) and pro-life. And he certainly chose an issue that at its basics is more personality-related than ideology-related, disaster relief response, if we believe his claim that was the issue that compelled him to switch back to the Democrats. (Question: had the likes of former senator John Breaux entered the race, would Boasso ever have switched?)

Regardless, had Boasso run for reelection this year, his future in the GOP and electorally would have been bright. It was clear to everybody but him that Rep. Bobby Jindal, the anointed Republican gubernatorial candidate, had the drop on him for party support and in electoral power – vastly greater fundraising ability, a statewide network which Boasso has yet to build, much higher name recognition, and a rock-solid voting and philosophical record more strongly conservative than Boasso’s.

Boasso could have won reelection easily and, if really interested in governor, wait four more years, then run for statewide office. Assuming Jindal continued through two terms, a win in another executive office would have made Boasso one of, if not the favorite, to succeed Jindal. Perhaps Boasso would argue the state needs him now and he couldn’t wait. (Question: just how different are the policy prescriptions of Boasso and Jindal, so different that Jindal could not carry out the things Boasso thinks are necessary?)

But even running for governor would not have been a bad thing, if Boasso was interesting in running for something else later and he had plenty of cash to burn. Even getting trounced by Jindal, or at best forcing Jindal into a runoff, would raise Boasso’s statewide profile in defeat. He would have been positioned perfectly next year for a run at the U.S. Third District seat now held by Rep. Charlie Melancon, or the U.S. Senate seat of Mary Landrieu – both Democrats. Republicans would have bent over backwards to put him up against Melancon, and, if not their top choice to face Landrieu, would have been right up there.

Those possibilities evaporated when Boasso switched back. As an elected official in an office on any consequence, more than one switch the public views as fickleness and/or opportunism, and party activists as somebody they cannot trust with dollars and support. Neither major party ever will accept him again if he loses this race, and he simply cannot compete under his current label against Democrat incumbents Melancon and Landrieu. Whether he even could get his senate seat back in 2011 is highly questionable; only by withdrawing soon from the contest and qualifying in September for his old seat does he have a chance, and even under this scenario Republican bitterness may cause his defeat.

Boasso had a promising political future as a Republican, as there is a certain amount of truth to his assertion that he often departs from politics as usual; for example, he has been one of the few state elected officials to buck vested interests in trying to get Louisiana to address its unfunded accrued liability problem in its retirements funds, and he strongly advocated flood control policy changes while most politicians from his area, openly or otherwise, opposed them. But his driving ambition to get elected governor by the most expedient means possible may have short-circuited any political future of his.

Cutting marginal LA income tax rates must top priorities

Were Gov. Kathleen Blanco running for reelection, she might show more enthusiasm for tax cuts with the state sitting on possibly more than $3 billion in surplus. But she’s not, letting her liberal Democrat instincts kick in to have her resist the idea of cutting government in any significant way. Still, she’s now admitting that maybe a few reductions would not cause the end of the world, so how should Louisiana proceed with this lukewarm, watered-down attitude of Blanco’s?

The grand slam of those trying to restrain government and give large portions of the citizenry their money back is reversion to the situation many years ago, where all federal “excess” deductions also could be claimed as such on Louisiana income taxes (none can be now), and lowering income thresholds to bump households into lower tax brackets, without reimposition of state sales taxes on many items. Such a laudable goal probably cannot be attained given Blanco’s and the Legislature’s liberal Democrats. Therefore, some part of this goal should be pursued, but what?

The ability to deduct some items could prove to be salutary across all tax brackets, particularly charitable, health care, and mortgage expenses. Charities do a better job than government of ameliorating the majority of social problems so their funding should be encouraged, while for the unfortunate few families hit with big medical expenses full deductibility of health care costs could help dramatically their situations, and since a home will make up a good chunk of the assets of many households, assistance here also is welcome.

But if only one thing could be attained, it would be best to go for raising the bracket thresholds and/or lowering the marginal tax rate. This is because the tax system in Louisiana is heavily progressive, penalizing the most productive members of society by requiring them to shoulder the majority of the burden. As a comparison, two years before the landmark 2003 tax changes (the “Stelly Plan”) went into effect, the upper 51.9 percent of household incomes paid 96 percent of all personal income taxes (that group paying an average of $1,588 compared to $70.50 for the lower group) while last year the upper 52.4 percent of household incomes paid 94.6 percent of all personal income taxes (that group paying an average of about $2,075 compared to $127 for the lower group).

While it is unfair to have so few carry so many on this revenue source, any reduction across the board would help all productive citizens, especially the most productive. If any single tax reduction can assist the state in getting more investment into the economy, that’s the direction Blanco and legislative leaders should head.

Poor test scores affirm need for real teacher evaluation

It’s politically correct in Louisiana to favor pay raises for elementary and secondary school teachers. This is in part because Louisiana has among the lower (but by no means the lowest) average salaries and is about the poorest state in the union. The official story is that the two are connected, the theory being higher pay means better education producing more economic development. As often is the case, the official story is wrong as demonstrated by the most recent test score statistics.

Difficulty understates the task of interpreting the statewide averages GEE (given to high score students in order for them to graduate) exams in a positive fashion. For the latter, first-time test-taking students treaded water in 2007 compared to 2006 on the sciences and social studies portion, while there were significant drops on the math and (especially) English portions. For the LEAP (given to fourth and eighth graders necessary to pass to advance to the next grade), the results overall were about even over the previous year with just one area of significant improvement, English.

The news is much worse on an absolute scale. While the state might put a happy face on the results for the most part, the dirty secret is to “pass,” one need only score at the “approaching basic” level on some of the tests – below the “basic,” “mastery,” and “advanced” categories. While the proportion of those scoring below approaching basic in all cases was usually less than 20 percent, when making the basic level the cutoff, that rose to an alarming almost 40 percent – even more on a few.

Note that approaching basic is defined as “a student at this level has only partially demonstrated the fundamental knowledge and skills needed for the next level of schooling.” The bottom line: even under these relaxed standards, 26 percent of fourth graders and 34 percent of eighth graders failed to be promoted. (Half of the GEE is given at the end of 10th grade, the other at the end of 11th, with other opportunities to take it again to pass, so there is no proportion “graduated” score that is reported.) Reconsider that: about one-fourth of fourth graders and one-third of eighth graders in Louisiana failed to be promoted.

This is poor quality education. And you can only go so far by blaming factors other than the overall quality of teaching itself for such a high failure rate. We don’t know exactly how much of factor inferior teaching plays in this because, unlike in many states, there is no teacher accountability measured in Louisiana – unions have for decades blocked attempts at any kind of evaluation for teacher quality.

Nevertheless, ideas to appropriate a pay raise for teachers circulate in the Legislature, to those currently working and across the board without regard for merit, on the curious, counterintuitive notion that as soon as salaries go up, these teachers will start doing a better job. This position in no way takes into account an investigation into how good of a job as a whole teachers are doing in Louisiana and whether that merits a raise. If scores were going up on the whole, slowly but surely since the last raise a couple of years ago, a case could be made for a raise (that is, above the cost of living – they already get annual cost of living raises). But why reward in aggregate a work force whose product is getting shoddier?

To remind of a sentiment that has appeared in this space many times, if pay increases are given to teachers, given the data a dubious proposition at best, the very least policy-makers can do is to insist on the implementation of regular testing and other accountability measures concerning teachers along with it. Otherwise, these unacceptable education outcomes simply will continue on, and lack of economic development in Louisiana along with it, no matter how high teachers’ salaries go.

Hypocrisy as Landrieu tactic alive and well

We’ve known for some time that Louisiana’s Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu will employ hypocrisy when it suits her political agenda, and she graciously has provided some more examples for us.

Landrieu was one of the very first elected Democrats to use Hurricane Katrina as a political pawn, blaming the Republican Pres. George W. Bush administration for not ensuring levees strong enough to prevent the failure of some of them – when in fact Landrieu herself used her political clout to steer money towards nonessential, dubious projects instead of for increased hurricane protections. (As we are now discovering courtesy of breaking news, politicizing natural disasters has become a standard of the Democrat playbook: witness Democrat (and chairwoman of her party’s governors’ caucus) Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius having taken Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean’s advice to argue a federal response to the recent tornado disaster in the state was slowed by troops and materiel used in the Iraq war, claims utterly proven false by commanders in the Kansas National Guard – kind of reminiscent of the blathering of another Democrat governor named Kathleen well all know).

The second generation of this tactic she put on display in her comments regarding bills she has introduced to give the media greater ability to prevent inquiry into their sources and selective access by some media to federal assistance in supplies and in accreditation during disasters. She claimed on the access part its necessity because “[t]he revelation that the Bush Administration turned away nearly $1 billion in foreign aid after Hurricane Katrina came to light as the result of the [Freedom of Information Act] process and demonstrates its essential function as a public check on government power and policy.”

That her legislation has nothing to do with the FOIA making her statement a syllogism of the specious kind is less important than her desire to bash Bush to score partisan political points by completing misstating the issue. Foreign governments offered $854 million in aid after the hurricane disasters. Some was lost to waste because government is the most wasteful enterprise ever invented by human beings. Some of it has yet to be accessed. The majority of it has been used by either U.S governments or nonprofit relief agencies. That it was “turned away” by the federal government did not mean a lot of it has gotten to or will get to appropriate uses, and demonstrates how Landrieu cares more about the role of government, wishing its expansion, than that resources get used to their best value.

The hypocrisy part on this issue comes in as her legislation primarily is to assist broadcasters, not the print media – a discrimination which she omits from her press release regarding the bill. The official statement is that only electronic journalism can offer immediacy necessary in the face of disaster.

But Landrieu needs to remember that she lives in the 21st century. Most print outlets now also have electronic delivery platforms by the Internet which are as immediate, if not more so, than broadcasting. So what does Landrieu have against the print media?

Perhaps it because, unlike the sound bites generated by broadcasters, print, including the Internet, conveys a much greater chance of context and analysis into the topic at hand (depending, of course, on how swift and informed and open to the truth the reporter in question is). And maybe that’s what Landrieu dislikes, because print media journalists (and even informal journalists such as me) have far greater opportunities to ignore the spin Landrieu tries to put on things. This could be a way of her allowing her to keep greater control over media dissemination of news.

Disaster preparedness, Katrina storm relief, and her legislation as discussed in this space, and this space itself, perfectly illustrate how the print media may avoid being channeled into her agenda and instead more validly and critically appraises her ideology. And if that’s the reason she is shunning print media in her legislation, it’s just one more example of her accusing others of doing something in which she eagerly engages in herself.

Montgomery defeat to shake up Bossier political power

It seems that the Bossier side of the Red River doesn’t need any special elections to goose political maneuvering early in the 2007 election campaigns for the state Legislature – the results of which could prove crucial in the power composition in the parish.

First out of the box some months ago in campaigning for the House District 9 seat, to be vacated by incumbent state Rep. Billy Montgomery because of term limits, was Bossier/Webster Parish Truancy Center director Richey Jackson running as a Republican. Today, another candidate will join the fray, new Republican Henry Burns, a local business owner and current Bossier Parish School Board member.

While at first these developments may appear to present an abundance of riches for the local GOP, in fact they pose a quandary. Party activists wonder whether directly or indirectly whether one or both these two would fall prey to the disease local conservatives have been battling for years – RINO Rash

RINO – “Republican in Name Only” – Rash has infected a number of Bossier Parish government positions, such as the free-spending, fee-hungry Bossier City Council and tax-advocating Bossier Parish Police Jury, where elected officials calling themselves Republicans often act much more like liberal Democrats on taxing and spending issues. The carrier of this has been Montgomery who has impeccable good-old-boy, tax-and-spend credential from his earliest days beginning two decades ago in the Legislature.

Some local GOP stalwarts worry that Jackson is something of a political lightweight that might be too easily swayed by the courthouse crowd he has worked alongside who are invested in this ideology, and would abandon conservative principles under this pressure. (It also doesn’t help him that a number of north Bossier residents are mad at the parish for unfavorable zoning decisions at which his son, Parish Attorney Patrick Jackson, was in the center of the conflict. Nor will they be happy that that this election cycle that both Jacksons have given large campaign contributions to Montgomery.) But others worry that Burns, until a few months ago a lifelong Democrat and whose wife works as the legislative aide to Montgomery, also might fall susceptible to RINO Rash.

Of course, one thing that might inoculate Burns from it would be if Montgomery failed in his attempt to circumvent the spirit of term limits by trying to win the Senate District 37 seat now held by the term-limited state Sen. Max Malone. Lifelong Democrat Montgomery himself became a RINO precisely because he felt it would increase his chances to win the seat perhaps by trying to discourage other Republicans from running in what probably is the most conservative district in the Senate.

If that was his idea, it has blown up to the extent that he ought not make any plans beyond 2007. Two quality GOP candidates have entered that contest, local Republican official Jay Murrell and former state Rep. B.L. “Buddy” Shaw. (A third, previous District 6 House candidate Barrow Peacock, also is looking at the race.) With Shaw and Murrell in the contest, Montgomery might not even make the general election runoff.

Murrell already has launched an aggressive campaign highlighting the fiscally and socially conservative views he was known for as a radio talk show host. Already his visage graces billboards and his voice intones radio commercials, indicating that he has substantial financial support. Added to the mix is his emphasis that he represents a fresh start in government, in contrast to his veteran politician competitors both of whom years ago passed the age to qualify for Social Security benefits. (Because of these things, at least one local political scientist and blogger has endorsed him.)

Relative to Montgomery, Shaw has the advantage of showing he walked the walk as an unquestioned conservative in his eight years in the House, elected from a district comprised by this new one (by contrast, Montgomery’s current district overlaps only 9 percent in population terms this one). However, relative to Murrell his age and his status as a past legislator may work against him with an electorate becoming increasingly hostile this election cycle to anybody smacking of incumbency.

Montgomery’s problems may get worse. Rumors persist that a non-Republican also will enter the fray. If so, Democrats who might otherwise have voted for Montgomery as the least of the three offenders to their partisanship may gravitate to this kind of candidate (if credible), while Murrell and Shaw would lose few votes.

While for now election of either Burns or Jackson would be unpredictable relative to existing patterns of political power in Bossier, the old order currently running things there would lose were Shaw to defeat Montgomery, and especially if Murrell did. While Malone has a different idea of government’s purpose than does this crowd, Murrell likely much more actively would try to promote that agenda than has Malone. Thus, look for the old guard and it publicity agents to pull out all the stops to defeat any conservative Republican running in Bossier Parish.

Despite data, Gannett media deny tax cutting sentiments

Louisiana Gannett media missed the story entirely – it’s not that people are satisfied with their level of income taxation as the Legislature looks at making changes there, but that anti-tax sentiment is growing statewide despite events that reduced taxes for many that lead a majority of Louisianans to wanting income tax cuts now.

The Gannett article addresses the results of a recent survey put out by the Louisiana State University Public Policy Research Lab where citizens were asked about their levels of satisfaction with different kinds of taxes – income, sales, and property – and compared them to results of similar queries in years past. To give some historical background:

Income tax rates have declined for many over the past four years – except for those who pay the majority of income taxes, which have gone up substantially

State sales tax rates have gone down, courtesy of the same changes that increased income taxes for those already paying the majority

Property tax rates are set by local governments so there is variability here, but, generally, they have stayed the same absolutely and declined relatively over this time period because the vast majority of governing authorities over these rates allowed these to roll down after reassessment increased the total value of the property able to be taxes

Also worth noting is that, despite the fact that Louisiana’s property tax rates are among the lowest in the country (because of the highest homestead exemption in the country which allows seven-eighths of all households to escape direct property taxation), its state and local burden in total are among upper third of states (a fact which apparently survey director Kirby Goidel did not know when he mistakenly said “Most people realize this is a relatively low-tax state”)

So you might suspect that, at present, there might be relative satisfaction with income tax rates with lower rates now, sales taxes wouldn’t provoke much controversy, and the most people would be pleased with their property taxes. Over recent years, one might think there would be increased satisfaction over all three, because for most income tax rates have gone down, sales taxes have gone down, and property taxes have held steady but relatively speaking also have declined.

Instead, the results show a public with perceptions at odds with reality in the past few years. Respondents seemed most dissatisfied with property taxes, the proportion of them fitting that category climbing by almost half over levels a couple of years ago. A similar increase was observed concerning thoughts on sales taxes. And while not as substantial, despite the fact most of them had gotten an income tax cut in recent years, the proportion of those who say taxes are too high also has risen over those years, while the proportion of those who say the level is “about right” has decreased -- something the Gannett article left out. (Note: the copy of the full report LSU put out on the Internet was damaged and rendered unreadable, so I had to go back through previous years reports to learn this.)

The article glossed over this information, but emphasized that the highest approval for current use of the state surplus is for expenditures rather than tax cuts. Added to that the information that a bit more than half the state seems all right with income tax levels, and you would think there is not an “anti-tax” sentiment in the state, as the article would have one believe. Not at all: a majority want income taxes lowered, even though most of them are paying less now than four years ago. Add to this the growing frustration with the levels of all kinds of taxes and, as the summary report does point out but the article does not, that “Louisianans are increasingly inclined to say that state taxes are too high and need to be reduced.”

This leaves us with a tale of two stories. Gannett media would have us believe that the state’s residents are happy enough with the income tax as it is and therefore want to see spending of the surplus. The survey’s data, however, show a state increasingly hostile towards current levels of taxation and receptive to lowering income taxes, which would argue for lowering income taxes and thus, in the short run of this fiscal year, not to spend parts of the surplus on new items.

These disparate views of different parts of the data are reconciled in two ways. For one, it is facile to suggest cutting income taxes and extra spending are mutually exclusive, as the article implies. In all likelihood, majorities in the state are looking for a bit of both.

Also, when considering that the 57 percent who said income taxes were “about right” is much less than the 80 percent or so of households who got an income tax cut (and about three percent don’t pay any at all), or that the lowest half of Louisiana income taxpayers pay only 6 percent of total income tax collections (with an average tax burden of only about $130 per filer), the unasked question is why relatively so few people think income tax levels are “about right.” Thus, these low-to-nonexistent-income taxpayers may think their own levels of income taxation are “right,” but also believe the other, upper half of income tax payers who foot 94 percent of total collection should have their taxes cut in order to stimulate Louisiana’s ailing economy, consistent with the public’s increasing pessimism regarding the state’s economy as noted in the survey.

More to the point, with the income tax burden disproportionately placed on so many, it’s no accident that the income tax would seem most satisfactory of the three kinds in a popular referendum, and therefore that the general anti-tax sentiments would be expressed more overtly in feelings about the two kinds of taxes more broadly distributed. This is the real story which the article tries to shunt to the side – anti-tax sentiment is growing and therefore recent tax cuts may not be enough not just for the public, but for good public policy as well. What data can be interpreted as ratifying an agenda of not cutting income taxes and increasing spending just as conclusively provides evidence that the public approves of exactly the opposite, this is a sentiment growing over time, and that legislators need to respond to it now while they have an optimal chance.

And, from a political perspective, it should be noted that it is highly probable that not many of the half who pay six percent of income taxes vote while the vast majority of the other half that pays 94 percent of them do – something for state legislators pondering these cuts to think about in this reelection year.

Time running out for more efficient LA health care delivery

Once again, Louisiana is letting special-interest-driven politics put it into position to lose opportunities and to create waste and inefficiency with taxpayers’ dollars, this time over the specific issue of a veterans’ hospital site in New Orleans.

Ever since the Medical Center of Louisiana New Orleans (“Big Charity”) got substantially damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, plans have circulated to rebuild it near the Central Business District in tandem with a new Veterans Administration hospital, where certain non-medical facilities would be shared reducing both building and operating expenses.

The federal government has long wanted to move forward on the project. But the cooperation necessary from Louisiana had been disrupted by the state’s inability to decide how a new Big Charity would fit into the larger, overall picture of indigent health care in the state. The federal government strongly has urged the state to abandon its two-tiered, money-goes-to-the-institution system (the only state in the Union that has such a system) and instead head in the direction all other states, richer and poorer, are going to a money-follows-the-person regime, given the greater efficiency and higher outcomes the state likely is to realize as a result.

Since such a move would remove power and privilege from key politicians, other officials, and some health care institutions, the state has resisted and the size of the new Big Charity has become a pawn in this larger battle. The most recent, aggressive move by the state to block real reform is to sponsor a report that argues the new Big Charity should be about twice the size that advocates of genuine redesign envision. The larger the new hospital is, the less expensive the current faltering system around which the state wants redesign to be seems compared to the necessary reconfiguration proposed by the federal government and supported by various other politicians and health care advocates.

No doubt this has irked the federal government, its patience already thin by an unnecessary protracted struggle, so last week it lowered the boon on the state by announcing it actively had been shopping around for alternative sites that would not pair up the new Big Charity with the new veterans’ facility. This led the state and city to scramble madly to prevent their agreement’s scuttling, as removing the synergy would push up the building costs tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars and would make a larger facility even less efficient in operations.

In October of last year the state, somewhat late, finally coughed up its redesign plan which did not substantively change delivery of indigent health care in the state. Had it removed vested interests from the equation and accepted real reform, probably by now the shovels already would be turning dirt for building the new hospitals with Louisiana’s part maybe half of the cost of the large facility it now tries to foist on taxpayers, with the promise of better health care provided more efficiently in the not-distant future, at great savings eventually to taxpayers.

Instead, the obstinacy of state leaders continues unabated, and even this latest prodding by the federal government may not get it to changes its counterproductive approach – just so typical of Louisiana government in action.

LA Dems confirm they can live with Boasso but not Jindal

Two Louisiana Democrats, from different parts, even factions, of the party both recently delivered the same confirmation of the party’s statewide election strategy – prevent at all costs the election of Republican Rep. Bobby Jindal as governor this fall.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, when asked what will become of the $3 million or so in her campaign coffers now that she will not run for another term, didn’t have any specific answer. Blanco can use it for any non-personal, legal purpose as long as she remains in office. What many in a similar situation have done is refunded a portion to contributors, who then may turn around and give to other candidates, or can directly and indirectly give to other candidates.

Translation: Blanco doesn’t like Democrat candidate Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, or doesn’t like his chances of winning, or both, and she is not going allow any assistance to filter its way to candidate and Republican-in-Democrat-clothing state Sen. Walter Boasso. It’s an admission that Campbell cannot win, and that state Democrats need to cut their losses by pinning their hopes that Boasso, who can self-finance his campaign to a degree, can win – but that a loyalist Democrat like Blanco was not going to directly assist him in any way.

It’s a similar message as that sent by the party’s Chairman Chris Whittington, who conceded the party’s main strategy would be to attack Jindal. Again, it shows the state party has little faith that Campbell can win, that no major contender from their side is going to enter, and that Boasso is the lesser of two evils. If they truly accepted Boasso, they would come to his aid, and if they really thought Campbell could win, they would put big money behind him.

Translation: as predicted, the Democrats’ main concern, no doubt goaded by the national party, is to do anything to stop Jindal, which is why if they can’t get a genuine Democrat with a chance of winning to run, their only choice is to launch a ferocious attack on Jindal which will feature absurd charges, illogical accusations, and gross distortions that hopefully will poison the state’s politics enough to allow a relative unsullied Boasso to beat Jindal.

It’s not likely to work, because Jindal is by now a seasoned campaigner with plenty of campaign resources and does a good job of contrasting the superiority of his core conservative, reformist beliefs with the inferiority inherent to that of power-hungry liberalism and populism. But Democrats will not lay down without a fight because their loss of power, while good for the state, obviously they don’t desire, and that’s why a torrent of mud with little discussion of constructive policy will be dumped by Democrats by summertime.