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ALEC mantra of small government is huge paradox when weighed against perks of low taxes, big public contracts

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Business, Charters, Contract, Contracts, Prison, Privatization, Taxes, Vouchers on January 30, 2013| 4 Comments »

It’s interesting to note that the very existence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which writes “model legislation” for lawmakers to introduce back in their respective state capitals rests on one ginormous paradox.

For example, consider this mission statement from ALEC’s 4th edition of its state economic competitiveness index entitled Rich States, Poor Stateshttp://www.alec.org/docs/RSPS_4th_Edition.pdf: “ALEC’s mission is to discuss, develop and disseminate public policies which expand free markets, promote economic growth, limit the size of government (emphasis ours), and preserve individual liberty within its nine task forces.”

Yet, for all its breast beating about making government smaller and more accountable, it’s curious and somewhat contrary to that theme that of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500, fully one-half are—or were—corporate members of ALEC http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/.

In fact, 31 of the 50 largest corporations in America helped pay the bills to wine and dine state legislators at seminars, conferences, planning sessions and annual meetings of ALEC delegates, including the 2011 annual meeting held in New Orleans at which Gov. Bobby Jindal was the keynote speaker.

Fallout over the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, last February coupled with ALEC’s endorsement of the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law in that state which was linked to his shooting has resulted in the decision by some two dozen corporations to drop their ALEC memberships.

Among those who have bailed out are Wal-Mart, General Motors, General Electric, Bank of America, Entergy, PepsiCo, Walgreen, Dow Chemical, Marathon Petroleum, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola.

Some of those retaining their memberships, however, include Hunt-Guillot of Ruston, ExxonMobil (the largest corporation in the U.S.), Chevron, AT&T, Verizon, UnitedHealth Group, Archer Daniels Midland, Wells Fargo, Pfizer, Boeing, Microsoft, and FedEx.

ALEC’s “small is better” philosophy for government takes a sharp 180 when its corporate membership is placed under the microscope. While 50 of the 100 largest members of the Fortune 500 are ALEC members, that number drops precipitously in the ensuing blocks of 100.

For example, of the corporations ranked in size from 101 to 200, only 29 are ALEC members and for 201 to 300, the number is 17. For 301 to 400, the membership is 13 and for the final group, 401-500, you will find only seven who are ALEC members.

So while the lobbying group maintains that small is better, it appears that it goes after the larger corporate sponsors first and is increasingly disdainful of the smaller companies.

The 116 Fortune 500 companies who are members of ALEC combined for $4.5 trillion in revenues in 2011 and altogether realized net profits of $484.2 billion. Remember, that does not include the other 384 Fortune 500 companies—just the 116 ALEC members.

Just for the record, here are 50 ALEC members from the Fortune 100 with 2011 rankings, revenue and profits in parentheses http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/:

• ExxonMobil—(1; $452.9 billion; $41.1 billion);

• Wal-Mart—(2; $446.9 billion; $15.7 billion—terminated membership);

• Chevron—(3; $245.6 billion; $26.9 billion);

• ConocoPhillips—(4; $237.3 billion; $12.4 billion);

• GM—(5; $150.3 billion; $9.2 billion—terminated membership);

• GE—(6; $147.6 billion; $14.2 billion—terminated membership);

• Ford—(9; $136.3 billion; $20.2 billion);

• AT&T—(11; $126.7 billion; $3.9 billion);

• Bank of America—(13; $115.1 billion; $1.4 billion);

• Verizon—(15; $110.9 billion; $2.4 billion);

• CVS—(18; $107.8 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• IBM—(19; $106.9 billion; $15.9 billion);

• UnitedHealth Group—(22; (101.9 billion; $5.1 billion);

• Wells Fargo—(26; $87.6 billion; $15.9 billion—terminated membership);

• Procter & Gamble—(27; $82.6 billion; $11.8 billion—terminated membership);

• Archer Daniels Midland—(28; $80.7 billion; $2 billion);

• Marathon Petroleum—(31; $73.6 billion; $2.4 billion);

• Walgreen—(32; $72.2 billion; $2.7 billion—terminated membership);

• Medco Health Solutions—(36; $70.1 billion; $17.8 billion—terminated membership);

• Microsoft—(37; $69.9 billion; $23.2 billion);

• Boeing—(39); $68.7 billion; $4 billion);

• Pfizer—(40; $67.9 billion; $10 billion);

• PepsiCo—(41; $66.5 billion; $6.4 billion—terminated membership);

• Johnson & Johnson—(42; $65 billion; $9.7 billion—terminated membership);

• State Farm Insurance—(43; $64.3 billion; $845 million);

• Dell—(44; $62.1 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• WellPoint—(45; $60.7 billion; $2.6 billion);

• Caterpillar—(46; $60.1 billion; $4.9 billion);

• Dow Chemical—(47; $60 billion; $2.7 billion);

• Comcast—(49; $55.8 billion; $4.2 billion);

• Kraft Foods—(50; $54.4 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• Intel—(51; $54 billion; $12.9 billion);

• UPS—(52; $53.1 billion; $3.8 billion);

• Best Buy—(53; $50.3 billion; $1.3 billion—terminated membership);

• Prudential—(55; $49 billion; $3.7 billion;

• Amazon.com—(56; $48.1 billion; $631 million—terminated membership);

• Merck—(57; $48 billion; $6.3 billion—terminated membership);

• Coca-Cola—(59; $46.5 billion; $8.6 billion—terminated membership);

• Express Scripts Holding—(60; $46.1 billion; $8.6 billion);

• FedEx—(70; $39.3 billion; $1.5 billion);

• DuPont—(72; $38.7 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• Honeywell International—(77; $37.1 billion; $2.1 billion);

• Humana—(79; $36.8 billion; $1.4 billion);

• Liberty Mutual Insurance Group—(84; $34.7 billion; $365 million);

• Sprint Nextel—(90; $33.7 billion; –$2.9 billion);

• News Corp.—(91; $33.4 billion; $2.7 billion);

• American Express—(95; $32.3 billion; $4.9 billion);

• John Deere—(97; $32 billion; $2.8 billion—terminated membership);

• Philip Morris—(99; $31.1 billion; $8.6 billion);

• Nationwide Insurance—(100; $30.7 billion; -$793 million).

Of course, ALEC also pushes its agenda of lower taxes very strongly (who do you think helped write Gov. Jindal’s proposal to eliminate the state individual and corporate income taxes in favor of increase sales taxes? Surely, one would not believe he came up with that all by himself).

It’s no coincidence that Louisiana is pushing to ditch the state income tax at the same time as several other states, including Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Carolina. Each state has read the ALEC playbook.

“Money is spent more efficiently by the private sector than by governments, so it is reasonable to expect that states with lower overall taxes have better economic environments than states with high taxes and more government spending,” the Rich States, Poor States report says.

Apparently the authors of that statement did not bother to review the histories of the subprime mortgage crisis, junk bonds, Enron, Bernard Madoff, Stanford Financial Group, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), Tyco, WorldCom, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the dotcom bubble.

Be that as it may, let us go back to ALEC’s mantra of lower taxes and see how that might apply to its corporate membership.

General Electric is the poster child for tax dodges. With $19.6 billion in net profits for the years 2008-2011, GE managed not only to pay no taxes, but got $3.7 billion in tax refunds.

Other ALEC members, their net profits and taxes/refunds for years 2008-2011 include: http://www.ctj.org/pdf/notax2012.pdf

• PG&E—($6 billion; $1 billion refund);

• CenterPoint Energy—($3.1 billion; $347 million refund);

• Duke Energy—($5.5 billion; $216 million refund);

• Con-way—($422 million; $23 million refund);

• Ryder System—($843 million; $46 million refund);

• DuPont—($3 billion; $325 million paid in taxes—10.8 percent, less than one-third the standard 35 percent tax rate);

• Consolidated Edison—($5.9 billion; $74 million refund);

• Verizon—($19.8 billion; $758 million refund);

• Boeing—($14.8 billion; $812 million refund);

• Wells Fargo—($69.2 billion; $2.6 billion paid in taxes—3.8 percent, barely 10 percent of the 35 percent standard rate);

• Honeywell International—($5.2 billion; $102 million—2 percent).

Some of the CEOs for ALEC member corporations received more in compensation in 2010 than their companies paid in taxes. Here are a few with salaries first, followed by taxes paid: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/31/ceo-pay-vs-corporate-taxes/

• International Paper: $249 million refund; CEO John Faraci received $12.3 million;

• Prudential: $722 million refund; CEO John Strangfeld received $16.2 million;

• Verizon: $705 million refund; CEO Ivan Seidenberg paid $18.1 million;

• Chesapeake Energy: paid no taxes; CEO Aubrey McClendon paid $21 million;

• eBay: $131 million refund; CEO John Donahoe paid $12.4 million;

• Coca-Cola: paid $8 million taxes; CEO John Brock paid $19.1 million;

• Dow Chemical: $576 million refund; CEO Andrew Liveris paid $17.8 million;

• Ford: $69 million refund: CEO Alan Mulally paid $26.5 million.

If you still believe that ALEC favors smaller government over, say, being able to exercise control over government taxation and spending, then consider the General Services Administration’s list of $69 billion in federal contracts held by these ALEC members in fiscal year 2011: https://www.fpds.gov/fpdsng/index.php/reports

• Boeing: $21.6 billion;

• Northrop Grumman: $15 billion;

• Raytheon Co.: $14.8 billion;

• Humana: $3.4 billion;

• General Electric: $2.8 billion;

• Honeywell International: $2.2 billion;

• Dell: $1.4 billion;

• IBM: $1.7 billion;

• FedEx: $1.6 billion;

• Merck: $1.3 billion;

• Shell: $913 million;

• Pfizer: $1.2 billion;

• UPS: $701 million;

• AT&T: $743 million;

It’s easy to preach small government and lower taxes but to achieve this, a lot of ALEC members would stand to lose a chunk of business with Uncle Sam.

And that doesn’t even include state and local contracts like the $18.3 million in state contracts currently held by ALEC member Hunt, Guillot & Associates of Ruston and the $11.4 million state contract awarded to Northrop Grumman.

Smaller, more streamlined and accountable government sound great, most would agree. But the implementation of changes across the board may well affect one’s bottom line and that, as they say, is when the cheese gets binding. It is then that we simply must follow the money.

Charter schools and vouchers, for example, would benefit investors who see a fortune to be made in private education—especially when most of that money would be paid by the state.

The continued growth in the number of private prisons (along with more laws that send more people to prison) would be quite a windfall for those operators who contract with state and local governments to incarcerate lawbreakers.

Elimination of personal and corporate income taxes in favor of sales tax increases would further lighten the financial burden of business and industry—and shift that burden onto the backs of low- and middle-income citizens.

The rejection of a federal grant to build a broadband internet system for rural Louisiana certainly benefitted commercial cable companies like AT&T which contributed $250,000 to the Supriya Jindal Foundation.

Likewise, relaxed environmental regulations endorsed by ALEC certainly aided member Dow Chemical which coincidentally kicked in $100,000 for the Supriya Jindal Foundation. Soon after that donation, proposed fines of subsidiary Union Carbide for allowing the release of a toxic pollutant and failing to notify authorities of the leak were dropped.

Or Marathon Oil, whose $250,000 donation to the foundation may have greased the skids for the awarding of $5.2 million in state funds to a Marathon subsidiary.

Instead of listening to the rhetoric of ALEC’s membership, one would do well to watch how certain specific proposals might affect that membership.

In other words, don’t listen to what they say; watch instead for what they do.

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π-yush’s alter-ego Timmy Teepell denies knowlege of ALEC agenda while Foster Campbell rips his boss for tax proposals

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Budget, Campaign Contributions, Congress, Economy, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians, Revenue, Taxes, Vitter on January 23, 2013| 3 Comments »

Last March, Piyush Jindal’s alter-ego Timmy Teepell (or would it be the other way around?) was a guest on the Jim Engster’s Show on Baton Rouge’s public radio station WRKF and in the course of that interview he denied any knowledge of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.

Another guest on Engster’s show, Public Service Commission Chairman Foster Campbell, this week took Jindal, the legislature and the entire Louisiana congressional delegation to task for not displaying sufficient backbone to back Jindal down on his proposals to eliminate the personal and corporate income taxes in favor of a 3 cent state sales tax increase.

Campbell instead called for the passage of a 3 percent processing tax on oil and gas which he said would generate $3 billion a year “and let the people who can afford a tax pay it.”

When one reads ALEC’s 5th anniversary edition of Rich States, Poor States http://www.alec.org/publications/rich-states-poor-states/, one has to wonder at the veracity of Teepell’s claim. The annual report devotes 15 of its 125 pages to demonstrating how bad personal income taxes for states’ economies—and that’s before it even gets to the five-page chapter entitled Policy #1: The Personal Income Tax.

Even after that chapter, state personal income taxes are mentioned at least once on 64 of the next 75 pages.

Likewise, corporate income taxes are also discussed on 10 separate pages before Policy #2: The Corporate Income Tax, another five-page chapter. Corporate income taxes are then mentioned on 56 of the remaining 80 pages.

As if that were not enough, Rich States, Poor States also zeroes in on its favorite tax, the sales tax. “We find that sales taxes have a neutral effect on state economies and therefore are a far preferable means for a state to raise needed revenue,” it said in the first paragraph of Policy #3, entitled (you guessed it) The Sales Tax.

In all, sales taxes are invoked on no fewer than 74 of the 125-page report which boasts that ALEC’s tax and fiscal policy is “to prioritize government spending, to lower the overall tax burden, to enhance transparency of government operations, and to develop sound, free-market tax and fiscal policy.”

And Teepell is unaware of this agenda. Really?

“When policymakers choose the levels and types of taxes for their state, they must confront not only the possible effects on the state economy, but the volatility of tax receipts as well,” the report says. “When tax receipts are volatile, that usually means an abnormally large shortfall of revenues when times are tough and spending needs are the greatest.”

Incredibly, the report claims that revenue generated from sales taxes “is the least affected by the boom and bust cycle—in fact, sales tax revenue changes only half as much as revenue from personal and corporate income taxes do.

“Not only does the sales tax do less to inhibit growth, it is a steady revenue source even during a recession,” says the report.

Then, ripping a page right of the Milton Friedman playbook, the report says, “Progressive corporate and personal income taxes do far more damage to the economy than do other taxes such as sales taxes, property taxes and severance taxes. In addition, they (income taxes) are substantially less reliable than those other taxes. How’s that for sound tax policy?”

Well, certainly inflicting a regressive sales tax on Louisiana’s poor is considerably more reliable than corporate income taxes when one considers all the tax breaks, exemptions and rebates this administration hands out to the tune of about $5 billion a year to corporate contributors.

But to address the sophomoric question, “How’s that for sound tax policy?” we turn to another publication entitled Selling Snake Oil to the States: The American Legislative Exchange Council’s Flawed Prescriptions for Prosperity.

A joint publication of Good Jobs First and The Iowa Policy Project, The November Snake Oil report takes ALEC to task for its Rich States, Poor States publication which, as might be expected, is heavily weighted in favor of its corporate membership.

“We conclude that the evidence cited to support Rich States, Poor States’ policy menu ranges from deeply flawed to non-existent,” Snake Oil says. “Subjected to scrutiny, these policies are revealed to explain nothing about why some states have created more jobs or enjoyed higher income growth than others over the past five years.

“In actuality, Rich States, Poor States provides a recipe for economic inequality, wage suppression and stagnant incomes and for depriving state and local governments of the revenue needed to maintain the public infrastructure and education systems that are true foundations of long term economic growth and shared prosperity,” it said.

The Snake Oil report said that results actually reflect just the opposite of the ALEC claims. “The more a state’s policies mirrored the ALEC low-tax/regressive taxation/limited government agenda, the lower the median family income; this is true for every year from 2007 through 2011.”

Jindal was elected in 2007 and took office in 2008 and his policies, Teepell’s denial notwithstanding, have certainly mirrored the ALEC low-tax/regressive taxation/limited government agenda and the state’s infrastructure and education systems just as certainly have suffered under staggering budgetary cuts.

Louisiana’s average median household income of $42,423 for 2010 was the nation’s 10th lowest and 29 percent of Louisiana’s children live in poverty, second only to Mississippi’s 32 percent.

The state’s working poor already pay little or no income tax, so elimination of the state income tax would have no effect on them. A sales tax increase, however, would hit the poor the hardest because they would be paying the same taxes on diapers, clothing, cars, gasoline, appliances and automobiles as the wealthy. Accordingly, they would be paying a much larger percentage of their income in sales taxes than higher income families.

Campbell, a former state senator and an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 2007, was elected chairman of the Public Service Commission last year.

Accustomed to being a political lightning rod for his candor, Campbell was in rare form on Engster’s show on Tuesday, saying that Jindal typically works for the benefit of big companies and corporations. “He’ll do anything he can to help those at the top end of the income bracket.”

Appearing to consciously avoid referring to Jindal as governor, he said, “Mr. Jindal knows the solution. When I ran for governor, I wanted to get rid of the income tax which I still think we ought to do. Progressive states like Florida and Tennessee don’t have state income taxes and neither does Texas. They seem to be doing better than us. But you have to replace it with something and Mr. Jindal knows what to replace it with but you couldn’t get him close to it.

“Mr. Jindal wouldn’t touch the oil companies and that’s where to get the money. We just need some politicians with some plain old-fashioned guts to ask ‘em to pay their fair share. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to the oil companies. We don’t have a congressman who’ll do it. Mary Landrieu won’t do it. David Vitter is joined at the hip with them and he absolutely won’t do it.

“Mr. Jindal would run out of the Capitol screaming if you asked him to touch Exxon with a tax,” Campbell said.

Campbell, a Democrat, then heaped praise on Louisiana’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

“The most honest governor by far, who tried to do the right thing, was Dave Treen. When he ran against Louis Lambert (in 1979), business and industry supported him but when he went after the oil companies, they all turned on him and put Edwards back in,” he said.

“He was absolutely right when he had the Coastal Wetlands Environmental Levy (CWEL) and he wanted some kind of fee from the oil companies for tearing up our coast.

“I like oil companies for furnishing jobs,” he said. “That’s great. But we have let the oil companies absolutely take over our state, damage our coastline and never asked them to pay for it.

The BP spill, bad as it was, was miniscule compared to the damage oil companies have done to our coastline and all our congressional delegation wants to do is go ask Obama to pay for the coastal restoration and Mr. Vitter (U.S. Sen. David Vitter is the leading cheerleader for that. The government didn’t drill the wells and Mr. Vitter knows that but he doesn’t want to ask the people he’s close to to pay for the damage. And neither does Ms. Landrieu. You see the ads on TV praising Ms. Landrieu. Do you know who’s paying for those ads? The oil companies.”

“We need to ask the oil companies who are making billions to pay something rather than asking the people of Louisiana which has (one of the) poorest populations in the nation. Rather than asking people at the bottom to pay the big end of the tax, why doesn’t Mr. Jindal ask companies like Exxon, Chevron, and Shell to pay their fair share? Fifty percent of the coastal erosion in this state is caused by offshore activity.

“In 1926, when we put it into the constitution, we could tax only domestic oil. That was fine back then when 95 percent of our oil was domestic. Today, it’s 96 percent foreign and 4 percent domestic.

“We have to tax oil and gas coming into the state of Louisiana,” he said. “I agree with Mr. Jindal that we need to eliminate the severance tax because it has been dwindling anyway since the ‘80s. Instead of the severance tax, charge a simple 3 percent processing tax which would raise $3 billion a year.

Campbell said former Gov. Buddy Roemer wants to tax oil that’s still in the ground. “That won’t generate the money. I asked Roemer, Edwards and (Mike) Foster (about the 3 percent processing fee) but they wouldn’t help.

“I guarantee you it would pass by 80 percent. Mr. Kennedy (State Treasurer John Kennedy) knows that, Mr. Roemer, Mr. Jindal and especially Mr. (Dan) Juneau, the head of LABI (Louisiana Association of Business and Industry), know it. Mr. Juneau cannot stand a processing tax because the people who pay his bills don’t want it.”

Campbell said, “It’s the LABIs of the world who represent the big companies doing business up and down the Mississippi. LABI is not worried about the Mindens, the Homers, the Farmervilles, the Ringgolds, the Mansfields or the Rustons of Louisiana. They’re worried about the Chevrons, the Dows, the Exxons. Those are the people who put up the big money.

“Legislators who consistently vote with LABI are not representing their districts because LABI could care less about them.

“That’s who Mr. Jindal is dancing to. That’s why he wants to raise the sales tax on the people. Don’t put it on the oil companies that make billions,” he said in mocking the administration line. “They can’t afford it. They might leave the state.

“How are they going leave the state when they have 50,000 miles of pipeline that deliver oil and gas all across America? And they have the Mississippi River! They can’t leave the state. We need politicians with backbone who’ll say, ‘Now listen, you’ve had a great day in Louisiana, but it’s over. We have crumbling roads, poor education, pollution, a torn-up coast and now you’re gonna pay your fair share. Now get out there and start crying that you’re gonna leave the state and we’ll see what the people believe.’”

At that point, Engster finally got to ask, “Are you a member of LABI?”

“Absolutely not. They don’t represent small business. They say they do but they represent the big boys. Never forget that. Mr. Juneau takes his orders from the boys that put up the most money. They don’t worry about the hardware store in Mansfield. They say they do, but they’re fooling those people. They represent the biggest of the big, nothing more, nothing less.

“That’s who Mr. Jindal represents. Look what he’s doing: raising the sales tax on the poorest people living in America—and make sure, by the way, to get rid of corporate taxes.

“You haven’t heard Mr. Jindal say one word about Exxon paying its fair share and you won’t because he’s in their back pocket.

“Mr. Vitter won’t say anything about fixing our coast because he’s in their back pocket.

“Ms. Landrieu won’t say that because she’s in their back pocket.”

LouisianaVoice did a quick check of campaign contributions and found that Campbell may have been onto something when he talked about a lack of courage by the legislature and the congressional delegation and Jindal’s being beholden to the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas interests contributed more than $1.5 million to 143 state candidates, including legislators and statewide elected officials since 2003, including Jindal, Kennedy, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, former Lt. Gov. and current New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strain and former Secretary of Natural Resources and current Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle.

Moreover, oil and gas contributed more than $1.75 million to six of Louisiana’s seven congressmen since 2002 and $1.99 million to the state’s two U.S. senators since 1996.

The breakdown for the congressional delegation, with the dates each was first elected in parentheses is as follows:

Senate:

• Mary Landrieu (1996)—$940,174;

• David Vitter (2004)—$1.05 million’

House:

• Steve Scalise (2008)—$257,785;

• Charles Boustany (2004)—$641,605;

• John Fleming (2008)—$405,450;

• Rodney Alexander (2002)—$254,559;

• Bill Cassidy (2008)—$194,300;

• Cedric Richmond (2010)—$0

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π-yush, White push yet another national ‘report’ lauding LA education reform: Oops! Part of study gives state an ‘F’ grade

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Education, Governor's Office on January 13, 2013| 6 Comments »

Undaunted by an earlier revelation that a somewhat suspect national study that gave Louisiana high marks for its education policies was less than candid, State Education Superintendent John White continues trying to change his frog—otherwise known as Americal Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-inspired and Teach for America (TFA)-executed education reform—into a prince by touting yet another national ranking that appears at first blush to show that Louisiana’s overall ranking leapt from 23rd to 15th over the last year.

What White conveniently neglected to report via his Department of Education propaganda arm Louisiana Believes is that same study, done by Quality Counts for Education Week magazine, gave Louisiana an F for public education achievement for the third consecutive year.

White may have neglected to report that little tidbit, but Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Will Sentell was inquisitive enough to look past Piyush’s burnished version of the report’s contents.

That may have been because only a week before a report was issued by StudentsFirst, an organization founded by Michelle Rhee, whose professional reputation has come under a cloud of controversy for suspicious scoring gains at Washington, D.C. schools during her tenure as chancellor, which ranked Louisiana first in the nation in educational policies that prioritize the interest of children.

The StudentsFirst study was debunked almost immediately when the New York Times pointed out that it focused purely on state laws and policies and “did not take into account student test scores.” Test scores are tantamount to the educational Bible for Piyush, White, et al. Test scores make up the centerpiece of the entire Piyush education reform package.

The StudentsFirst report may have been tempered both by the cheating scandal and by an almost simultaneous report by the U.S. Department of Education that shows Louisiana ranked sixth from the bottom in its public high school graduation rate—even despite White’s apparent efforts to color those statistics pretty (see Mercedes Schneider’s blog post of Jan. 12 on LouisianaVoice).

StudentsFirst has poured money into the campaigns of four of Jindal’s hand-picked Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) members—$5,000 each to Holly Boffy, James Garvey, Kira Orange Jones and Roemer.

When LouisianaVoice reported other campaign contributions in an earlier post, Boffy bristled at the perceived suggestion that campaign contributions influenced her December vote to approve Course Choice applicants when in fact we never once intimated that her vote was bought—or even rented, for that matter.

The fact remains, however, that each of five board members, including Boffy, just happened to vote to approve applications from two applicants who combined to contribute $41,000 to the BESE members: Jay Guillot of Ruston ($5,000), James Garvey of Metairie ($5,000), Boffy of Youngsville ($6,000), Chas Roemer of Baton Rouge ($10,000) and Kira Orange Jones of New Orleans ($15,000).

We’re just sayin’…

It is certainly interesting to see how Gov. Piyush Jindal and White cherry-pick the categories on which the state scored well while ignoring the F for public education achievement.

But never let it be said that LouisianaVoice is not fair (objective? Certainly not. Fair? emphatically yes). So here are the areas on which Louisiana scored well:

• Transitions and Alignment (We’re still not sure what “Alignment” is; we’re assuming it has nothing to do with automobiles. For that matter, we aren’t too sure what “Transitions” means, though we do know what a transmission is): 92.9, up from 82.1 for an A;

• School Finance Analysis: 75.3, up from 74.7 for a C.

At this point, the Louisiana Believes “news” release says (drum roll, please), “The scores in remaining categories—Standards, Assessments and Accountability and The Teaching Profession—are based on the state’s score from the 2012 report.

Wait. What? Remaining categories? But what about that public education achievement category? Did you forget that? Oh well, never mind. Here are the scores for the “remaining categories”:

• Standards, Assessment and Accountability: 97.2, for a B;

• The Teaching Profession: 72.5 (11th in the nation), for a C.

Of course, the teaching profession, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is the one area that Piyush and White have in their crosshairs. It’s the teaching profession they have consistently demonized from Day One of their so-called “education reform” efforts and yet Louisiana’s teachers, according to the very report that Jindal and White are now waving about, are ranked 11th in the nation.

Piyush said in a prepared statement (remember, the man does NOT sit for interviews in his home state; those are reserved for Fox News, CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times as he rehearses for the national stage by throwing the National Republican Party under the bus) that the Quality Counts report illustrates that Louisiana’s education system “has gone from almost rock-bottom to number 15 in the country.”

Well, Piyush, we’re not sure in which parallel universe you reside, but if that truly is the case, you must realize that it all took place before your frilly, designed-to-benefit-your-contributors reform measures actually were implemented.

Could it be that the New Living Word School in Ruston, for example, with its lack of teachers, desks, books and classrooms, managed to pull off this dramatic surge in the natonal rankings in the past four months with its 150 vouchers approved by the Department of Education?

Or could this be just another bogus study to which the administration is clinging for some semblance of vindication in the weeks leading up to the 2013 legislative session?

After all the Piyush administration’s hyperbole over the StudentsFirst report, we are now loath to accept anything at face value that he or White distributes at Press Release Central, otherwise known as the Capitol press corps.

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π-yush Gump pens WSJ op-ed contraceptive piece advising National Republican Party that ‘Stupid is as stupid does’

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Campaign Contributions, Courts, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Recovery School District on December 14, 2012| 9 Comments »

It’s certainly refreshing and reassuring to know that the woes of running a state government laden with the ever-increasing burden of budgetary shortfalls has not distracted Gov. Piyush Jindal from his primary objective of tending to the more pressing needs of advising the national Republican Party on how not to be stupid.

Jindal, in his latest appearance on the national stage, has authored an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he calls for over-the-counter sales of oral contraceptives.

This, by the way, is yet another in a series of instances in which Jindal makes himself available to the national media while ignoring requests for interviews from new media in Louisiana—a somewhat curious pattern of behavior for a man who insists he has the job he wants.

But back to that WSJ piece. Whether or not you agree with him—and on this issue, a case could certainly be made for such a policy—it is puzzling, to say the least, how a devout Catholic such as Jindal can endorse birth control in any form.

The Catholic Church, last time we checked, was unconditionally opposed to birth control and Piyush is such a good Catholic that he once claimed to have performed an exorcism during his student days at Brown University.

“As a conservative Republican,” he says in the piece, “I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptive issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control.”

Well, that’s certainly seizing the high ground. Jindal arbitrarily hijacks the Rodney Dangerfield claim of “no respect” for the national Republican Party. Good move, there Swifty. My grandfather always told me that when I find myself in a hole, quit digging.

Piyush is looking more and more like a politician who was created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) but who now wants to put distance between himself and the right wing Tea Partiers who owe their very existence to ALEC. And he’s still digging.

Yep. Piyush is claiming the middle ground, apparently so as not to appear stupid.

The Boy Blunder has, in the wake of the Mitt Romney loss to President Obama, morphed into the Forrest Gump of political science. Maybe we should henceforth simply refer to him as Piyush Gump: stupid is as stupid does.

He implied that Romney ran a “stupid” campaign—but only after the election. Prior to Nov. 6, Piyush campaigned tirelessly for the Republican nominee with nary a hint of discomfort or embarrassment over any supposed GOP stupidity.

Neither Piyush nor any of his appointees, of course, could ever be accused of doing anything stupid.

After all, it would be stupid to repeatedly hide behind something called the “deliberative process” in an effort to avoid revealing information to the public.

It would be stupid to suggest to subordinates that they use private email accounts for communicating about Medicaid budget cuts.

It would be stupid for Jindal’s education superintendent to approve 315 vouchers for the New Living Word School in Ruston without first learning that the school had no instructors, no desks and no classrooms.

It would be stupid for the education superintendent to send an email to the governor’s office outlining his plans to lie to a legislative committee about New Living Word to “take some air out of the room.”

It would be stupid to attempt implementation of a funding method for school vouchers that is clearly unconstitutional.

It would be stupid to describe the judge who ruled that funding method as unconstitutional as “wrong-headed.”

It would be stupid to ignore a growing hole in Assumption that has swallowed up some eight acres of land while belching toxic gases because campaigning against a judge in Iowa is considered more important.

It would be stupid to close a state prison without at least extending the courtesy of a heads-up to legislators in the area.

It would be stupid to close a state hospital without at least extending the courtesy of a heads-up to legislators in that area.

It would be stupid not to fire—or at least punish—a Recovery School District Superintendent who wrecked a state vehicle on one of his three dozen trips to Chicago on private business, including appearing on a Chicago television station to announce his intention to run for mayor.

It would be stupid to attempt a total takeover of the state’s flagship university by loading up its governing board with campaign contributors—and to coerce that board into firing the president, the university’s legal counsel, and the head of the university’s health care system.

It would be stupid to fire or demote scores of other state employees and elected members of the state legislature whose only sin was to disagree with Pontiff Piyush.

It would be stupid for his commissioner of administration to refuse to release a copy of a consultant’s report on the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits.

It would be stupid for his secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to refuse to divulge to the senate committee considering his confirmation the identity of the winner of a 10-year, $300 million contract—when it was later learned that the winner was a company for whom the secretary had once worked.

It would be stupid for that same DHH secretary to swear under oath to that same committee that he had established a fire wall between him and his former company and that he had had no communication with the company during the selection process—when in fact, as was subsequently learned, he had been in constant communication with the company during the entire selection process.

It would be stupid for a governor to refuse to return $55,000 in campaign contributions after learning it had been laundered through a bank into his campaign.

And it would be oh, so very stupid to insist on no new taxes or tax increases in the wake of a budget deficit hole rivaling the one in Assumption Parish.

Piyush is not stupid. That’s why he is offering advice to his fellow Republicans.

That’s why he is writing op-ed pieces for the WSJ about the need to sell contraceptives over the counter.

And if that doesn’t work, he can always reprise his Brown experience and perform an exorcism on Republican stupidity in much the same manner he performed his exorcism on the collective courage of certain legislators.

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After three legal setbacks, the next logical step for π-yush is to follow the lead of Egypt’s Morsi: suspend the court system

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Education, Ethics, Golf Courses, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Judges, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Prison, Privatization, Retirement, Teague, Toledo Bend, Water Sale on December 6, 2012| 7 Comments »

First it was a federal judge who threw out Piyush Jindal’s voucher plan in Tangipahoa Parish because it posed a major setback to the parish’s current desegregation consent decree.

Then, last Friday, a state district judge, Tim Kelley, whose wife once worked for Piyush, said the method of appropriations to fund the statewide voucher program is unconstitutional.

Fast on the heels of Kelley’s ruling, fellow Baton Rouge District Judge William Morvant refused to throw out a lawsuit challenging the only part of Piyush’s far-reaching retirement reform proposals that survived the legislative session earlier this year.

In case you’re counting, that’s oh-for-three—not a good batting average for the governor who would be president.

Keep in mind that Piyush is the incoming chairman of the National Republican Governors’ Association.

Remember, too, that he thought he would be moving into that position in the hope that it would be the launching pad for his presidential aspirations. To do so, he needed to bring something substantial to the table.

That something was to be sweeping education reform. That was to be the centerpiece of his list of grand accomplishments, the bold-face type on his curriculum vitae.

Now, the status of both education and retirement reform are suddenly in jeopardy.

Suddenly the star of the errand boy of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) doesn’t shine quite so brightly.

What to do?

The obvious answer would be to teague someone. That practice, after all, has served him well in the past. No college president, attorney, doctor, agency head, legislator or rank-and-file state employee will dare rebuke Piyush lest he or she be shown the door.

There was a time when we would have run a recap of those teagued by this peevish little man, but the list has grown so long that it would take up far too much space.

On reflection, however, one must ask just what are Piyush’s alternatives?

Well, normally he could campaign against the re-election of judges Kelley and Morvant—except he already did the anti-judge campaign thingy in Iowa.

He can’t teague the federal judge; he was appointed by the president.

He can’t teague either of the state judges—Kelley or Morvant—because they were elected by voters of the 19th Judicial District.

He can’t teague Jimmy Faircloth, the attorney who so expertly represented the interests of the state in arguing on behalf of the voucher program because Faircloth was working under a contract that ends when all appeals are exhausted—about $100,000 or so down the road.

He can’t teague Angéle Davis, wife of Judge Kelley because she already resigned her position as Commissioner of Administration.

He can’t teague the legislator who introduced the education bills because they were not written by any Louisiana elected official but by the corporate honchos at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

He might consider teaguing Superintendent of Education John White since there are already unconfirmed rumors floating around that he is leaving soon.

But there is a far better option open to Piyush:

He could take a page from the playbook of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

It’s such a simple solution we’re surprised no one has thought of it before.

All he has to do is first invoke that obscure nullification clause which several states unhappy with last month’s presidential election are bantering about—the one that says states can unilaterally ignore a federal law they don’t like. Or even opt out of the union itself. Some in Texas are talking about splitting off and breaking the state into five separate states (pure lunacy, but a philosophy that dovetails nicely with that of the Tea Party).

Then, like Morsi, Jindal can unilaterally decree greater authority for himself, including issuing a declaration that the wrong-headed courts are henceforth barred from challenging his decisions.

(Come to think of it, such a move is not exactly unprecedented. President Andrew Jackson said of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that the state of Georgia could not impose its laws on Cherokee tribal lands, “(Chief Justice) John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”)

After that, he could even take it a step further and, like North Korea’s late Kim Jong-il, bestow upon himself the title of “Dear Leader,” and, again like Kim Jong-il, commission a song of the same name in his honor.

Think about it. If he were to take that action, he could sell prisons, the old insurance building property, hospitals, roads, universities, the Saints and the Zephyrs, not to mention a few state-owned golf courses and state parks.

That water from Toledo Bend Reservoir? Sold. Gone to Texas and a few select political cronies are even richer than before.

And you only think you’ve seen a lot of corporate tax breaks, incentives and exemptions. Once he issues his decree, corporate taxes would disappear into that sink hole in Assumption Parish.

All state employees who aren’t fired outright (to be replaced by telecommuting administrative types from Florida, California, Alabama and elsewhere) would immediately forfeit all health and retirement benefits—except for friendly former legislators who, of course, would be elevated to six-figure salaries with full benefits.

The Department of Civil Service, public schools and the State Ethics Board would become distant memories for the nostalgic among us.

Of course, were he to take such action, he could always say his decision was predicated “by three things: one, to protect needed reform packages; two, to streamline government so at the end of the day, we can do more with less, and three, I have the job I want.”

Opponents could be expected to condemn his decrees as heavy-handed and dictatorial but what else would you expect from those who represent the coalition of the status quo?

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