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State Treasurer’s race boils down to See, Speak, Hear and Know no truth; candidates take Louisiana voters for fools

Posted in Congress, Education, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, House, Senate, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Revenue, Taxes, Waste on October 5, 2017| 6 Comments »

If you really want to know what’s wrong with our political system and the people we elect to office, it can be summed up in the current race for State Treasurer.

Here are the Duties of that office:

According to Article IV, Section 9 of the Louisiana Constitution, the treasurer is head of the Department of the Treasury and “shall be responsible for the custody, investment and disbursement of the public funds of the state.” The Treasury Department website outlines the treasurer’s duties:

  • receive and safely keep all the monies of this state, not expressly required by law to be received and kept by some other person;
  • disburse the public money upon warrants drawn upon him according to law, and not otherwise;
  • keep a true, just, and comprehensive account of all public money received and disbursed, in books to be kept for that purpose, in which he shall state from whom monies have been received, and on what account; and to whom and on what account disbursed;
  • keep a true and just account of each head of appropriations made by law, and the disbursements under them;
  • give information in writing to either house of the Legislature when required, upon any subject connected with the Treasury, or touching any duty of his office;
  • perform all other duties required of him by law.
  • advise the State Bond Commission, the Governor, the Legislature and other public officials with respect to the issuance of bonds and all other related matters;
  • organize and administer, within the office of the State Treasurer a state debt management section

https://www.treasury.state.la.us/Home%20Pages/TreasurerDuties.aspx

Nowhere in al that does it even once say or even imply that the job has once scintilla to do with:

  • standing with President Trump to create new jobs or to cut wasteful spending, as former Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis would have us believe in her TV ads;
  • fighting to make drainage and infrastructure top priorities in the state budget, as State Sen. Neil Riser insists in his TV ads;
  • having the guts to say “No! No to bigger government, no to wasteful spending and to raising your taxes,” as former State Rep. John Schroder proclaims in his TV ads, or
  • stopping cuts to education, healthcare and wasteful government spending, as the TV ads of Derrick Edwards insist.

http://www.wafb.com/story/36425632/la-treasurer-candidates-launch-tv-ads-analyst-calls-them-flimsy-on-duties-of-office

So, why do they insist on campaigning on issues in no way related to the actual duties of the position they are seeking?

For the same reason candidates for Baton Rouge mayor (former Mayor Kip Holden and State Sen. Bodie White, who ran unsuccessfully for the job, come to mind) consistently campaign every four years on improving schools and reducing the number of school dropouts when the mayor’s office has zilch to do with the school board:

They consider the average voter to be unsophisticated, ignorant fools who don’t know any better. Or they’re so stupid they don’t know any better themselves. Those are only two choices.

Period.

Their campaign ads clearly illustrate the complete and total disdain the treasury candidates have for Louisiana voters. They obviously think they can throw up (ahem) fake news and pseudo issues that leave voters in complete darkness about each candidate’s relative qualifications to hold the job.

And by so doing, they send a loud message that neither is qualified for—or deserving of—the job.

When John Kennedy, who had previously served as Secretary of Revenue, an appointive position, ran for treasurer in 1995, he ran a somewhat relevant ad that said, “When I was Secretary of the Department of Revenue, I reduced paperwork for small businesses by 150 percent.”

That ad carried a message that actually resonated with small business owners drowning in paperwork and which at least sounded germane to the office of state treasurer—never mind that it was physically impossible to reduce anything by 150 percent. Once you reduce something by 100 percent, you’re at zero.

All of this rant about the four candidates for treasurer and the lame campaign rhetoric of candidates for Baton Rouge mayor—and just about any other political office you can name—just illustrates to what lengths politicians will go to cloud the real issues and to shy away from discussing matters they can actually address when in office.

How many times have you heard a candidate for U.S. Representative or U.S. Senate implore you to send him to Washington so that he can “make a difference”?

It’s disingenuous at best, fraud at worst.

So, on Oct. 14, be sure to go to the polls and cast your vote for one of the four frauds running for treasurer.

It’s the Louisiana way.

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Is DOE guilty of bureaucratic overreach in demanding private records of childcare centers? CCAL argues yes

Posted in Education, Ethics, Public Records on September 29, 2017| 3 Comments »

What childcare facility records are state inspectors legally entitled to examine during their inspections?

That is the question that currently has the Childcare Association of Louisiana (CCAL) and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) at loggerheads.

LDOE maintains it has a right under law to examine all records of childcare centers. CCAL counters that LDOE is guilty of bureaucratic overreach.

The dispute has reached such a point of contention that CCAL has asked Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry for a legal opinion on whether or not childcare centers must surrender video footage and such things as financial, personnel, tax, private emails, and medical information to state inspectors on demand.

The issue promises to be an interesting one for Landry to address.

State inspectors have invoked Louisiana R.S. 44.1 as the applicable law that gives them license to demand—and receive—all video surveillance data, as well as all other personal records of childcare centers.

The only problem is R.S. 44.1 pertains to records of public agencies and childcare centers are, well, ….private businesses. And if public agencies can drag their feet in compliance as they have done—and are continuing to do—why should a private entity not even covered by that statute be threatened with penalties for non-compliance?

One might think that representatives of LDOE, who are presumed to be mighty smart, could discern the subtle difference between public and private. Here is the wording of R.S. 44.1:

General definitions:

  1. (1) As used in this Chapter, the phrase “public body” means any branch, department, office, agency, board, commission, district, governing authority, political subdivision, or any committee, subcommittee, advisory board, or task force thereof, any other instrumentality of state, parish, or municipal government, including a public or quasi-public nonprofit corporation designated as an entity to perform a governmental or proprietary function, or an affiliate of a housing authority.

Childcare facilities wouldn’t appear to qualify as public bodies as defined by R.S. 44.1.

But that hasn’t stopped LDOE inspectors, perhaps taking their cue from the State Dental Board or the Auctioneer Licensing Board, from flexing their muscles.

Recently, inspectors with the childcare licensing division have been coming into privately-owned centers and demanding that if security camera systems are utilized, inspectors should be allowed access to view footage of recordings upon demand.

“Cameras are not a requirement in child care centers, and we feel a host of privacy issues come into play by allowing them such access.” Says Jonathan Pearce of Lafayette, president of CCAL.

“My center received a deficiency write-up in January of this year because I did not allow a specialist to view my private recordings when she asked for them. The violation was given to us because I did not allow her access to my center’s records,” Pearce said, adding that inspectors also have forced owners to disclose email correspondence from owners’ private email accounts on occasions when inspectors investigate individual complaints.

He said inspectors are using regulations contained in Bulletin 137, which says an early learning center “shall allow the Licensing Division staff access to the center, the children, and all files and records at any time during any hours of operation or any time a child is present.”

“The way that is written,” Pearce said, “I would be forced to provide a copy of my tax returns to a specialist if she demanded it.”

He said that rather than remove the deficiency he was issued, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) Academic Goals and Instructional Improvement Committee met on Aug. 15 of this year and approved amended Bulletin 137 to read “…all files, records and recordings upon request…” (emphasis added)

Pearce said that State Superintendent of Education John White told BESE members that the insertion of “and recordings upon request” was simply a clarification of the current regulation which gives LDOE authority to access digital records.

“The Child Care Association of Louisiana, said CCAL lobbyist Cindy Bishop, “strongly believes that the Louisiana Department of Education does not have the statutory authority to request recordings from video cameras installed in early learning centers. CCAL believes that this is a violation of their members’ privacy rights.  Below is the rationale for our three arguments:

  • The Department of Education should absolutely have immediate access to the center, grounds, staff members for questioning, and any records that are a requirement of the department regarding the health & safety of children. However, access to recordings such as camera systems is not a requirement of the department and those centers who choose to have them installed for the purpose of security should not be forced access of viewing if requested by a specialist. Without some type of subpoena or warrant from a commissioned agent would be an infringement of our rights.
  • The public records act applies to public bodies, agencies and entities. Licensed childcare centers are private entities, or businesses and do not fall under the purview of the Louisiana Public Records Act.
  • Secondly, because the cameras do not provide a 360-degree panoramic view of a classroom, the recordings do not show the activities in an entire classroom and thereby, can be misleading. In our view, it is negligent to judge daily functions in the classroom with such a subjective view.
  • The Childcare Association of Louisiana has been made aware of several instances where an LDOE licensing inspector cited a childcare center for lack of supervision of children based on footage from a video recording. Because there is no audio on many of our childcare centers video recordings and because the surveillance is not 360 degrees, licensed facilities who opt to install video cameras are subject to misinterpretations of their cameras’ footage.
  • If a center chooses to utilize security cameras, it is to protect the owner of the childcare center from liability. There are instances when a parent or an employee, or a former employee makes an accusatory statement about something that happened or did not happen in a childcare center. Having a camera allows the owner of an early learning center to review the video footage to ascertain the situation with greater clarity. It should not be used as a weapon against them giving the department a tool to use to place sanctions against the owner of that system.

“CCAL also feels that the wording that would allow licensing access to all records opens up an area that would force us to provide records unnecessary to the scope of practice of the licensing specialist,” Bishop said. “All records in the center could include financial records of a private business, tax documents, personal records that are on the premises of the owner’s property, and medical records protected by federal HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) laws.

“We believe that this is a privacy issue and that the recordings and records not required by LDOE for the health and safety regulations listed in Bulletin 137 are the exclusive property of the owner of the early learning center,” Bishop said.

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Justice Department opening door to repeats of Kent State & Jackson State catastrophes with controversial Program 1033

Posted in Attorney General, Crime, Education, Higher Education on September 13, 2017| 11 Comments »

I don’t often delve off into national politics because, quite frankly, it’s way above my pay grade. Some would argue that a local zoning board would be above my pay grade, but for now, we’ll leave that argument for later discussion.

But I fear there is a disturbing trend out in the real world, folks, and the early signs are it’s only going to get worse. So, within my limited capabilities, I will attempt to address a development that, having grandchildren in college, I find especially troubling.

Aside from that despicable display at Charlottesville a few weeks back, there have been no civic uprisings of a scale to require extra hair spray for David Muir’s ABC evening newscasts.

While certainly, there have been several inexplicably senseless shootings of individuals by law enforcement officers, there has been nothing as tragic and senseless as the Kent State University shootings 0n May  4, 1970, or at Jackson State University 11 days later.

My wife and I celebrated our 49th anniversary last month and at the time of the slaughter of these students, we were still two months shy of our second anniversary. We were only a couple of years older than they when they were cut down.

And today, sadly, the seeds are being planted for future occurrences far more catastrophic than those of more than 46 years ago.

Last month Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Program 1033, first enacted by Congress in 1996 during the administration of President Bill Clinton but suspended two years ago by President Barack Obama, was being resumed.

Program 1033 (Click HERE) is a program whereby America has been furtively arming police departments across the country with military armaments designed to put down insurrections, riots, or even peaceful protests.

Sessions noted that the program was originally implemented “for use in drug enforcement by federal and state law enforcement.

But here’s the real kicker: The program is now being expanded to colleges and universities which feel the need to possess military hardware. Already, 117 institutions of higher education, including two Louisiana universities, now have sufficient weaponry to tilt the balance in their favor should a horde of angry college students set out to overthrow the government of these 50 sovereign states. (Click HERE).

Apparently, it’s not enough that any governor can call up the National Guard to protect the status quo as was done at Kent and Jackson State. Now the campus police, P.O.S.T. (Police Officer Standards and Training) certified though they may now be but still, for the most part, seriously lacking in proper policing skills other than handing out campus parking tickets, are going to be armed to the teeth.

What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, discounting the obvious potential of horrific meltdowns in tense situations such as occur on a typical game day, the bean counters on university campuses are looking at the bottom line as if it is, in itself, justification for placing a powder keg next to the barbecue grill at a Saturday afternoon tailgate party: “For me, this is a cost savings for taxpayers,” says University of Florida Associate Vice President and Dean of Students.

What??!!

A COST SAVINGS??!!? These are our children and grandchildren you’re placing in harm’s way, you idiot! Are you out of your rabbit-assed mind, you booger-eating moron??!!

Oh, sorry. I forgot. Students are only secondary to big-time sports and the almighty bottom line.

An equally asinine quote by Fort Valley State University associate professor of criminal justice Michael Qualls that, coming as it does from a member of academia, has to make one ask what “WTF?”:

“…as those items become obsolete at the military level and if they become available, why not get ’em?”

By that logic, universities might wish to look into obtaining decommissioned battleships, submarines and even a few dozen “obsolete” nuclear bombs, along with a couple of mothballed B-52 bombers to deliver them.

Yeah, right.

Comic Ron White nailed it when he said you can’t fix stupid.

Just let any otherwise insignificant event occur on a college campus and some trigger-happy, itchy-finger campus commando cop with an M-16 come on the scene and we have another massacre on our hands. Only this time, it’ll be far worse than Kent State and Jackson State combined.

With exceptions that are completely in line with the general population, our colleges and universities have done just fine, thank you, without the ominous presence of G.I. Joe ready to put down any simmering restlessness on the part of college students who might be angry over any number of things—cuts to funding, say, or increased tuition, suppression of freedom of speech (the latest on-campus fad), the every-widening wage disparity, climate change, or another in a string of senseless wars designed only to make military suppliers and speculators wealthy.

I mean, after all, we just can’t have free expression, the free exchange of ideas, on our college campuses. That would be subversive and….well, dangerous. We don’t want these kids thinking for themselves, becoming active in any type of student resistance, or even engaging in dialogue outside the campus community.

Besides the 12 M-16s issued to both NSU and ULM, some schools are getting armored pickup trucks (University of Florida) and “Mine Resistant Vehicles,” or MRAPS as they are affectionately known in such tourist meccas as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Purdue, being an especially dangerous hangout for subversives of all sorts, is getting 25 M-16s but that’s nothing. The University of Maryland is reaping 50 of those, two M-14s, and 16 riot shotguns (12-gauge). They must really be expecting trouble from those rowdy quantum physics majors.

Hinds Community College and the University of Central Florida received grenade launchers and Texas Southern University got a mine-resistant vehicle.

Seriously, they really did.

Next will come the name changes: Hinds Community Military Installation, Fort Central Florida. Texas Southern University (TSU) will become Tactical Systems University. ULM won’t mean University of Louisiana Monroe; it’ll be University of Light Munitions. NSU will be Neutralizing Systems University.

But for the record, neither Kent State nor Jackson State were among the 117 institutions receiving surplus military supplies.

Could it be that they more readily see the lessons to be learned from the insanity of nearly half-a-century ago?

What was it again that President Eisenhower said upon leaving office in 1960 about the military-industrial complex?

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Legislative Auditor is unsung hero of Louisiana government but findings of irregularities are often ignored by authorities

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Boards, Commissions, Corruption, Education, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Media, Politicians, Recovery School District, State Agencies, Transparency, Waste on August 24, 2017| 6 Comments »

The most recent audit (August 2017) of the Foster Care Program of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) found that:

  • DCFS did not conduct proper criminal background checks on non-certified foster care providers;
  • DCFS allowed nine certified providers with prior cases of abuse or neglect to care for foster children during fiscal years 2012-2016 without obtaining required waivers.
  • DCFS does not have a formal process to ensure that caseworkers actually assessed the safety of children placed with 68 non-certified providers.
  • DCFS did not always ensure that children in foster care received services to address physical and behavioral health needs.
  • State regulations require DCFS to expunge certain cases of abuse or neglect from the State Central Registry, which means those records are not available for caseworkers to consider prior to placing children with providers.

(See the DCFS audit summary HERE.)

So, the question now is this: What steps will the state take to protect these children now that the Legislative Auditor has pointed out these serious deficiencies?

If the results of a 2012 audit of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development’s Enterprise Zone Program is any indication, then the answer is nothing.

Under state statute, Louisiana’s Enterprise Zone (EZ) program is designed to award incentives to businesses and industries that locate in areas of high unemployment as a means of encouraging job growth. (The summary of that audit can be viewed HERE.)

That audit found that:

  • Approximately 68 percent of the 930 businesses that received EZ program incentives from the state were located outside of a designated enterprise zone. These businesses received nearly $124 million (61 percent) of the $203 million in total EZ program incentives during calendar years 2008 through 2010.
  • Approximately $3.9 billion (60 percent) of the $6.5 billion in capital investment by businesses receiving EZ incentives was located outside a designated enterprise zone.
  • Approximately 12,570 (75 percent) of the 16,760 net new jobs created by businesses granted EZ incentives were located outside an enterprise zone.
  • Four other states with which Louisiana was compared exclude retail businesses from EZ incentives. Louisiana does not, allowing such businesses as Walmart to take advantage of the incentives.
  • None of the four neighboring states allows businesses to count part-time employees among the new jobs created. Louisiana does.
  • Louisiana state law prohibits disclosure of the amount of incentives received by businesses.

Little, if anything, has been done to rectify these deficiencies in the oversight of the EZ program.

There has been precious little reaction from this year’s audit of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries which found that thousands of dollars in equipment had been stolen, a story LouisianaVoice called attention to last year. Go HERE for a summary of that audit report or HERE for our story.

Some remedial steps have been made in addressing a multitude of problems exposed in a 2016 audit of the Department of Veterans Affairs (See audit summary HERE).

Yet, we can’t help but wonder where the oversight was before a critical audit necessitated changes. Among those findings:

  • Payment of $44,000 to a company for improperly documented work without the required contract.
  • The use of $27,500 in federal funds specifically earmarked for the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery in Slidell for the purchase of a Ford Expedition for the exclusive use of headquarters staff.
  • The failure to disclose information of potential crimes involving veteran residents at several War Veteran homes.
  • The possible falsifying of former Secretary David Alan LaCerte’s military service as posted on the LDVA website.
  • LaCerte’s engaging in questionable organizational, hiring, and pay practices that led in turn to a lack of accountability.

Likewise, some positive steps have been taken in shaping up the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) trusty oversight programs but that resulted as much from a thorough investigative report by Baton Rouge Advocate reporters as a 2016 audit (see HERE) that found:

Because the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola’s trusty policy, 1,547 (an astounding 91 percent) trusties at Angola were not eligible for the program and even after the policy was revised, 400 (24 percent) of 1705 trusties were ineligible. All 400 were considered by DOC to be eligible as a result of having an undocumented, implicit waiver for a sex offense or time served less than 10 years.

Equally troubling, the audit found that 14 of 151 (9 percent) of trusties assigned to work in state buildings in Baton Rouge were not eligible because of crimes of violence, including aggravated battery, manslaughter, and aggravated assault with a firearm. The report further found that if those 151 were required to comply with the requirements in place for Level 1 trusties, 49 (32 percent) would be ineligible.

Indicative of the monumental waste brought about by the proliferation of boards and commissions in state government, a 2017 audit (see HERE) of “Boards, Commissions, and Like Entities) noted that the number of boards and commissions had been reduced from the 492 in 2012 to “only” 458 in 2016. Texas, by comparison, has 173, Mississippi about 200. The appointment of members of those boards and commissions take up a lot of time as the governor’s office supposedly vets each new member.

Four boards did not respond to the auditor’s request for data in 2017 and 2016.

There were 11 inactive boards which were not fulfilling established functions, five of which were also inactive the previous year.

Some of these boards, as illustrated on numerous occasions by LouisianaVoice, often go rogue and there seems to be no one to rein them in. These include the Louisiana State Police Commission, The Louisiana Board of Dentistry, the Auctioneer Licensing Board, the State Board of Cosmetology, and the State Board of Medical Examiners, to name but a few.

Take, for example, the 2016 audit of the Louisiana Motor Vehicle Commission (see HERE):

  • The commission did not have adequate controls over financial reporting to ensure accuracy.
  • The commission did not comply with state procurement laws requiring contracts for personal, professional and consulting services, failing to obtain approval for contracts for two vendors totaling $80,000.

The point of this exercise is to call attention to the one office in state government which, with little fanfare and even less credit, goes about its job each day in attempting to maintain some semblance of order in the manner in which the myriad of state agencies protects the public fisc.

The Legislative Auditor’s Office, headed by Daryl Purpera, performs a Herculean, but thankless job of poring over receipts, contracts, bids, and everything related to expenditures to ensure that the agencies are toeing the line and are in accordance with established requirements and laws regarding the expenditure of public funds.

Thousands of audits have been performed. We pulled up only a few random examples: there are others, like the Recovery School District, the Department of Education, Grambling State University (only because it has so many audits with repeated findings), levee districts and local school boards and parish governments. Untold numbers of irregularities have been uncovered—only to be largely ignored by those in positions to take action against agency heads, who, because of political ambitions, allow attention to be diverted from their responsibilities of running a tight ship.

In cases of egregious findings, the media will jump on the story, only to allow it to fade away and things soon return to normal with no disciplinary action taken against those responsible.

If all elected officials and members of the governor’s cabinet were held accountable for their sloppy work or the outright dishonesty of their agency heads, it would send a message throughout state government and this state might well save hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted expenditures and theft.

It calls to mind the lyrics of a 1958 Johnny Cash song, Big River, recorded when he was still with Sun Records:

“She raised a few eyebrows

And then she went on down alone”

Through it all, Purpera and his staff trudge ever-onward, raising a few eyebrows and then continuing (alone) to do their jobs even as those above them do not.

They—and the taxpayers of Louisiana—deserve better.

 

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LPAARMCSBCSLC President Harley Purvis elaborates on Social Security GPO and complete uselessness of Congress

Posted in Congress, Education, Finances on June 20, 2017| 11 Comments »

When I found him this morning in the booth in the back in the corner in the dark at John Wayne Culpepper’s Lip-Smackin’ Bar-B-Que House and Used Lightbulb Emporium in Watson, Louisiana, Harley Purvis was in his usual mood, i.e. nasty.

The Greater Livingston Parish All-American Redneck Male Chauvinist Spittin’, Belchin’, and Cussin’ Society and Literary Club (LPAARMCSBCSLC) had scheduled an emergency meeting for 10 a.m. and only two of the six members (that would be Harley and me) had arrived. As president, Harley was not one to brook tardiness.

But there was something else on his mind today as I slid into the booth opposite him. I can always tell the degree of his consternation by the amount of coffee he’d consumed and the condition of the day’s newspaper. Today, I could tell he was on at least his fourth cup and the Baton Rouge Advocate looked as though a squirrel had chosen today’s edition for a nest.

You don’t rush Harley when something is weighing on his mind. He will speak when he’s ready, so I ordered a cup of John Wayne’s high-octane coffee brewed from yesterday’s leftover grounds that went down more like Number Two West Texas Crude. And I waited.

Finally he spoke.

“If you want to sum up the complete worthlessness of Congress, I can do it in two sentences,” he said.

“Based on my current income, if I retire at 65, I will qualify for about $3,500 per month in social security.”

That surprised me because I never knew Harley made that kind of income, let alone reported it to Uncle Sam. He went on.

“My wife, Wanda Bob, is a school teacher and a damn good-‘un but if I die before her, she will get maybe a couple hundred bucks a month in Social Security spousal benefits.”

“Wait, what?” I managed to stammer. Two sentences and I was floored.

“That’s right. Because Louisiana is one of 15 states in which have their own retirement systems and in which public employees do not participate in social security, there’s this thing called the Government Pension Offset (GPO) passed way back in the Carter administration.”

“Government Pension Offset?”

“Yeah. Stay with me. It was passed in 1977 and it’s called the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). It was passed ostensibly to prevent double dipping but as usual, it was passed without any real consideration of the consequences and it turned out to be a penalty for public service like the teaching profession.”

“A penalty? How so?”

“Simple. If she’d worked in the private sector at something like banking or a CPA, she would be entitled to my full Social Security benefits if I died first. Hell, even if she didn’t work at all and was a stay-at-home mom and housewife, she’d still be entitled to my full benefits. But because she chose to work as a teacher, she will penalized if I die first. Does that seem fair to you?”

I had to admit it didn’t. I asked him why something hadn’t been done to correct this egregious injustice. I should have known better than to ask.

“Hell, I can give you 535 reasons right up front!” he exploded. “That’s the 435 House members and the 100 Senators. They don’t give a rat’s patooty about us. Never have, never will. It’s like everything else they do: they give lip service but never follow through. Every member of Congress, with the possible exception of Clay Higgins and Ted Cruz is fully aware of this but they continue to sit on their butts and do zero about it. And they wonder why they have such low approval ratings.

“They’ve had bills introduced for years to do away with the WEP and enough members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors because it looks great to the folks back home. The problem is, they won’t bring it up for a vote. That’s their way to come back home when they run for re-election and to tell the good voters that they tried to help them but couldn’t get other members to go along. That’s crap but it works and they can then concentrate on raising campaign funds and catering to the special interest. Meanwhile, we’re left holding the bag.”

“What can we do about it?” I naively asked.

“Not a damned thing! You think Garrett Graves or Mike Johnson or John Kennedy or Bill Cassidy has ever given a thought to this? Hell no, there’s no campaign contributions to go with it. And Clay Higgins is such a dumbass he wouldn’t know unless it was an NRA issue. He thinks GPO stands for Guns and Preemptive Ops and WEP stands for Weapons of Extreme Prejudice.”

“That’s pretty strong,” I said, taking a sip of my now-cold coffee.

“Well, I stand by it. There are 46,000 public school teachers in Louisiana and some 60,000 other state employees and the same rules apply each one whose spouse works in the private sector and pays into Social Security. I’d guess at least 75,000 or 80,000 are adversely impacted by this B.S.

“You tell me if you think it’s fair for me to pay into Social Security all my working life, die a few months after retirement and my widow get nothing? That’s money I paid into the system and because she chose to become a teacher and worked to enrich the minds of children by teaching them to think and reason, she’s entitled to nothing. Meanwhile, my next door neighbor’s wife who chose to stay home and not work is entitled to her husband’s benefits after he dies. Is that fair?”

I had to admit it wasn’t. And he was correct: he had summed up the complete worthlessness of Congress in two sentences.

I wanted to ask more questions but two more members of LPAARMCSBCSLC had arrived, giving us a quorum. Harvey, as president, pounded his gavel, bringing the meeting to order.

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