Louisiana Voice

Royal Alexander, writing for The Hayride, recently penned an article in which he attacked the “gargantuan debt expenditure” contained in Sen. Bernie Sanders’ $3.5 trillion bill which Alexander claims “would remake our form of government and way of life.”

To bolster his argument, Alexander falls back on the old reliable law of supply and demand which he somehow equates to economic utopia. That would be the same law of supply and demand that has seen the costs of life-saving prescription drugs, for example, soar into the stratosphere and out of reach of those who desperately need them.

Alexander manages to claim, somewhat incredulously, that that law of supply and demand “has lifted millions out of poverty,” while ignoring the contributions of America’s labor unions on this, the eve of Labor Day.

And yes, there has been widespread documented corruption within many unions, but thanks to their clout in the days before Right to Work laws lifted the yoke of responsibility and compassion off management, those same unions gave Americans a decent wage, shorter hours, paid vacations, pension plans, sick leave, group health and life insurance plans and safer work places – all while eliminating child labor and exploitation of female workers in sweatshops.

Alexander says that Sanders advocates “exorbitant, permanent taxes including on the middle class…” He also says Sanders points to countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark when talking up socialist programs while ignoring countries like Venezuela. I would argue instead that Alexander, in his haste to condemn socialism, points to Venezuela, which is more authoritarian than socialist, while ignoring the Scandinavian countries, consistently described as homes to the happiest people on earth.

And while he attacks socialism on principle, Alexander never reveals whether or not he rejected on that same principle any of those $1400 stimulus checks doled out by that socialist Trump administration in response to the coronavirus pandemic – or whether or not big corporations should have rejected those corporate welfare tax breaks enacted by the socialist Republican Congress.

Somewhat disingenuously, Alexander attacks Sanders’ arguments against “wealth inequality” by pointing out that the median household income grew by 9.2 percent between 2016-2019 while conveniently ignoring that fact that the rate of inflation was 13.75 percent – meaning the average wage earner actually lost ground.

Working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year over a work-life of 50 years, it would take the average American worker 13 lifetimes to earn the 2019 single year’s income ($21.3 million) of the average CEO of America’s top 350 US firms – and that’s assuming a minimum wage of $15 per hour.

As Alexander wrings his hands at the prospect of Benie’s $3.5 trillion bill, let’s consider how those numbers stack up when compared to other costs:

The estimated costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including benefits still to be paid out for health care of the war veterans through 2050: $8 trillion. By comparison:

• It would take $1.7 trillion to pay off all outstanding US student loans;
• It would cost $1.4 trillion to provide universal, high-quality early care and education for all US children for 10 years;
• The cost of the war is nearly twice as much as the combined costs of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and Sanders’ $3.5 trillion bill.
• The cost of the war is roughly 12 times Jeff Bezos’s net worth of $190 billion.

Finally, it’s worth going over some facts and figures from the Congressional Budget Office.

The $5.6 trillion cumulative surplus that existed in January 2001 as George W. Bush assumed the presidency morphed into a $6.1 trillion cumulative deficit by 2011, an unfavorable “turnaround” of an eye-popping $11.7 trillion – largely the result of the cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan war and tax cuts enacted by Bush.

But it goes back even further. Public debt rose during the administration of Ronald Reagan, who cut tax rates and increased military spending – an unhealthy combination. While the debt fell during the Bill Clinton years when military spending was decreased and taxes were increased, it rose again sharply in the wake of the Iraq/Afghanistan war and the 2007-2008 financial crisis that came at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency.

NATIONAL DEBT INCREASES*

Ronald Reagan: Added $1.86 trillion, a 186% increase, almost doubling the $997.8 billion debt at the end of Carter’s last budget.

George H.W. Bush: Added $1.554 trillion to the $2.857 trillion debt at the end of Reagan’s last budget, a 54% increase.

Bill Clinton: Added $1.396 trillion to the $4.4 trillion debt at the end of George H.W. Bush’s last budget, a 31.6% increase.

George W. Bush: Added $5.849 trillion to the $5.8 trillion debt at the end of Clinton’s last budget, FY 2001, a 101% increase.

Barack Obama: Added $8.588 trillion to the $11.657 trillion debt at the end of Bush’s last budget in 2009, a 73.6% increase.

Donald Trump: As of the end of FY 2020, the debt was $26.9 trillion. Trump added $6.7 trillion to the debt since Obama’s last budget, a 33.1% increase due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic

DEFICIT INCREASES*

Ronald Reagan: Total = $1.412 trillion, a 142% increase

George H.W. Bush: Total = $1.036 trillion, a 36% increase

Bill Clinton: Total = $63 billion surplus, a 1% decrease

George W. Bush: Total = $3.293 trillion, a 57% increase

Barack Obama: Total = $6.781 trillion, a 58% increase

Donald Trump: Total Actual plus Budgeted = $6.612 trillion, a 33% increase

* (Trump and George H.W. Bush served only four years each. Each of the others were in office for eight years.)

So, in retrospect, it would seem that while Republicans love to lay claim to being the party of fiscal responsibility, neither party can stake out that claim with any degree of credibility. For the proponent of either party to attack the other for a “socialist agenda” or “fiscal irresponsibility” is intellectually dishonest.

I keep reminding myself that when I got married back in 1968, gasoline was 30 cents a gallon and my first home, a three-bedroom brick house on an acre lot, cost less than $15,000. But my full-time job that same year paid a whopping $6,500 per year, so, everything’s relative

Mr. Alexander needs to come down off his high horse and stop posturing in the guise of “good government.” The underlying cause of the runaway inflation is greed – pure and simple greed. And greed knows no party labels.

Someone told me back in 2015 that when Bobby Jindal left office, I’d have nothing to write about.

Time and events have certainly disproven that assumption.

Not even the departure of Mike Edmonson could bring a halt to stories about the sorry state of the Louisiana State Police, particularly in Troop F where apparently it is a major offense to drive while black.

The political climate in Louisiana is certainly fertile soil for investigative reporting and LouisianaVoice has endeavored to maintain the hectic pace of keeping up with events which seems to outpace any effort to stay ahead of the news cycle.

LouisianaVoice was recently recognized as one of the TOP 15 BLOGS in Louisiana (though I must question the omission of both Bayou Brief – the premier political blog as far as I am concerned – and The Lens). Still, I am both honored and humbled to be included in that list.

But doing this takes time and money. That is why I come hat in hand twice a year – in April and September – to ask that you contribute what you feel you can afford in order to support investigative journalism and your right to know what’s going on in your state.

Thomas Jefferson said that given the choice of government without a free press or free press without a government, he would not hesitate to choose the latter. So, please, either click on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post to give by credit card or mail your check to:

LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

As always, your generous support is deeply appreciated.

Call it the gift that keeps on giving.

Just as we as a nation are beginning to emerge from the four-year train wreck that was the Donald Trump presidency, we’re greeted with the stark reminder of yet another failed Repugnantcan administration.

Even better, the two are now uniting under the double yoke of irrelevancy and incompetence.

It was in September 2015, when his own doomed presidential aspirations were still in the embryonic stage (from which they never emerged) that Bobby Jindal called Donald Trump “shallow” and an “unstable narcissist” while warning that a Trump nomination would torpedo the Repugnantcans’ chances of capturing the White House.

“Like all narcissists, Donald Trump is insecure and weak, and afraid of being exposed,” Jindal said back then. “And that’s why he is constantly telling us how big and how rich and how great he is, and how insignificant everyone else is. We’ve all met people like Trump, and we know that only a very weak and small person needs to constantly tell us how strong and powerful he is. Donald Trump believes that he is the answer to every question.”

While he could well have been holding a mirror up to his own reign of error, Jindal went on to say that Trump “has no understanding of policy. He’s full of bluster but has no substance. He lacks the intellectual curiosity to even learn.

“You may have recently seen that after Trump said the Bible is his favorite book, he couldn’t name a single Bible verse or passage that meant something to him,” Jindal continued, calling Trump’s claim “just a show.” Jindal said at the time, “And he hasn’t ever read the Bible. But you know why he hasn’t read the Bible? Because he’s not in it.”

Well, guess what? Jindal was correct (for a change).

Trump, for his part, DISMISSED JINDAL as one would flick a stray dust speck off his sleeve, quipping, “I only respond to people that register more than 1% in the polls.”

Jindal did what Trump could not accomplish: he got reelected to a second term but it was even more disastrous than the first. “After inheriting a $1 billion budget surplus, Jindal agreed to an INCOME TAX CUT that the state couldn’t afford,” said BLOOMBERG NEWS. “He cut spending where he could, particularly on health care and higher education, and reduced the state workforce. But balancing the books required relying on one-shot revenue windfalls and resorting to other fiscal sleights of hand that have left the state’s cupboard bare.”

He also engineered what Bloomberg called “a comically dishonest tax credit that even his fellow party members referred to as ‘money laundering.’ Washington has enough of this kind of budget gimmickry already.

“Jindal joined most other Republican governors in rejecting the expansion of Medicaid. And after Indiana found itself at the center of a national controversy over a religious freedom law that allowed discrimination against gay couples, Jindal pushed for a similar law in his state,” Bloomberg said. 

But fast forward to Aug. 24, 2021, and we have the announcement that Jindal will join the America First think tank to head up its healthcare arm, the Center for a Healthy America.

America First, of course is joined at the hip with Trump and he is using the so-called think tank as just another means of extracting contributions from the faithful who must be somewhat disappointed by now that he was not reinstated as president by that Aug. 13 deadline.

If there ever were two star-struck schmucks destined to join hands in a common march into oblivion, it would be Bobby Jindal and Donald Trump – poles apart in their spiritual beliefs, but oh-so-similar in their misplaced sense of self-importance.

Trump has this unquenchable appetite for attention. He must remain in the spotlight. Jindal was as spot-on in calling him an “unable narcissist” as Trump was infinitely off-target in his self-analysis that he was a “very stable genius.” (One wag ventured that when Trump was asked what his middle initial “J” stood for, he responded, “Jenius.”)

Jindal, on the other hand, has been casting about since he left office in January 2016 for some means to keep his political vital signs alive. Those efforts, which include the occasional writing op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and getting appointed to a couple of corporate boards, have done little to resuscitate what is essentially a moribund public career.

This union reminds me of a wonderful Tom T. Hall song, The Little Lady Preacher. The song is about a 19-year-old female preacher who was “developed to a fault” and who preached each Sunday morning on the local radio. She would punctuate the Bible with a movement of her hips and when she breathed into the microphone, she’d “send us all to hell.”

In the song, Hall said he played the “doghouse bass” and she had a guitar picker named Luther Short who drank and smoked but never drew a rebuke from her though “she said a prayer for me. I told her in a way, I’d been praying for her, too.”

The upshot of the song was that the little lady preacher and Luther Short had “a callin’,” and ran away together, leaving Hall to face the “heartbreak, unemployment and all.”

“I don’t know where they’ve gone and I ain’t seen them people since.

 Lord, if I judge ‘em, let me give ‘em lots of room

I know ol’ Luther Short and he’s a hard ol’ boy to change.

And I’ve often sat and wondered who it was converted whom.”

So, as Jindal and Trump embark on their common journey to political extinction, they can take some solace (or discomfort – the jury’s still out on this one) in the knowledge that the road doesn’t fork.

LouisianaVoice normally holds two fundraisers each year – one in April and the other in September. I would have launched our September effort on Wednesday but Hurricane Ida had other ideas. My power went out at 8 p.m. on Sunday and didn’t come back on until 12:33 a.m. today, so I’ve been without Internet all week.

But now that we’re back up and running, it’s time to make our semi-annual pitch for funds to keep this boat afloat. Unlike the televangelist hucksters, I don’t need a bigger jet and I don’t reside in some palatial mansion with hot and cold running maids, a sauna, swimming pool, a private gym, or other amenities. I get from Point A to Point B in a 10-year-old Nissan pickup truck that’s more than adequate. But I do have the luxury of both a desktop and a laptop computer – and a Smartphone. Now, that’s living.

But the fact remains that it does take a certain amount of good ol’ U.S. script to keep churning out our stories and we depend on your generosity to keep the bills paid.

Gasoline is costly, as is the constant battle with recalcitrant public bodies who are reluctant to provide public records on request and have to be encouraged by our legal counsel – which is also costly.

LouisianaVoice strives to stay atop the latest stories, from Coronavirus vaccines to State Police abuses to the latest curious activities in the attorney general’s office.

So, please help us in this endeavor by either clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post to contribute by credit card or by sending a check to:

LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

As always, thanks so much for your continued support.

Two points right up front so there can be no misunderstanding, no misinterpretation, no twisting of my words, no false accusations.

1. I am, on general principle, opposed to abortions except in cases of rape, incest,  sexual abuse or in cases where it is certain that the fetus is horribly deformed (see Sherri Finkbine and the 1962 Arizona Supreme Court decision and the harmful effects of THALIDOMIDE).
2. Despite my opposition, I am fully cognizant of the fact that I am not a woman and that I have no right to making decisions for women about their bodies (it’s almost comical – almost – to now hear the anti vaxxers invoking the my body, my choice mantra that pro-choice women have been saying for years).

Now, despite having gotten those two points out of the way, there will be those usual nutcases who brand me as a murderer, a communist or any other derogatory label they attach to me. But that’s okay. I’m comfortable with my position and I can sleep at night.

What I don’t understand is how those Repugnantcan legislators over in Texas can live with themselves. What’s even more puzzling about the males among that group is how their wives can live with them.

They have enacted a law that’s clearly unconstitutional (though the U.S. Supreme Court, thanks to Trump’s appointees, has, while not actually upholding the law, refused to take action of any kind on it, not even suspending the law until the legal challenges can be heard).

While the Texas law does not strike down Roe v. Wade, what it does do is incentivize those without a dog in the hunt to intervene into the private affairs of people they might not even know.

In legal parlance, that calls into question a little matter jurists like to call legal standing, meaning that if you are not directly affected by an action, you have no legal right to intervene. For example, if I’m standing on a street corner and driver A runs a red light and broadsides driver B, driver B has a right to file suit but I would not because I have no legal standing, or direct interest, in the carnage the wreck may have caused.

But in Texas, everyone now has legal standing in all cases of abortion after detection of a fetal heartbeat, which physicians say is not really a heartbeat at all, but more of a random flutter.

So, if I reside in Texas and I witness a woman enter an abortion clinic, or see anyone even give here a ride to that clinic, give her advice on or money for an abortion, or have knowledge of anyone who provides abortions, I can now SUE that advisor, that doctor, that pregnant woman, that driver and collect up to $10,000 from each one – the woman, the driver, the advisor, and the doctor.

So, what we now have is a state where there is no hotline if you see a man enter a kindergarten with an AR-15 but there is if you see a woman go into a Planned Parenthood parking lot in her vehicle. Texas will not force a 12-year-old to wear a mask at school but it will force her to have a baby.

Repugnantcans: the party of limited government where mask mandates can be banned, abortions can be outlawed, school curricula can be dictated by legislators and voting restrictions can be imposed on citizens – all so we can get the guvmint out of our lives..

Oh, by the way, the new law makes no exceptions for rape, incest, or sexual abuse.

That, folks, creates a whole new cottage industry: Finksmanship, Inc. Remember all those stories about how the Nazis and later the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and China had neighbors spying on neighbors? Well, now we have it on our very own doorstep – deep in the heart of Texas.

Instead of concerning themselves with an archaic power grid that left everyone in the state except Ted Cruz in a deep freeze last winter, the Texas governor and legislators plow into that knotty problem of what to do about their womenfolk.

Repugnantcans are all about pro-life up to birth. After that, the little tykes are on their own. No laws promoting day care, no intervention to prevent hunger and poverty – especially if such efforts would go against the interest of big corporations like utilities, pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas or defense contractors.

The DEMOCRATS, led by Nancy Pelosi, are scrambling for a strategy to overcome the Texas law absent any showing of a spine by five of the Supreme Court justices. As is customary for the Democrats, they’ve been caught off guard by a conniving, sinister Repugnantcan Party which always seems to be a step or two ahead of the less organized Democrats.

One of the Democratic suggestions is to pack the Supreme Court by enlarging its membership from nine to 13. Good luck with that. You think for a nanosecond Mitch McConnell’s gonna let that happen? Not a chance! And I’m not sure that would be a viable answer anyway. Someday, there would be another Repugnantcan president who would get his shot at appointing justices and before you know it, there would be seven Repugnantcan appointees to just six Dems and some Democrat would be calling to expand to 17. Where would it end?

But one of our readers did come up with a helluva plan and it had merit and would turn the Repugnantcan strategy back onto them (I’d love to identify him, but he may wish to remain anonymous, so I won’t).

Every Democratic Texas legislator and congressmen who has friends in the media should suggest to all their reporter friends that they approach Repugnantcan Texas legislators to interview them about the new law. Most would consent without hesitation because campaign contributions is the mother’s milk of politics and the best way to attract contributions is by keeping your face out there before the public.

At some point in the interview, the reporter should ask the Repugnantcan what alternative a Texas woman had available to her if she had no other choice but to terminate her pregnancy.

Some would dance around it but a persistent reporter could glean some response – such as, “Well, she’d just have to go to another state or to Mexico where it’s legal.” Or he might suggest something as benign as saying, “She would need to consult her physician.”

Bingo! That Repugnantcan has provided advice and counsel and anyone who sees the interview response on TV or reads it in a newspaper could sue.

Any bets as to how long it would take the Texas Legislature to repeal that law?