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Archive for May, 2012

Jindal’s economic yo-yo has perpetual ups and downs; is Louisiana better than the worst or worse than the best?

Posted in Economy, Education, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Prison, Privatization, Revenue, Taxes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2012| 4 Comments »

If you feel you’ve been getting mixed signals about the need for more state revenue vs. the need for more tax cuts, there’s good reason.

If you’re a bit confused about the fiscal health of the State of Louisiana, you’re certainly not alone.

If you think you can call for budget cuts, college tuition fee increases, and spending freezes in-state and then run around the country and crow to Sean Hannity about how good things are in Louisiana, then you’re Gov. Piyush Jindal.

Only Piyush would insist on having it both ways.

If you have your head out of the sand and are not fooled for one nano-second by his Protestant church appearances and pseudo-reform measures, then you’re a Louisiana voter with at least a modicum of intelligence.

For your edification and in no particular order, we offer the following condensed news items about Louisiana’s economy that have appeared over the past several months. The lone exception to that time frame is the first story that appeared four years ago and which set the stage for those to follow:

• May 2008: Gov. Jindal repeals the Stelly Plan, estimated to cost the state as much as $300 million per year. Jindal said the repeal could save single tax filers as much as $500 per year and joint filers up to $1,000. What he did not say was that single filers would need to make as much as $90,000 and joint filers $150,000 per year to realize the maximum savings.

• July 2011: Louisiana earns a no. 1 ranking for economic development for the third consecutive year from the Southern Business and Development magazine. The Lake Charles American Press said, “Much of that credit belongs to Gov. Bobby Jindal.”

• April 2012: The state’s Revenue Estimating Conference projected a drop in $210 million in revenue for the remainder of the current fiscal year and another $304 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year. “The problem is the economy, lamented Greg Albrecht, chief economist for the Legislative Fiscal Office.

• October 2011: President Obama should take a cue from Louisiana on job creation, Jindal tells Faux newsman Sean Hannity. “Every year I have been governor, our employment rate has been below the southern and national averages,” he said. “We’ve added 45,000 jobs in economic developments and $10 billion in private capital investments, three years in a row.”

• May 2012: Louisiana’s full-time college students may be forced to pay an extra $300 per semester in new fees to help cover massive budgetary cutbacks by colleges and universities. College tuition costs in Louisiana have increased 30 percent since Jindal took office in 2008.

• April 2012: Even with the state’s budget problems piling up and income projections plummeting, Jindal continues to see his administration through rose-colored glasses. “More people are working in Louisiana than ever before,” he said, citing 44,000 imaginary jobs added over the past year. Sen. Ed Murray, keeping it real, asked, perhaps somewhat rhetorically, “When is our state going to see the positive impact (of the alleged jobs)? We keep having to have budget cuts because revenues are down.”

• June 2011: a reporter writing in the Detroit Free Press noted that Louisiana jumped to No. 1 in Site Selection magazine’s 2011 overall competitiveness ranking in terms of attracting corporate investment. He said Louisiana and Jindal were doing “a lot of smart things to turn (the economy) around.” Comparing Louisiana to Michigan, the reporter said, “If Louisiana could rebound during the downturn of 2008-09, there’s hope here, too.”

• March 2012: Jindal issues Executive Order No. BJ 2012-3 initiating a spending freeze for state agencies pursuant to projected budgetary shortfalls. The spending freeze augments a hiring freeze ordered in July of 2011.

• April 2012: In an email to supporters, Jindal touts a number of industrial expansions in the state. “The bottom line is that Louisiana is on the move,” he said. “Our state is climbing up in the rankings and securing economic development wins that build momentum for a better and more prosperous Louisiana. There’s still work to be done, but we’re making tremendous progress.” Jindal called for continued tax cuts, revamping workforce training programs and “transformative education reforms.” He said Louisiana is taking steps “that signal to the business community that our state is the best place in the world for companies to invest and create jobs.”

• April 2012: Since 2008, the year Jindal took office, Louisiana’s per capita income ranking has soared from 29th in the nation to 28th. The per capita income of $38,578 for the state in 2011 compares to the national average of $41,663. But we are ahead of Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. We do rank near the top in violent crime, however. While we’re way down at 33rd in rapes, we’re 18th in robbery, 14th in auto theft, 9th in burglary, 4th in assault and—drum roll, please—first in murder. Overall, Louisiana ranks third in violent crime.

• May 2012: Chief Executive magazine announces that CEOs nationwide rank Louisiana as the most improved state for business in the U.S., going from 27th in 2011 to 13th this year. “Since we took office in 2008, we’ve worked tirelessly to create a business environment where companies want to invest and create jobs for our people. We’ve reined in government spending, eliminated job-killing taxes on business, created customized workforce training programs and overhauled our governmental ethics laws.”

• November 2011: The U.S. Census Bureau, in noting that poverty has been on the rise since the 2008 recession, release statistics that show the poverty rate for Louisiana to be 18.8 percent, which is 3.5 percent higher than the national average of 15.3 percent.

• April 2012: Area Development magazine ranks Louisiana No. 6 among the Top States for Doing Business in 2011. Business Facilities magazine named the Louisiana Office of Economic Development’s (LED) FastStart the nation’s best state workforce training program in both 2010 and 2011, calling the Louisiana program “the gold standard for workforce training solutions.”

• May 2012: Legislators are considering whether to use Louisiana’s “rainy day” fund to help offset a $211 million shortfall projected by the Revenue Estimating Conference. “I don’t know that there are a whole lot of options left at this point in time,” said House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles). Jindal’s office indicated that the governor would consider using the rainy day money. “We’re prepared to make reductions, but we’re open to different ideas from legislators that part of a balanced budget that doesn’t raise taxes and protects critical services,” said Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin.

• April 2012: Pollina Corporate Real Estate names Louisiana the most-improved state in the nation in its ranking of business-friendly states. “We have noticed an increase in the number of companies that are considering a move to the state or want to have the state evaluated as a potential location,” the report said.

• February 2012: Gov. Jindal proposes a $25.5 billion state operating budget that would close prisons, eliminate more than 6,000 state jobs, cut rates for health-care providers who treat the poor and freeze, for a fourth consecutive year, per-public basic state aid to public schools. Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater said a projected $895 million shortfall would mean “holding the line on certain anticipated cost increases.”

• April 2012: Southern Business & Development magazine named Louisiana as the 2011 State of the Year for the third consecutive year. Louisiana earned the highest project score per capita in the magazine’s history.

• April 2012: Rep. John Schroder (R-Covington), questioned the lack of accountability in allowing LED to offer increased tax breaks for payroll, relocation costs and corporate income and franchise taxes for businesses the state wants to attract. “It looks like we just give sort of a blank check to the Department of Economic Development, and it doesn’t come from their money. It comes from the treasury,” he said. The various state tax exemptions have cost Louisiana more than $18 billion over the past four years.

Incentives already offered by LED include Enterprise Zone, Quality Jobs, Restoration Tax Abatement, Industrial Tax Exemption, Research and Development Tax Credit, Sound Recording Investor Tax Credit, Digital Medial Incentive, Motion Picture Investor Tax Credit, Live Performance Tax Credit, Louisiana FastStart, Technology Commercialization Credit and Jobs Program, Modernization Tax Credit, Small Business Loan Program, Micro Loan Program, Bonding Assistance Program, Veteran Initiative and Mentor-Protégé Tax Credit.

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Eavesdropping on lobbyists at Senate Labor & Industrial Relations Committee during recess in SB 560 hearing

Posted in Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist on May 7, 2012| 3 Comments »

The Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee hearing last Thursday, May 3, gave us some interesting audio while the committee was in recess.

The committee spent more than an hour on SB 560 by Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville) that would make sweeping changes to the state’s workers’ compensation statutes.

Basically, the bill, a product of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), would limit which doctors could treat workers who are injured on the job by setting up a medical provider network that injured workers must utilize.

The bill also would limit legal fees for attorneys representing injured workers.

But it was when the committee recessed 53 minutes into hearings that things got really interesting.

That’s because a few pro-business lobbyists were still sitting at or near the witness table and someone left the camera and microphones on.

Be patient. It takes a few minutes for this video to load.

http://senate.la.gov/Labor&Industrial/archives/2012/video.htm

At 53:07, Jim Patterson, lobbyist for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), sitting at the witness table to the viewer’s left, begins discussions with Clark Cosse, seated in the first row behind and to Patterson’s left:

• Cosse: “Kostelka’s (Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe) a wild card.”

• Patterson: “You never know what’s gonna set him off.”

At 55:09, Alton Ashy, lobbyist for Worley Claims, a score of gaming interests and several medical providers–and a political ally of Gov. Bobby Jindal–approaches Patterson to briefly discuss one witness’s opposition to the bill and cracks a joke before moving on.

Patterson then turns to Dennis Juge, a Metairie attorney who, along with Patterson and Cosse, was re-appointed by Gov. Jindal last November to the Workers’ Compensation Advisory Board, to repeat the joke told him by Ashy.

• Patterson: “He said maybe they should rope off a corner and give each of you knives and tie your wrists together and (inaudible).”

• Juge: “It would be easier….and cleaner.”

It was at this point, at 56:45, that Cosse re-entered the conversation and things got a little more graphic.

• Cosse: “In lobbyist school they have a desk and they put a little butt on it and you…” (He bobs back and forth, making kissing motions.) “It doesn’t matter who they are, when they (presumably legislators) get elected, you gotta get along with ‘em. If you lose ‘em one day, you gotta go back and get ‘em the next day.”

• Patterson: “And they put a little hair on that hiney to make it all the more challenging.”

(Laughter.)

• Cosse: “That’s right, like hair on soap, man.”

• Patterson: “That’s too funny.”

And that, folks, is today’s civics lesson. You must (or should) be 18 years of age to attend a legislative session or committee meeting unless accompanied by an adult.

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A joke passed along by a reader deemed worthy of sharing

Posted in Uncategorized on May 7, 2012| 7 Comments »

In Baton Rouge an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For years he had faithfully served the people of the state’s capital city and was well known among the elected officials. He motioned for his nurse to come near.

“Yes, Father?” said the nurse.

“I would really like to see Governor Jindal and former Senator Noble Ellington before I die,” whispered the priest.

“I’ll see what I can do, Father”, replied the nurse.

The nurse sent the request to the governor and the Department of Insurance and waited for a response. Soon the word arrived; Jindal and Ellington would be delighted to visit the priest.

As they went to the hospital, Jindal commented to Ellington, “I don’t know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly help our images and might even get me elected to higher office.”

Ellington agreed that it was a good thing in that it might take some of the pressure off his accepting a $150,000 do-nothing job with the department after leaving the legislature for the sole purpose of increasing his retirement even as Jindal was slashing rank-and-file employee pensions.

“That’s true,” Jindal replied. “Maybe it’ll help people to forget that I bought back 2.2 years so I could increase my own retirement and that I exempted statewide elected officials from the 3 percent increase in retirement contributions.”

When they arrived at the priest’s room, the priest took Jindal’s hand in his right hand and Ellington’s hand in his left hand. There was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest’s face.

Finally Jindal spoke. “Father, of all the people you could have chosen, why did you choose us to be with you as you near the end?”

The old priest slowly replied, “I have always tried to pattern my life after our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

“Amen”, said Jindal.

“Amen”, said Ellington.

The old priest continued: “Jesus died between two thieves; I would like to do the same.”

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Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in Civil Service, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Transparency on May 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“Those are red-herring arguments whose sole purpose is to distract from the real agenda: silencing the voices of workers who want to have some say in determining their own salaries, working conditions and professional rights and responsibilities.”

–Individual writing on Facebook in opposition of House bills 88 and 1023, which would abolish payroll deductions for membership dues in “any entity which engages in political activity.”

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It’s just an innocent little ol’ bill that would abolish payroll deductions for Children’s Museum & LaCAP, among others

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Attorney General, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2012| 9 Comments »

Freedom of expression for state employees, even when they pay for it, is squarely in the crosshairs of the Jindal administration.

State lawmakers in Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Idaho, Washington, Michigan, Wyoming, North Carolina and Florida have all passed or attempted to pass anti-public employee union legislation sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

More recently, the ALEC-sponsored movement has moved to Louisiana in the form of two House bills, one of which (HB 1023) is authored by ALEC member Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport). The second, HB 88, is the handiwork of Rep. Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville).

Seabaugh’s bill would prohibit mandatory payroll deductions from the paychecks of public employees for membership dues for “any entity which engages in political activity” while HB 88 by Hensgens is more narrowly worded in that it would apply only to public school officials who belong to organizations that are politically active.

Jindal would probably claim that he had nothing to do with the bills, that they were the product of free and independent-minded Seabaugh and Hensgens. But let us not overlook the fact that Jindal contributed $2,500 to each of their legislative campaigns last August.

That is enough for Louisiana’s teachers’ unions to feel that the bills are nothing more than reprisals for their opposition to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s sweeping education reform bills.

The bills could also apply to payroll deductions for membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). For doctors and nurses who work in state facilities, it also could conceivably apply to membership dues for the American Medical Association and the Louisiana State Nurses’ Association.

What about all the attorneys for the Louisiana Attorney General’s office and executive legal counsels for all the state agencies, including the governor’s office? Most of those are members of the State Bar Association and most of those pay dues through payroll deductions.

The Louisiana Retired Teachers’ Association, Louisiana State Troopers Association, Professional Fire Fighters Association and even the alumni foundations of state colleges and universities are political active to some extent.

Each of those either employs full time lobbyists to represent their interests before the legislature or do so themselves. That’s pretty far-reaching, but within the definition of either of the two bills.

The Louisiana Department of Education has an undetermined number of Teach for America members and they, too, may pay dues through payroll deduction. Teach for America is about as politically active as any other organization already mentioned.

There are others. Acadian Ambulance has an entire team of lobbyists who stand ready to twist legislative arms on behalf of their client. So what about state employees who have purchased membership with Acadian and set up payroll deductions?

Louisiana Health Service & Indemnity Co., the parent company of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana, made $17,500 in political contributions in 2003, including $10,000 to Jindal. That would constitute political activity by any definition.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield provides health insurance for tens of thousands of Louisiana active and retired employees—through payroll deductions.
The same would apply to UnitedHealthcare which also provides health care coverage and which employs lobbyists and actively provides financial support to various political campaigns.

The same goes for scores of life insurance companies which provide coverage to state employees—again, through payroll deductions. Ditto for such organizations as Humana, the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Girls Scouts of Louisiana-Pines to the Gulf, Louisiana Citizens for the Arts, Louisiana Children’s Museum, LaCAP Federal Credit Union, the four state retirement programs (LASERS, LSERS, LSPRS AND LTRS).

One would assume that the Sierra Club, Ducks Unlimited, the Coastal Conservation Association and the NRA are politically active and would thus, be forbidden to extract dues via payroll deductions.

Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, said he is convinced that Seabaugh’s bill was filed as a form of reprisals against teachers for their part in trying to sink Jindal’s education reforms.

“This is an effort to silence the voice of opposition,” Monaghan said. “Because we defend public education and stand up to the politicians who seek to bully, some want to strike us down.”

Dr. Michael Walker-Jones said the bills were “an attempt to shut down the voice of public employees totally.”

Bridget Nieland, vice president of Communications and director of Education and Workforce for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), however, said the idea that non-profit groups would be affected by the legislation were nothing more than a “scare tactic” being used by union leaders in an effort to garner opposition.

One opponent of the proposed legislation said the bills were based on two false assumptions—that taxpayer dollars are being used for political purposes and that payroll deductions of union dues is tantamount to compulsory unionism.

“Union members’ dues are not taxpayer dollars,” said Les Landon, writing on Facebook. “They (dues) come from the salaries earned by employees who have a right to spend those dollars as they wish, including for political purposes.”

Seabaugh, a member of ALEC, was reimbursed $2,060.52 in taxpayer dollars for his attendance of the ALEC National Conference last August—in New Orleans.

Seabaugh apparently saw no problem in spending public dollars to attend the conference by an organization which drafts hundreds of laws favorable to business and industry and adverse to the interests of public employees.

Those drafts are provided—some say spoon-fed—to state lawmakers — to take back to their home states for passage. Among bills written by ALEC and promoted in Republican-controlled state legislatures are privatization of state agencies, the sale of state prisons, school vouchers and charter schools, and major public employee retirement reform.

Nick Dranias, director of Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute, speaking on behalf of a similar bill to abolish payroll deduction in Arizona, said, “No special interest is supposed to have a law that forces government to negotiate in a secret backroom for advantages that benefit only their private interests.”

All sample legislation adopted by ALEC, including last August’s national conference in New Orleans, is done so behind closed doors. The media and general public were barred from the New Orleans conference as they are at all such conferences.

It would be interesting to hear Dranias offer his take on that “special interest” negotiating “in a secret backroom” on behalf of its “private interests.”

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