Implement needed big rate hike for state's insurer

Louisianans shouldn’t subsidize the living choices of some, at least not to the extent suggested by special interests trying to ensure they can make a few more bucks.

Next month, the state Department of Insurance will approve new rates for Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state-run insurer of last resort. Because of storm activity over the past year or so, the numbers of properties enrolled in it has tripled to 114,000 as private insurers exit or won’t write policies in particular areas, especially south of Interstates 10/12. This has caused a proposed dramatic surge in the rate requested, an average 63 percent hike for 2023.

That has led a group of real estate agents in New Orleans to call upon Republican Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, who not only sits on the Citizens’ board that asked for the increase but also gives final approval after actuarial study to a rate thus determined, to scale back the increase as it could cause a significant financial burden to homeowners. A group spokesman claims there’s no need for changing rates now and insinuated that taxpayers should eat at least some of the reserves collected because that “is the reason why government exists. Citizens is a nonprofit.”

LA poised to have most congressional power ever

Even those who would vote against him in Louisiana’s Fourth Congressional District should be pleased with certain dual reelections of Bossier City Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, which along with the extremely likely reelection of the First District’s Metairie GOP Rep. Steve Scalise will bring power unseen in history to the state’s congressional delegation.

No one filed to run against Johnson in the Nov. 8 election, automatically reelecting him. Scalise picked up only token opposition that makes him overwhelmingly likely to retain his seat. Yet as importantly it’s just as probable as a Scalise win that Republicans will retake the House of Representatives, bringing Louisiana great clout because of the pair’s leadership positions.

Parties in Congress have a formal leadership structure diffused by a parallel system of party committees. In the GOP, Scalise ranks below only California’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is overwhelmingly likely to become the Speaker of the House in early 2023, so Scalise would assume the majority leader’s position as second-in-command. Johnson is vice chairman of the Republican Conference, the organization of all party members that makes decisions regarding leadership and committee spots, formally appointing McCarthy, Scalise, Johnson, and other officials.

Nungesser false assertions outed on national TV

Trying to salvage his decision last week not to hold New Orleans accountable to the rule of law, Louisiana Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser exposed to a national television audience the hypocritical, if not disingenuous, half-baked rationales he and others had employed.

Appearing on Fox News this past Sunday, Nungesser fielded questions about the issue, where the State Bond Commission after two previous tries finally approved a $39 million non-cash line of credit, termed Priority 5 (P5) funding, for the quasi-state agency New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board to build a new power plant that could increase the reliability of pumps operating to prevent flooding. Two months previously, it had authorized the another $32.7 million in actual cash, termed Priority 1 (P1) funding, for the project towards the eventual total $106 million cost.

But it had refused the P5 amount because a couple of weeks earlier the New Orleans City Council passed a resolution declaring that the city wouldn’t dedicate resources towards investigating allegations of illegal abortions provided, under a newly-enacted state law that severely limits the practice, unless incident to another allegation of law-breaking. Nungesser’s representative at the time joined others in the refusal, and would do so again the next month. At the time, the majority noted that the P5 amount wouldn’t become relevant for many months and any actual cash wouldn’t be disbursed until later in 2023 – if at all, as the Legislature could choose not to reauthorize project funding. In the meantime, the postponement would give the city a chance to provide an adequate explanation for picking and choosing which laws it would make a good faith effort to enforce, if not reconsider and rescind its official declaration.

Unprincipled GOP members sell out on rule of law

If you find yourself in a situation where you have to defend what you think you hold dear by pointing a gun, unless you’re willing to use it not only do you fail to protect but you also invite more threatening behavior. It’s a lesson many Republican Louisiana statewide elected officials – including two running for governor next year – and legislative leaders could learn, citizens discovered to their dismay at the latest State Bond Commission meeting.

Last week, the panel again took up the matter of issuing a $39 million line of credit to the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board to finance flood protection measures. The previous two months majorities – at first all or representatives of Republicans Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, Treas. John Schroder, Sec. of State Kyle Ardoin, House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, and Sen. Pres. Page Cortez, plus appointees of Schexnayder and Cortez, voted not to advance the item because of a controversial official decision made by New Orleans.

This took the form of a City Council resolution explaining a decision essentially only when committed in the presence of law enforcement to enforce the state’s ban on almost all abortions. It pledged not to devote any city resources to investigating reports of abortion occurring except when incident to another alleged offense. The GOP SBC attendees at first unanimously held it up, pending further explanation by the city that it would investigate all reported instances.

Overcome liberal populism to nix LA income tax

The biggest obstacle in Louisiana eliminating the individual income tax isn’t so much the mechanism as the punitive and redistributive attitude from the state’s populist political culture that lays behind the current perverse system that will have to be overcome to trigger the necessary dramatic changes.

Last week, the House of Representatives launched hearings into the matter, as an approach to shed the problematic aspects of the current tax regime. The best, most effective taxation system has fairness, adequacy, simplicity, transparency, and administrative ease, criteria on which Louisiana’s largely falls well short mostly due to its progressive nature amplified by numerous exceptions and special treatments.

Specific to individual income taxation, it’s not very fair because relatively few people pay the vast bulk of these taxes. Hit six figures in adjusted gross income and that 15 percent of filers pays 63 percent of the total, but the 59 percent who stay under $40,000 pays a measly 10 percent. Nor does the current regime appear to be too adequate since many years this century the state seems to have a funding crisis – although this also depends upon spending priorities which in some instances seem quite questionable.

LA statewide candidacies continue clarifying

Statewide elections next year have become more interesting in Louisiana with developments over the past ten days.

Republican former Rep. John Fleming made it official earlier this month by formally announcing a run for lieutenant governor. Although he said he would wait on a formal announcement from incumbent Republican Billy Nungesser that he wouldn’t run for reelection in pursuit of the state’s top office, Fleming committed fully less than a month after Nungesser told attendees at a function related to his job that he fully intended to shoot for the state’s top spot.

Fleming brings much to the table to make his a formidable candidacy: his most recent government work including a stint at the White House, past congressional service, having run a credible statewide campaign (for Senate, where he didn’t make the runoff), his ability to self-finance, and his desire for the job unclouded by its use as a stepping stone for something else that should appeal to voters uncomfortable with a steady stream of candidates over the years who asked to be elected to the least political/policy-oriented statewide office but who clearly wanted to use it to audition for very politicized/policy-oriented executive offices. And it made sense for him to start the fundraising and publicity now regardless of Nungesser’s intentions.

Chambers ready to beat old guard at own game

Read comments made by Democrat Gary Chambers about his bid for Louisiana’s U.S. Senate seat this fall and you might think him crazy. Indeed, crazy – like a fox, which has the powers-that-be among state Democrats sweating.

On a radio program, Chambers recently revealed how he would win the contest against overwhelming favorite Republican Sen. John Kennedy. He said in the incumbent’s 2016 election that black voters didn’t have a candidate they could believe in, including from the top down in the presidential contest, and so not enough showed up that would have defeated Kennedy.

That analysis seems suspect. If Chambers is saying that the ideal candidate to suck in black voters – as well as other racial minorities and trendy leftist whites – in large numbers to the polls is somebody who proclaims a far-left agenda such as himself, then two years ago black Democrat Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins, whose agenda didn’t differ all that much from Chambers’ minus the hooting up on camera, should have defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy. Instead, Perkins couldn’t muster even a fifth of the vote, and almost half as many as that voted for black perennial Democrat candidate Derrick Edwards who spent next to nothing on the contest but who snagged the endorsement of the state’s then-only black member of Congress.

Excuse-making top Edwards official must go

Give credit to Democrat state Rep. Jason Hughes for not shutting up and not toeing the party line: his call for Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards to fire Department of Child and Family Services Sec. Marketa Garner Walters, or for her to resign, rings true.

Walters has gotten into hot water over persistent problems with child welfare services supposed to place children at risk in protective environments increasingly failing to do so. Legislators finally had enough and have launched hearings on the matter, where in the first Hughes said Walters needed to clear out.

To all of this, Walters pulled out the dog-ate-homework excuse of politicians wishing to avoid responsibility: blaming her predecessor. In response, Hughes didn’t let her off the hook, pointing out that might work as an explanation after just six months in office, but Walters now has been in her post over six years and things seemed to have become worse.

Correct overreaction with tougher juvenile law

You can try to avoid the real solution to a public policy problem to please a political agenda, or you can face reality and actually get the job done – something neither Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards nor Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc seem willing to do.

Public concern has grown over the incidence and severity of juvenile crime in Louisiana over the past year. LeBlanc, who has shown a chameleon-like ability to adapt his rhetoric to please a tough-on-crime boss like Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal and then the touchy-feely Edwards, sees it as a problem but pulls up short in identifying an important consideration in its genesis. “A failed education system, poverty levels, parenting is nonexistent, and I think the two years of COVID has some impact on that,” he recently explained as to the causes he saw.

Well, Louisiana’s education system is near the bottom of the states, but it has slowly improved. The relative poverty of its people hasn’t recently changed dramatically for better or worse. Parenting ability is hard to quantify, but seems unlikely that its quality has taken a nosedive in the short-term. The pandemic did have a negative impact on crime, but actually less so for juveniles than adults where, except for homicides, nationally juvenile crime actually was flat in the first year of the pandemic (crime statistics generally lag a couple of years).

BC's no-bid, big-govt attitude strikes again

It’s only $36,000, but the debate over Bossier City paying a tennis pro to oversee programming of that recreational offering strikes at the heart of the city’s big-spending ways and serves as a microcosm for any municipality on acceptable deployment of taxpayer dollars.

Last week, the City Council took up the matter of renewing a contract with the individual, Todd Killen, who has coordinated these programs for the past six years at the Bossier Tennis Center, who otherwise coaches on the side. While the city picks up operating and maintenance costs of the facility in in its northern part, the list of provided services required is long, including giving lessons, conducting clinics, running tournaments and leagues, and offering repairs and merchandise, all together necessitating the hiring of employees.

If that sounds overwhelming, consider the leeway granted for the contractor to make money. The contract allows him to retain all revenue derived from tennis instruction, the sale of merchandise and apparel, food and beverages (if any, except vending machines), court fees, memberships, racket stringing fees, league fees, tournament fees and equipment rental. That Killen wants to renew for up to three years indicates he doesn’t think he’ll take a bath on this arrangement.