By Stephen Winham
Guest Columnist
In the unfunny joke that was the latest “special” [not] legislative session there were no real surprises. After much bickering over a small gobble-de-gook of incomplete solutions and ideas with no goal beyond getting 70 House votes for just about anything, the session finally ended with a whimper that anybody should have been able to predict after 15 days of inaction. We are all left to ask why this debacle ever took place at all.
In the weeks leading up to the session Gov. Edwards threatened to not call it if an agreement on what to do about the “fiscal cliff” was not imminent. Showing a distinct lack of decisive leadership, he not only went back on this threat, but failed, himself, to present a concrete proposal with a combination of cuts and taxes that would yield a recurring balance. He never even really tried and seemed to say he was tired of doing so.
The governor presented a list of “cuts” he said he had already made, too many of which were not really cuts and a few of which were apparently duplicated. Even the unambiguous cuts on the list begged the question of what has really changed as their result? What pain has been inflicted and on whom? At the very least, what services have been diminished?
What evidence did the governor present that his appointees will be held accountable for making government as efficient as possible in the future, so people can have faith the revenues raised or retained will be spent wisely? Ask anybody on the street if they believe state government is improving in that regard and the answer will most often be a resounding “No.” This is particularly true of people who read newspapers and political blogs, listen to talk radio, and watch local television news where negative reports about state government are routine.
It is just plain common sense that people want answers to these questions. If the governor has made meaningful cuts he should be able to provide proof. In other words, it should be possible to demonstrate the effects (not just dollar amounts) in such a way that people can judge whether the cuts should have been made and whether additional significant cuts should be made and, most importantly, specifically where?
For the coming year, the governor presented a list of cuts, but defended none of them as cuts he believed should be made. On the revenue side, he presented a package that didn’t even fund these cuts and which he only halfheartedly supported. About the only hope reflected in the governor’s proposal was that the mediocrity that keeps us on the bottom of practically every list of good things could continue.
The state senate waited the whole session for the house to give them something meaningful to do – Revenue bills had to originate in the house by law. The Senate returned one bill providing tax relief to flood victims and the House concurred.
Despite having plenty of time because of a temporary two-year bridge, solid research of all pertinent issues, and promises to come forth with a plan to simply balance the budget, the house did nothing of the kind. Instead of presenting a balanced plan of cuts and revenues, or even cuts alone, the house argued over pieces of the puzzle on the sheer basis of whether enough people would vote for them – what deals could be cut. And cutting deals to get votes does not necessarily work to the advantage of the state or its citizens.
There was never a serious attempt to construct an enduring solution with more than a trace of desperately needed fiscal reform. If there was a goal, it was to continue what we have had for over a decade – a questionable and temporary balance that makes as few voters and special interests angry as possible. Thrown in were a handful of feel-good measures including ostensible Medicaid reform, a new spending cap proposal, and a promise of enhanced government transparency – none of which should require legislation. Accomplishing their goals should be part of responsible governing. Nobody was made happy -except those who think we should go over the cliff and see what happens.
One measure was anointed the pre-requisite and centerpiece for everything else and every day of deliberation the argument was put forth, “If we can’t renew ¼ of the expiring sales tax, we can’t move forward.” What was so magical about that quarter of a penny? Was it important to continue to punish the poor at least a little for being poor as a starting point, or what? As its author, Rep. Dwight himself pointed out, the prospects for passage of his bill never really improved as the session went on. Worse, it only took care of about a third of the gap and there was no clear plan for filling the rest of it from anywhere. In a word, the bill was worthless.
Representatives Barry Ivey and Kenny Havard stood out as sincerely interested in doing something to help the state and its people move forward. They both repeatedly called out their colleagues for hypocrisy and empty rhetoric. It is unfortunate Ivey did not get his February 28 motion to adjourn sine die on the floor and passed. At least it would have saved the taxpayers the $60,000+ per day costs of the remaining days. Sharon Hewitt and a growing number of others at least had sense enough to see the wisdom in that. Always rational, Rep. Julie Stokes attempted to move members in a progressive direction despite her Republican pedigree. Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger offered progressive income tax measures to lukewarm support. A few others voiced frustration but did little to steer what they clearly viewed as a doomed session toward success.
Republican Caucus Chair Lance Harris, himself a true expert at it, said he was tired of the blame game. Rob Shadoin agreed and restated the obvious when he said the session accomplished nothing except failing the people. Speaking of blame, many people were happy to place it on the Black Caucus and their fellow Democrats. If they were to blame for anything, it was for trying to get at a least a minuscule amount of progressive fiscal reform wedged in somewhere.
And speaking of partisan politics, the T Rex in the House was the desire on the part of Republicans to make the governor look as bad as possible. Helping with that were the special interests, including that beacon of conservative light, Americans for Prosperity, founded and funded by the Koch brothers and claiming a membership of over 3 million right-minded people. How many of our elected officials pay homage to its agenda? Its representative at the session wanted the session to go the distance in furtherance of the Louisiana Checkbook, a [non]panacea for the masses that will probably never be satisfactorily implemented regardless of legislation. How many other budget reform laws languish in the books apparently ignored by our policy makers? And, even when stumbled across, there is always the easy out of no money to implement them. Forget about the will to do so.
The special session served one critical function to anybody who paid any attention to what went on. It showed the utter lack of effective leadership in our state’s government. It revealed who among our elected officials has the best interests of our state and its people at heart, i. e., who literally supports our form of government – and who doesn’t.
We can’t immediately recall the people who continue to ignore those of us without deep pockets, but we can replace them at election time – assuming people willing to truly represent us offer themselves for election – a daunting proposition at best. Many current officeholders, with the validation of history, believe they don’t have to represent the bulk of us to be re-elected. All they must do is get enough money from special interests to generate a flood of propaganda and false promises to fool enough people into voting for them.
Let’s prove them wrong.
(Editor’s note: Stephen Winham is the retired Director of the Louisiana Executive Budget Office, having served in that capacity from 1988 to 2000.)
Mr. Winham, your article was absolutely accurate and absolutely depressing. The waste of this money is sickening, as is the total disregard of these “public servants” of their responsibility to actually solve our State’s financial problems. Having said this…I wonder if Pogo was right, when he said: “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” I see no recourse but to vote this entire legislative body (I use this term loosely) OUT!
The honeymoon for JBE is over and it’s all coming home to roost. It was evident the first day he took office when he lost the vote for speaker that he had surrounded himself with an incompetent staff with no legislative experience who couldn’t even run a proper tick sheet. He has allowed business as usual within his state agencies and his appointed leaders who attempted to rein in wasteful spending were disgraced and run out of town. Why you ask? The answer is simple, JBE had to give his soul to the devil in order to get elected and the devil wants a return on investment. One only need to look at the deal he made keeping Jimmy Leblanc and Edmonson. But, it runs much deeper than that. He had to sell his soul to the trial lawyers who benefit from many wasteful state programs. He is also giving get out of jail free cards to state officials who misappropriated millions under Jindal because they were smart enough to lawyer up with his major trial lawyer donors. He feels as though he can just glad hand everyone to re-election. It does not work that way. He has no backbone to stand up to those who bought his position and his so-called “honor code” is a complete joke by now. His term will only begin to degrade further and by the time the governor’s race heats up I think it will be obvious to everyone he does not stand a chance. And the citizens of LA suffer because who knows who we will get next and as all the seasoned legislators will be gone because of term limits fully kick back in with the Senate- we will have a Bananna Republic for state government.
“The honeymoon for JBE is over and it’s all coming home to roost. It was evident the first day he took office when he lost the vote for speaker that he had surrounded himself with an incompetent staff with no legislative experience who couldn’t even run a proper tick sheet.”
DB Cooper, did you take Civics in high school? JBE never had a honeymoon. I worked for the House of Representative from 1988 to 2013 and at the beginning of each term, prior to JBE being elected, each governor was in a position to exert enormous influence as to who the speaker would be. In the instance of JBE, the controlling Republicans, who determined to be an independent legislature made their own decision as to who would be the speaker. Which, as a former employee, I saw nothing wrong with that. So now, you blame JBE and his staff, who have to work with a republican controlled legislature, for the failures of THE LEGISLATURE TO ACT. As to incompetent staff, many of JBE staff are former legislative employees who actually understand the process and other staff who have worked for former governors who also understand the process. Who better can serve as commissioner of administration than a former chairman of senate finance?
Clifford55. My high school civics teacher was awful- also the head football coach. Fortunately, I have a masters in public policy, have worked for two Congressmen, two Governors, the LA Senate and private industry. Tell me prior to 2016 when a new Governor of LA didn’t anoint the Speaker? This is accomplished by influencing house elections, committee chairs, etc. you worked in the House so you should know these things. He dug his feet in with Leger (who is a great choice), but didn’t have consensus and was unwilling to compromise. As far as staff, who? Ben Nevers? Nice guy and a gentleman in the Senate, but not COS material. The trial lawyers got to pick his General Council who has zero experience and a spox who compares passing tough legislation to eating your broccoli as a child. He did make a great choice by bringing Noble on but then he paired him with Adley who has always been divisive and just pissed off a lot of people. As far as Dardenne- again great guy, but no one really understands he is just a puppet for Mark Falcon- not a good person. You must have worked for Retirement committee.
Both of you clearly have great institutional knowledge and experience and you both make really good points. I hope my piece came across as placing responsibility for this mess on both branches and in roughly equal amounts. I have frankly been disappointed with JBE and disgusted with how the state House of Representatives has become a broken entity in a state of almost total inertia.
I think the Governor and Jay Dardenne have failed to make clear the actual effects of a budget with deep cuts nor have they convinced most people they have made any already. Rather than try to restore trust in the ability of government to operate effectively if properly funded, the governor and his staff seem to have totally ignored the public’s declining faith in it. On the flip side, U. S. Senator John Kennedy has contributed to it.
[Aside: How can a U. S. Senator help his state while constantly attacking its governor?]
Let’s face it, the public doesn’t know who to believe anymore and nothing I’ve seen shows a willingness to acknowledge, much less address this skepticism on the part of our elected officials. If anything, they have actually made it worse and I really believe more people every day believe the entire gap could and should be corrected with cuts – Senator Kennedy encourages this belief.
The vast majority people I talk to don’t believe the cuts the governor has proposed will ever take place and since the legislature hasn’t really proposed any, they have no real reason to believe there will really be ever be any.
I have never seen things worse.
Stephen- in your professional opinion do you think things are worse now than they were during the Roemer debacle, and do you think JBE has the political will and power to pull off a coup in House leadership?
1. Yes – because we actually had a governor and many more legislators who truly cared enough about the state and its people to fix it – despite the enmity Roemer generated because he was not EWE and because he actually attempted to do true reform. In addition, the public had more faith and trust in the government then than now.
2. No – but I hope I am wrong.
DB, you asked Stephen two questions, I agree with both of his responses. As for your reply to my comment, a candidate for governor cannot help candidates of his ilk get elected when he is trying to get elected himself. He cannot imfluence the selection of leadership positions without having enormous influence. Of which, JBE did not have. As a former senate staffer you should know that. As for the governor’s staff, though I mentioned Dardenne, i was not talking about cabinet secs. I was talking about the staff that does the day to day work.
No, I did not staff the retirement committee. I was first a law clerk and then a committee attorney for the House Judiciary Committee for 4 years. After that I was a Division Director of 2 separate divisions, until retirement, neither of which contained the retirement committee. As a former senate staffer, i think you are aware of the structure of house staff. Beginning with Speaker Tucker, I began to see an immergence of an independent legislature. It has come to fruition with the current legislature. I am actually glad to see it, but it has to function properly.
We do know each other. Much respect. The retirement committee comment was made in a joking manner. I will tell you what I know directly. During the run off I created and ran two separate PACs which were bank rolled with JBE money. They were both targeted at republican vs republican house races and it was basically a quid pro quo- I help you get elected and you vote with me for speaker. Both candidates won, but the politics were not taken care of on the back end, and when the actual vote came down they actually flipped on him. I worked for JBE his first year in office, but when I uncovered wasteful and fraudulent spending within state government, he flipped on me because large campaign contributors of his were involved. An independent legislature is ideal, but we need to overhaul our system of government before it can truly work as it should
Much respect, DB. I totally agree with your last sentence.
Me, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am still bewildered, failure is not an option, these folks were elected to solve the states problems, obviously they are not up to the task, and need to be voted out, but this won’t happen either, so what’s next?
Charmaine: “what next” is the $64,000 question. The State Democratic Party seems to think thier responsibility in getting more Democrats elected is to sell tickets to their galas…they can’t seem to field competitive candidates or get out the votes to elect them. I do not see winning at this rate…sadly for our State.
Well written.
Ben Franklin knew how to successfully right the ship of finance.
He was succinct in the methodology. His answer to the Louisiana problem is: “There are two ways to increase your wealth. Increase your means or decrease your wants. The best is to do both at the same time.”
― Benjamin Franklin
In fairness to those in government who only know French.
Il y a deux façons d’augmenter votre richesse. Augmentez vos moyens ou diminuez vos désirs. Le mieux est de faire les deux en même temps.
Perhaps it is time to look at raising taxes. As an example, there is an 80-acre parcel in South Louisiana where beautiful trees have been untouched for eons.Nothing has been built on the property since 1938 and that house has been swallowed by the environment. The owners allowed one individual to build on the site and if desired he could move the house. Total parish tax on the property is less than $100 / year. It is surrounded by farms and homes.
The trouble is that only about a dozen people in the state really care. Everybody else sees their legislator once every so many years when he or she is running for office, and like or dislike what they hear about guns and abortion or taxes, and vote for that person even if it means voting against their own self interest. Nobody pays attention after the vote.
I agree that the T-Rex is the GOP thinking that the voters are so dumb they won’t realize that their representatives have thrown them and the entire state under the bus and won’t vote them out. We all need to find simple ways of expressing this truth to as many people as possible, as often as possible, until we vote these arrogant snakes out.
We don’t talk enough about how jindal cut everything that could be cut and we can’t take any more cuts.
If you will excuse my mixed metaphor, we need to talk about the elephant behind the tree.
The elephant in the room is BUSINESS TAXATION. NO ONE talked about it at all! By some estimates, Jindal cut business taxes by a BILLION dollars a year. And after a decade of giving business humongous tax breaks we are still near the bottom of every good list. As The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Kline documented, Conservative economics benefits only businesses and the wealthy. And tax breaks won’t attract businesses to a state with uneducated, unqualified workers.
And as the old Louisiana saying goes, we should be taxing the business elephant behind the tree. Tax policy 101 is to tax the ones with the money. Businesses have the money and they aren’t paying their fair share.
It is time to fire them all. They can vote themselves a raise but can’t do the job. Now is the time for pay-for-performance; and the legislature did not perform. Partisanship has ruined the greatest government the world has ever known.