Panic must not lead to opposing good amendment

Ludwig von Mises coined the term “useful innocents” – later transformed by others into a less -charitable term “useful idiots” – to describe those who he saw as “confused and misguided sympathizers” of communism. While that ideology isn’t in play over Amendment 2 to Louisiana’s Constitution appearing on the Mar. 29 ballot, certainly the term applies as the political left has found allies on the right to help it do it dirty work in trying to vote down the measure that would transform fundamentally for the better the state’s fiscal system.

The left has pursued a two-prong strategy to this end. One involves an attack over procedural measures surrounding the amendment’s placing on the ballot (as well as with two others). Upon inspection, its attempt is quite wanting and the judiciary unlikely will find merit in it, but as a by-product of the suit to invalidate the ballot placement as a result the ensuing publicity is designed to sow doubt in the minds of those who, upon analysis of its claims, should know better.

The other is a campaign to convince normally sober supporters of religious activity of a fantastic plot to strip from the property of religious organizations not exclusively used for religious purposes ad valorem tax exemptions, merely by the move through Amendment 2 of such exemptions from the Constitution into statute. The change is part of strategy of removing from the document things that are absolutely not necessarily part of a bedrock assessment of guiding principles behind it – in this case, that imperative being that religious activity should be supported by the state in prohibiting local governments (and, technically, the state as the Constitution empowers it to levy a statewide property tax of up to 5.75 mills, but it never has done so) from taxing property unequivocally part of a religious mission – into statute, if only to reduce the outsized and overly-specific nature of the document as it stands.

Five years on, LA learned hard pandemic lessons

And so it started five years ago today, unwise actions by Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards that, as a saving grace at least, established – at a high and unnecessary cost – a knowledge bank from which to work in the future and triggered some beneficial changes to state policies.

The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic had launched in all ways but name, becoming noticeable in several of the largest cities in the country but also in New Orleans. Credit Carnival, which had ended almost three weeks earlier, as the device that brought it hot and heavily into the state. So, on Mar. 13, 2020, Edwards issued the first of a string of proclamations under his statutory powers – then heavily favoring unilateral gubernatorial action – significantly curtailing personal and economic freedoms of individuals.

Perhaps he could be forgiven in the early, uncertain days of the pandemic for such a reaction, and the prevailing ethos was that stopping most everything for a couple of weeks would knock the virus down in its tracks. But the problem became a mutation of that ethos into creating close to attaining a zero-risk “zero Covid” environment requiring the heavy hand of the state that, even that early on, preceptive policy-makers realized was impossible and that the costs would be staggeringly high even to achieve mild and incomplete effectiveness towards that goal.

Speed camera rules in LA still need tightening

An action that increasingly has become mistaken the Shreveport City Council, with Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux’s blessing, seems set to expand, knocking on to Caddo Parish’s foray into it – begging further legislative intervention.

A few years ago, the city installed traffic control cameras around school zones where speed limits would change. The rationale given was safety, but that always is the last refuge of scoundrels when dealing with these instruments around speed limit changes and lighted intersections. Rather than setting up a whole camera infrastructure, sworn law enforcement officers can hold monitors and save a government thousands or even millions of dollars in forgone equipment, maintenance, and operating fees.

Instead, despite their bleating otherwise, it’s all about money. That’s why Shreveport has put up with plenty of controversy about defective operations and phantom offenses to continue the initiative – some two to three million bucks a year in revenue over expenses through last year. So much so now Caddo Parish will join in as the city looks to place more cameras on roads the contractor Blue Line Solutions reaping business from the city to operate the cameras claims have a high propensity for speeding on them.

Left whips up fear in attempt to scuttle revamp

Attempts to derail Amendment 2 on Louisiana’s March 29 ballot come in two types: as previously mentioned a disingenuous legal strategy, but also a more principled opposition yet which fails on the merits – where the former tries to scare the latter into agreement.

One dubious approach tries to have the entire measure thrown off the ballot for alleged infractions. Soon to be put to the test in court, those behind it as well as supporters of the effort inhabit the political left which wants to see the measure fail by any means possible as it offends their ideological sensibilities; i.e. it makes expansive government for redistributive purposes more difficult by, in the main, granting income tax relief to middle-class filers and above and makes it easier to cut out favoritism in the tax code.

However, another more thoughtful tack against focuses on the amendment’s paring of tax exceptions in the Constitution. The thinking is not only would this make for a less-unwieldy document but also create greater flexibility to change out of items that may have protection today which in the future may be determined to make less sense as exceptions and then can be altered or abandoned more easily.

Vote affirmative on consequential LA amendments

All four, including the most consequential in decades, amendments to the Louisiana Constitution on the Mar. 29 ballot deserve voter approval. Let’s see why.

#1 – would clarify disciplining of out-of-state lawyers and creation of multi-parish specialty courts. Essentially, a loophole exists that inhibits disciplining this cohort for some matters, which the change would close. Specialty courts, existing presently in areas such as drug cases, family matters, and for veterans, are confined to the 64 parishes or 42 judicial districts. Proponents say a regional approach could help in matters such as these and for potentially new kinds of courts, such as a business court seen in the majority of states. This would have the disadvantage of adding more elected judges in a state that seats a surplus of judges, but on the whole there are more plusses than minuses. YES.

#2 – would reduce the maximum rate of income tax, double income tax deductions for residents age 65 or older, slow down a governmental growth limit, merge significant constitutional funds while moving lesser ones into statute, give parishes more severance tax dollars, provide incentive to prevent state taxpayers from subsidizing local taxpayers, move some tax breaks into statute, and prompt a salary increase for teachers while paring unfunded mandates, among other items. Lengthy and complex, it serves as the linchpin to fiscal reforms enacted by the Legislature last year.

Bin unserious proposed NIL tax break bill

A bill contemplated by Republican state Rep. Dixon McMakin makes no fiscal sense and only subverts the purpose of higher education in Louisiana.

The bill in concept would exempt from state income tax earnings that college students receive from Name, Image, and Likeness deals in athletics. Individuals may negotiate these or another organization, such as a school, may do so on behalf of all its eligible students.

Dollar figures for these are generally not public, and they can be substantial. Publicized have been deals by Louisiana State University gymnast Livvy Dunne who, despite modest athletic credentials, has one of the most lucrative set of NIL deals due to her superior marketing skills, estimated in the neighborhood of at least $4 million annually. Regardless, given the state’s income tax rates, such an exemption may not even cost the state eight figures annually.

GOP Medicaid reform to benefit LA disabled

Rather than trepidation, the most health-vulnerable Louisianans should feel elation that the Republican Congress is talking about changing Medicaid reimbursement rules for states.

As part of federal government right-sizing discussions, the House of Representatives GOP majority has set as a goal a reduction of $880 billion over the next decades in costs that include Medicaid. Even factoring out non-Medicaid expenditures and well as waste reduction – and anybody who has worked through the Medicaid-financed system knows there is a formidable amount of it – the total dollar amount the federal government would have to spend on Medicaid would have to decrease to meet this goal.

In tandem, the majority has discussed making Medicaid subject to block grants. This would give states greater latitude over how funds designated for Medicaid could be spent in fulfilling its purposes, allowing them to better target highly-needy individuals rather than disproportionate spending on those less so or in no real need.

Bill could help discourage scofflaw landlords

Insofar as the upcoming 2025 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature and dealing with scofflaw apartment complex owners (and somewhat stealing from the “Mad Max” franchise), two bills enter, one bill leaves.

An issue that primarily has popped up in Shreveport involves apartment complex owners not paying water bills to the city and no real means to force them to do so. This leaves the city with the Hobson’s choice of tolerating it or cutting it off that then puts residents in a bind. Residents supposedly have an approximation of their water bills rolled into rent, as the complexes have a single line paid wholly which then splits off into individual units. But even though most occupants pay their rent, owners at several complexes haven’t remitted their due to the city for months.

The city has trouble collecting as ownership arrangements under law don’t present a responsible entity from which the city readily can collect. The complexes in question are older, lower-income residential in nature where the owners, because the properties aren’t worth much, bleed them as much as they can. Also some such properties the city has had declared derelict, with others otherwise habitable it has tolerated leaving water on a few hours a day so as not to make the situation of the residents paying in good faith untenable.

Just say no, in triplicate, to BC amendments

The best reason for Bossier Citians to vote down all three charter amendments on Mar. 29 is not so much what they do but what they don’t do.

Two of the three introduce relaxed term limit proposals, that only would permit three consecutive terms for city councilors and the mayor but leave open the chance that an elected official could return to a previous office after at least one term out. Products of a Charter Review Commission whose final membership was comprised of appointees of city councilors hostile to term limits and their appointees, in isolation these offerings are unobjectionable, but they don’t exist in isolation.

Because on May 3, another, more stringent, term limits amendment hits the ballot. This one is three terms lifetime and retroactive, product of a citizen-led petition process and the superior version if the goal is to prevent citizen-politicians from being captured by government.

Monroe school district unable to get it together

As if City of Monroe Schools didn’t have enough problems, apparent thievery at the top is being complemented it would seem from the bottom as well, all the while with the district saddled with minimal, even deteriorating, academic progress.

In the past year, the District has been rocked by allegations that former Superintendent Brent Vidrine on two occasions defrauded it. As part of his contract, he was allowed to buy more service time for retirement, but allegedly he forged documents to show he paid more than he did to receive the benefit. He has been indicted for this, but has paid back some, $20,000, and retired from the District last year even as he seemed to have shorted the district over $48,000 more. Still unresolved is annual extra but unauthorized payments according to his contracts totaling over $141,000 during his decade-long employment.

Possibly this activity was so under the radar that the Monroe City School Board couldn’t discover it during normal due diligence. In last year’s audit, the Board promised closer attention to superintendent reimbursement as a response. But how it has handled reports of spending concerning student activity accounts doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the current Board can get it right.