In the debate about the size of state government,
Louisiana deserves informed commentary, not one-sided polemicizing.
The state continues to struggle with structuring
its fiscal system to promote economic development. Its 469 tax exemptions have
come under particular scrutiny, with a recent panel convened by law recommending
elimination of many. In response, instead, the Legislature tinkered around
the margins and in net made no improvements to a structure that exempts as much
as it collects.
This followed an effort made by Gov. John Bel Edwards to
alter granting of Industrial Tax Exemption Program benefits that affects local
governments, through executive order. His one-size-fits-all
approach fails to distinguish among the economic value brought by the
request and, even after slight modification, invites
politicization of the process.
24.10.17
Monument vote to reverberate against Caddo
The Caddo Parish Commission just can’t seem to get
anything right lately.
Disregarding its own citizens panel’s recommendation, last week the body voted 7-5 to remove the monument to Confederate soldiers that sits near the parish courthouse. Given that the parish does not even have certain ownership of the parcel hosting the object, it has decided to set sail in decidedly choppy political waters.
At best, the argument to move it rested on emotion, not fact or logic. Listed on the National Register of Historical Places, it marks a historically important venue – the place where the last capital of Louisiana as a rebel state operated and eventually gave up. It doesn’t celebrate the Confederacy but local soldiers killed in action, regardless that they fought for a mistaken regime, and stands more for what it said about local attitudes about the war at the time of its erection and decades after than any ideas behind the rebellion. Given its siting in a lightly-trafficked area, unless somebody makes some effort to bring it to attention, few in the community even notice it, much less try to figure out what it is.
Disregarding its own citizens panel’s recommendation, last week the body voted 7-5 to remove the monument to Confederate soldiers that sits near the parish courthouse. Given that the parish does not even have certain ownership of the parcel hosting the object, it has decided to set sail in decidedly choppy political waters.
At best, the argument to move it rested on emotion, not fact or logic. Listed on the National Register of Historical Places, it marks a historically important venue – the place where the last capital of Louisiana as a rebel state operated and eventually gave up. It doesn’t celebrate the Confederacy but local soldiers killed in action, regardless that they fought for a mistaken regime, and stands more for what it said about local attitudes about the war at the time of its erection and decades after than any ideas behind the rebellion. Given its siting in a lightly-trafficked area, unless somebody makes some effort to bring it to attention, few in the community even notice it, much less try to figure out what it is.
23.10.17
LA case can help rebalance EPA biases
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charts
a course away from its unbalanced, biased tack of the previous eight years, a Louisiana
controversy has emerged as one of the avenues by which correction may occur.
Denka Performer Elastomer LLC, with a plant in St.
John the Baptist Parish, has petitioned the EPA for relief from an
unnecessarily-high standard imposed upon the emission of chloroprene. In 2010,
through its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) that collates known
scientific studies, the EPA declared a limit of 0.2 micrograms of it per cubic
meter of air for the chemical. The plant on occasion has emitted 12 to 58 times
that amount.
But in a letter to the EPA earlier this year and through
Congressional testimony last month, experts from a firm with extensive IRIS
experience hired by Denka questioned the calculation of that amount. They
pointed out, in the case of chloroprene studies, a number of shortcomings to
the IRIS procedure, many having come to light previously in reports
by expert panels of the National Academy of Sciences. In all, using published
data and recognized methods, the experts discovered the EPA level overestimated
the dangerous amount of chloroprene by 156 times.
22.10.17
19.10.17
Cultural change explains LA turnout decline
An interesting
informational nugget about Louisiana’s voting turnout amplified by the New Orleans Times-Picayune deserves
fuller scrutiny: participation by Louisianans in elections has spiraled
downwards, and it’s worth figuring out why.
Louisiana State University Assistant Professor of Political Communication Michael Henderson, who also directs the Public Policy Research Lab that cranks out some useful survey data from time to time, made the observation that since the 1980s turnout in elections has dropped significantly. He points to voting eligible population proportions voting that, for example, have fallen by about a third in governors’ general elections since 1983.
His figures aren’t quite precise, and it gets a little arcane to explain that. There are three measures of turnout: by registrants, by voting age population (VAP), and by voting eligible population (VEP). Registration provides the least precision, as a number of demographic, cultural, and legal factors affect it across the states; in other words, because Louisiana (all data from 2016) has the ninth-highest registration totals among the states, using this as the basis to calculate turnout may allow an actual higher proportion of the population that voted in it to seem lower than in a state with a lower registration figure but higher registered voter turnout, because by definition the latter’s larger relative pool of non-registrants can’t vote.
Louisiana State University Assistant Professor of Political Communication Michael Henderson, who also directs the Public Policy Research Lab that cranks out some useful survey data from time to time, made the observation that since the 1980s turnout in elections has dropped significantly. He points to voting eligible population proportions voting that, for example, have fallen by about a third in governors’ general elections since 1983.
His figures aren’t quite precise, and it gets a little arcane to explain that. There are three measures of turnout: by registrants, by voting age population (VAP), and by voting eligible population (VEP). Registration provides the least precision, as a number of demographic, cultural, and legal factors affect it across the states; in other words, because Louisiana (all data from 2016) has the ninth-highest registration totals among the states, using this as the basis to calculate turnout may allow an actual higher proportion of the population that voted in it to seem lower than in a state with a lower registration figure but higher registered voter turnout, because by definition the latter’s larger relative pool of non-registrants can’t vote.
18.10.17
Low turnouts won't eliminate LA elective offices
With the absurdly-low turnout for the Louisiana treasurer
special election, some
talk has emerged about eliminating as elective minor statewide elective
offices like that. That will prove daunting in a state with a political culture
built upon office-holding.
Almost every state goes beyond the federal government model of two elected executives because of presumed “good government” movements in the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries. Then, because of rampant corruption in many state governments, reformers decided by fragmenting power in state governments this would prevent its concentration that made graft inviting and possible. Louisiana’s rich history, if anything, encouraged this multiplicity from reformers.
States vary in the number of elected singular executives, ranging from New Hampshire electing only its governor to South Carolina and Washington having nine. When it enacting its 1974 Constitution, Louisiana remained part of that highest tier, including the seven still elected today plus a commissioner of elections and a superintendent of education.
Almost every state goes beyond the federal government model of two elected executives because of presumed “good government” movements in the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries. Then, because of rampant corruption in many state governments, reformers decided by fragmenting power in state governments this would prevent its concentration that made graft inviting and possible. Louisiana’s rich history, if anything, encouraged this multiplicity from reformers.
States vary in the number of elected singular executives, ranging from New Hampshire electing only its governor to South Carolina and Washington having nine. When it enacting its 1974 Constitution, Louisiana remained part of that highest tier, including the seven still elected today plus a commissioner of elections and a superintendent of education.
17.10.17
Ties to Jindal unhelpful, to Edwards unpenalized
Oversimplified and grossly stated, the lesson this
past weekend for Louisiana state elections was some connection to former Gov. Bobby
Jindal turned into a penalty, while you got a pass if you had connected
yourself to current Gov. John
Bel Edwards.
Although lawyer Democrat Derrick Edwards racked up the most votes in the special election for treasurer, Republican former state Rep. John Schroder turned out the winner. Edwards, no relationship to the governor, ran a shoestring campaign but put some egg on the face of a state party that refused to back him by parlaying merely his position as the only Democrat running to capture 31 percent of the vote, with Schroder trailing at 24 percent.
But that bested both former Jindal Administration official Angéle Davis and state Sen. Neil Riser, who had 22 and 18 percent, respectively, both of the GOP. Analysis by regions in Louisiana reveal how Schroder gained the runoff, where he becomes the massive favorite to triumph and complete the term to 2019.
Although lawyer Democrat Derrick Edwards racked up the most votes in the special election for treasurer, Republican former state Rep. John Schroder turned out the winner. Edwards, no relationship to the governor, ran a shoestring campaign but put some egg on the face of a state party that refused to back him by parlaying merely his position as the only Democrat running to capture 31 percent of the vote, with Schroder trailing at 24 percent.
But that bested both former Jindal Administration official Angéle Davis and state Sen. Neil Riser, who had 22 and 18 percent, respectively, both of the GOP. Analysis by regions in Louisiana reveal how Schroder gained the runoff, where he becomes the massive favorite to triumph and complete the term to 2019.
16.10.17
New Orleans vote results promise further decline
While New Orleans continues its pursuit of
mediocrity, Jefferson Parish makes a bit of progress away from it, local
election results this weekend revealed.
With a statutory change since its last elections, New Orleans now has these in the fall previous to the year in which terms end. The final numbers reveal a depressing acquiescence to greater government control and collectivism, placing redistribution ahead of wealth creation: of the 48 candidates for mayor and City Council, 37 ran as Democrats with just one Republican. Needless to say, the next mayor and seven councilors all will be Democrats spanning the ideological scale from moderate liberal to very liberal.
The mayoral candidates that went into a runoff, City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell and former judge Desiree Charbonnet, of the serious contestants ran the furthest left ideologically. Their platforms of items such as supporting a “living wage,” using government fiat to control housing provision, promising greater expenditures without realistic plans to pay for these other than tax increases, diversion of city contracting money based upon race and sex of contractors along with other appeals to identity politics, and committing the city to expensive, economic development-unfriendly and unnecessary environmental schemes barely distinguish themselves from each other.
With a statutory change since its last elections, New Orleans now has these in the fall previous to the year in which terms end. The final numbers reveal a depressing acquiescence to greater government control and collectivism, placing redistribution ahead of wealth creation: of the 48 candidates for mayor and City Council, 37 ran as Democrats with just one Republican. Needless to say, the next mayor and seven councilors all will be Democrats spanning the ideological scale from moderate liberal to very liberal.
The mayoral candidates that went into a runoff, City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell and former judge Desiree Charbonnet, of the serious contestants ran the furthest left ideologically. Their platforms of items such as supporting a “living wage,” using government fiat to control housing provision, promising greater expenditures without realistic plans to pay for these other than tax increases, diversion of city contracting money based upon race and sex of contractors along with other appeals to identity politics, and committing the city to expensive, economic development-unfriendly and unnecessary environmental schemes barely distinguish themselves from each other.
15.10.17
The Advocate column, Oct. 15, 2017
LA Republicans go left with Jones Act
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_d5302d76-aef0-11e7-b000-ffa80c8806ca.html
Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_a639bbd2-aad0-11e7-80f5-9fb195675eb4.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_882a6fdc-ac52-11e7-9da8-1bef229a5d23.html
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/10/special-interests-overwhelm-graves-good.html
https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-sinking-ship-of-cabotage-how-the-jones-act-lets-unions-and-a-few-companies-hold-the-economy-hostage/
http://www.opensecrets.org
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_d5302d76-aef0-11e7-b000-ffa80c8806ca.html
Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_a639bbd2-aad0-11e7-80f5-9fb195675eb4.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_882a6fdc-ac52-11e7-9da8-1bef229a5d23.html
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/10/special-interests-overwhelm-graves-good.html
https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-sinking-ship-of-cabotage-how-the-jones-act-lets-unions-and-a-few-companies-hold-the-economy-hostage/
http://www.opensecrets.org
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf
12.10.17
More hotel unionization harmful to New Orleans
Great; just as New Orleans finally has struggled past
its pre-Hurricane Katrina tourism benchmarks, it takes a step backwards with an
unnecessary escalation in some lodging prices that will deter visitors.
That will happen as a result of unionization of its largest hotel, the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. UNITE HERE and management currently negotiate a contract for around 500 workers, although bringing them into the cartel’s fold increases union penetration into the city’s overall hospitality industry only to four percent.
Advocates of the development spent some effort blowing sunshine up people’s skirts. Leftist interest groups took note and booked more business at it. Workers obviously ignorant of how the world works crowed about how they could get a “fair share” Hilton’s profits. Even an academician, clearly not trained in economics, thought this could make more jobs into “middle class.”
That will happen as a result of unionization of its largest hotel, the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. UNITE HERE and management currently negotiate a contract for around 500 workers, although bringing them into the cartel’s fold increases union penetration into the city’s overall hospitality industry only to four percent.
Advocates of the development spent some effort blowing sunshine up people’s skirts. Leftist interest groups took note and booked more business at it. Workers obviously ignorant of how the world works crowed about how they could get a “fair share” Hilton’s profits. Even an academician, clearly not trained in economics, thought this could make more jobs into “middle class.”
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