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CMS rejects hospital privatization plan leaving $300M hole in 2015 budget and immediate $70M shortfall for higher ed

May 2, 2014 by tomaswell

Not that we told you so, but…..we told you so. Several times.

LouisianaVoice has questioned the wisdom—and legality—of the shaky LSU hospital privatization deals since day one and on Friday, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notified the state that it had refused to sign off on the administration’s plans to privatize LSU hospitals in New Orleans, Shreveport, Monroe, Houma, Lake Charles and Lafayette.

The decision deals a devastating blow to the administration and the state budget for next fiscal year which begins on July 1.

Even more important, the decision throws into serious doubt the operating budget for higher education for the remaining two months of the current fiscal year.

Only last week, Jindal asked State Treasurer John Kennedy to transfer $40 million from other areas to continue funding higher education because an anticipated $70 million in hospital lease payments had not been made.

Kennedy said Friday he was assured that the money would be repaid as soon as the lease payments were received. “Now, I just don’t know,” Kennedy said. “If that $70 million isn’t forthcoming, we have a problem right now, not next year. I don’t believe the legislators realize this yet. I don’t think they realize they will have to cut another $70 million from somewhere to keep higher education afloat. We have to support higher ed.

“Wow. This catches me flat-footed,” he said. “I didn’t expect a decision this soon.”

Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols said last week that she was confident that the lease payments would be made but the CMA decision casts a huge shadow over those prospects.

Kennedy added that he believes the legislature will now have to consider his proposal calling for an across the board 10 percent cut in consulting contracts. “That would generate $500 million,” he said.

State Rep. Rogers Pope (R-Denham Springs) said the decision raises the question of “where the state will make up $300 million-plus. You have to wonder how many cans we can keep kicking down the road.

“This is a discouraging development. The budget is scheduled to come to the House floor next Thursday, so there’s no time to find additional money. I just don’t know how to react or how many services we can cut.

“Just last week (Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy) Kliebert assured the Senate there was nothing to worry about and now this…”

Another legislator was even more outspoken in his criticism of the governor.

“Governor Bobby Jindal’s reckless pursuit of using federal Medicaid funds in an ill-conceived scheme to privatize state-run hospitals has backfired and now the people of Louisiana will pay a dear price,” said State Rep. Robert Johnson (D-Marksville) in a prepared statement. “Governor Jindal has written a blank check to sell our charity hospital system, which is ultimately used by Louisiana’s working poor, and today it has bounced.

“People could die. The sick will get sicker. Our precious hospitals are in turmoil. The state budget is in tatters. Governor Bobby Jindal sits in the midst of this fiscal and healthcare debacle clutching his dreams of the presidency at the taxpayers’ expense.

“I, along with many others, predicted this outcome and now the people of Louisiana have been left with the tab.

“The Jindal administration’s announcement of an appeal is a typical, timid, tepid response that will bear no more fruit than the barren tree Jindal planted last year.

“It will take all of us. Now is not the time to fall back on partisan bickering or to cling to ideology in the face of a fiscal and healthcare disaster,” he said.

Part of the problem was most likely the manner in which the administration was attempting to use federal dollars to attract more federal matching dollars to finance Jindal’s privatization plan; the feds just weren’t buying it.

Here is the scheme:  The private hospital pays LSU money to lease the LSU hospital.  That money does not stay with LSU; it ends up (directly or indirectly) being used as match in the Medicaid program.  After matching those lease payments with federal funds, the total, larger amount is paid back to the private partner in the form of a Medicaid payment.   The lease payments supplant the state funds.  However, the legislative fiscal office has already raised concerns about the leases being $39 million short which is  why the Division of Administration has already begun planning on “double” lease payments this year.

For years states have devised schemes to receive additional federal funds while reducing the state contribution for Medicaid.  There is a problem with these schemes, however.  Consider this from a 2009 report by the Congressional Research Office:

“In 1991, Congress passed the Medicaid Voluntary Contribution and Provider-Specific Tax Amendments (P.L. 102-234). This bill grappled with several Medicaid funding mechanisms that were sometimes used to circumvent the state/federal shared responsibility for funding the cost of the Medicaid program. Under these funding methods, states collect funds (through taxes or other means) from providers and pay the money back to those providers as Medicaid payments, while claiming the federal matching share of those payments. States were essentially “borrowing” their required state matching amounts from the providers. Once the state share was netted out, the federal matching funds claimed could be used to raise provider payment rates, to fund other portions of the Medicaid program, or for other non-Medicaid purposes.”

DHH’s scheme included a “borrowing” component that looked similar to the practices this legislation was aimed at preventing.  Medicaid rules do not allow a Medicaid provider (read “hospital” here) to voluntarily donate money to the state when they know they will get this money back plus more (the federal share) as part of an increase in their Medicaid payments.  The federal oversight agency, CMS, had previously expressed concerns to state officials that these lease payments could qualify as non bona fide provider donations.

If CMS determined these are conventional fair market value leases, they would have allowed the payments.  Beyond the basic annual lease payments, the deals included “double lease payments” and other large up front lease payments designed to fix the state’s budget problem raising the specter of non bona fide provider donations.  If these payments were deemed to be non-allowable, the federal government will recoup any federal funds that were paid as match for these state funds.

The privatization deals were done at a cost of $1.1 billion to the state this budget year, much of that ($882 million) expected to come from federal funds under the scenario alluded to above.

But a terse message from CMS brought all those plans crashing down: “To maintain the fiscal integrity of the Medicaid program, CMS is unable to approve the state plan amendment request made by Louisiana.”

Predictably, Jindal, who refused to wait for federal approval before plunging ahead full bore with his sweeping privatization of the LSU hospital system, said, “CMS has no legal basis for this decision.” (At least he didn’t call the decision “wrong-headed,” as he did in 2012 when a state district court ruled his school voucher program unconstitutional.)

Jindal said he will appeal the decision but for the time being, the six hospitals will be operating under financing plans that have been shot down, which should come as no surprise to observers of this administration. Friday’s decision prompted one of the governor’s critics to comment, “Jindal deserves every misfortune that this may bring him. The people of this state, however, don’t deserve this. He used them for his selfish political purposes.” Another said, “It would be karma if this fiasco totally destroyed Jindal’s national dreams.”

The one question still left unanswered is whether attorney Jimmy Faircloth will once again be called on to defend yet another dog of a legal case on behalf of this blundering administration, thus adding to his legal fees which already exceed $1 million.

Posted in Budget, Contract, Contracts, DHH, Finances, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization | 26 Comments »

Discard McAllister, Vitter amorous liaison comparisons; examine Furer saga for insight into true Vitter character

May 2, 2014 by tomaswell

Well, the hue and cry over the transgressions of 5th District Congressman Vance McAllister appears to be finally fading to the back pages of the state’s newspapers.

With all the emotional maturity of a rutting high school sophomore, McAllister managed to attract the glare of a national spotlight that few freshmen in Congress manage—or desire.

McAllister was elected last October and sworn into office in November to fill the unexpired term of Republican Rodney Alexander. But despite his incredibly poor judgment, he nevertheless missed the chance to beat Democrat Donald Cazayoux’s Louisiana record for the shortest tenure in Congress.

Cazayoux was elected on May 3, 2008, to fill the unexpired term of Republican Richard Baker of Baton Rouge who callously left to head up a large hedge fund, in the process placing upon the State of Louisiana the financial burden of the necessity of holding a special election to name a successor for only six months at which time the winner would have run again. Cazayoux subsequently lost to Bill Cassidy who took office in January of 2009, giving Cazayoux only eight months in office. Assuming McAllister remains in office until his successor takes is sworn in next January, he will have served 14 months—almost twice as long as Cazayoux, who at least managed to leave office honorably and not in disgrace.

But as dumb as McAllister’s getting caught on camera deep kissing an aide in his Monroe office, it should pale in comparison to the deeds of the man who would be the next governor of Louisiana.

Because the act was captured on video and subsequently brought it into our living rooms in grainy black and white images, there was collective outrage and demands for his resignation from the upper echelons of the Louisiana Republican hierarchy, Gov. Bobby Jindal included.

He did, after all, kiss a woman who was not his wife, so off with his head!

But at the same time, we all know that U.S. Sen. David Vitter did a tad more than simply kiss a woman who was not his wife; he engaged in extra-marital sex with at least one prostitute—and most probably others, if their stories are to be believed, dating back to his days in the Louisiana Legislature. And why shouldn’t we believe them? With nothing to gain by lying about their exploits with the good senator, they certainly have as much credibility as Vitter.

Yet the Louisiana Republican establishment was strangely mute when it came to demanding that Vitter step down. Can you say two-faced, double-standard, duplicitous, hypocritical political opportunists?

Vitter, for his part, spent $127,000 in legal fees in successfully warding off efforts to force him to testify about his relationship with Debra Jean Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam. He even petitioned the Federal Election (gotta be care about that spelling) Commission to allow him to use campaign funds to pay for those legal efforts. Palfrey meanwhile, convicted of money laundering and racketeering, committed suicide.

Of course, we are acutely aware that the comparisons between McAllister’s crazy canoodling caper and Vitter’s hearty hooker habit have already been aired in abundance, so perhaps that’s enough said about the subject.

Instead, as our subject du jour, let’s discuss the conveniently all-but-forgotten Brent Furer.

Brent Furer was Vitter’s legislative assistant on women’s issues (or maybe not, depending upon whom you choose to believe) who in 2008, violently turned upon his girlfriend when he discovered phone numbers for other men in her Blackberry, smashing her phone when she attempted to call 911. He then proceeded to hold her captive in his Capitol Hill apartment for 90 minutes, threatened to kill her, placed his hand over her mouth, threw her to the floor and cut her hand and chin with a knife. After he was arrested for the incident, it was learned that he was wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant in Baton Rouge for drunk driving.

Vitter took firm and decisive action against his subordinate when he was arrested on charges of domestic violence. Coming down hard, he suspended Furer without pay for five whole days. Superior Court Judge Lee Satterfield meted out punishment almost as harsh: he handed down a suspended jail sentence of 180 days, dismissed the assault and weapons charges, ordered 40 hours of community service and treatment for drug and alcohol dependency, and gave Furer a “harsh warning.”

While the attack on his girlfriend occurred in 2008, it did not become public knowledge until ABC News broke the story in 2010. Vitter, the forceful advocate for women and an outspoken opponent of drunk driving, had allowed Furer to remain on his staff for more than two years until the story broke and only then did Furer resign on June 23, 2010.

It turned out that was not Furer’s first brush with the law. And while Vitter denied any knowledge of prior arrests, Furer, in 2003, following his conviction for drunken driving, performed community service under the supervision of a New Orleans pastor who also just happened to serve as Vitter’s regional director in Louisiana. That the upstanding senator was unaware of that arrest would seem to be quite incredulous, to say the least.

In fact, Vitter twice allowed Furer to travel to Louisiana on the taxpayers’ dime for court appearances in Baton Rouge to defend himself from the drunk driving charges, claiming that his travel to Louisiana was for official senate business. One of those trips just happened to coincide with his scheduled court appearance.

Prior to the 2008 incident with his girlfriend, Furer, an ex-Marine, already had three arrests for driving under the influence and once for cocaine possession. In one of those drunken driving episodes, in 2003, police pursued Furer’s swerving vehicle as they observed what appeared to be Furer fighting with a female passenger (again with the fighting with women? Some tough Marine.). He continued driving after she exited the vehicle and was finally pulled over. His blood alcohol content (BAC) was .132 percent, according to the arrest report—more than one and one-half times the legal limit of .08 percent for intoxication. Furer was “very verbally abusive toward the police,” the report said.

But the ugliest incident—the domestic violence incident with his girlfriend notwithstanding—also occurred the same year as his attack on his date. It was in late 2008 when Furer was en route to pick up medication from a Washington area pharmacy.

Furer, a veteran of the first Gulf War, became involved in a road rage incident with another former Marine, Gregory Blake. Furer chased Blake through Washington streets in their SUVs. During the chase, Furer struck a motorcyclist, throwing him to the pavement and fracturing his femur, according to a lawsuit pursuant to the incident. (Furer’s insurance company eventually settled out of court.)

When police arrived at the scene, Furer played the tired old Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am? card by flashing his Senate ID as he informed officers he worked for Sen. Vitter, apparently in the mistaken belief that congressional immunity extended to staffers.

“That guy should not be working for the U.S. government,” Blake said when he learned of Furer’s employment.

In a classic blame-the-messenger defense, retired Marine Gen. James E. Livingston said poor Furer witnessed “unspeakable tragedies” while serving in Kuwait and even went so far as to say the story of the incident with Blake was “clearly politically driven and it’s unfortunate that some are willing to ruin the reputation of a Marine veteran for a political story.”

Wow. Or backwards, wow. Nothing about the reputation of Blake, the other Marine veteran, General? Just how a retired Marine general uninvolved in the events managed to become part of the story remains unclear.

Gen. Livingston, however, wasn’t finished. “When faced with Brent’s troubles, Sen. Vitter could have chosen political expediency and allowed Brent to flounder on his own in a time of need,” he said. “Instead, he tried to allow Brent the best opportunity to seek help and get better while never downplaying the severity of the charges.”

How very noble of the junior senator from Louisiana.

Keep in mind that the road rage incident in which an innocent motorcyclist was struck and injured by Furer occurred after Furer had attacked his girlfriend, during which he asked her, according to the police report, “Do you want to die?” Still, Vitter kept Furer on his staff until ABC News broke the story more than two years later.

In fact, Vitter even offered an incredibly lame defense of the entire affair, claiming the story was inaccurate by denying that Furer worked on women’s issues in any way—as if that excused the physical attack on his girlfriend—even though records clearly showed that Vitter was lying through his teeth.

Several Beltway guides clearly identified Furer as the women’s issues point person in Vitter’s office. Moreover, Beth Meeks, executive director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said when she was in Washington immediately before the story about Furer and his girlfriend broke, she was personally informed that Furer was Vitter’s contact person on pending domestic violence legislation.

Vitter attempted to say (read: lie) that Tonya Newman and Nicole Hebert were the employees in his office who were assigned to women’s issues. Newman, however, was identified by Legistorm, one of those congressional staff guidebooks, as alternately Vitter’s Chief of Staff and Communications Director while moving between Vitter’s personal office and his Banking and Urban Affairs Committee office. Hebert, meanwhile, worked out of Vitter’s Lafayette, LA., office as a liaison on women’s issues—not as Vitter’s legislative assistant on women’s issues in Washington.

So, in consideration of all the events described here, including Vitter’s oft-stated support of family values, women’s rights and his opposition to drunk driving, weighed against his flimsy explanations, we must keep asking two questions as we barrel headlong toward the 2015 gubernatorial election:

Can we really believe anything that Misogynist-in-Chief Vitter says?

And can we trust a state Republican organization headed by Jindal and State Party Chairman Roger Villere who scream for McAllister’s resignation while conveniently ignoring Vitter’s far more serious betrayal of the public trust? Not to defend his brain-dead lapse in judgment, but the moment Jindal and Villere opened their hypocritical mouths McAllister should have called a press conference and issued a statement along these lines:

“I shall resign from Congress precisely 30 seconds after Sen. Vitter resigns.”

The silence from Vitter’s sanctimonious enablers would have been deafening.

Posted in Congress, Elections, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Politicians, Vitter | 9 Comments »

Democracy? Representative Republic? Gone. Like Edsel, The American voter is irrelevant, passé, thanks to Citizens United

April 30, 2014 by tomaswell

It has been a little over four years since democracy officially died in this country and sufficient time has passed to safely proclaim that you, the American voter, are no longer relevant. You have gone the way of the Edsel and the 8mm movie camera.

If indeed, your voice ever really was heard in the halls of Congress and in the 50 state legislatures, it has been officially muted by the U.S. Supreme Court which, on Jan. 21, 2010, officially handed over the reins of government in this country to corporate entities and power broker billionaires like the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, Sheldon Adelson and the Walton family.

And yes, we were exposed to enough civics and American history in school to know that we do not live in a democracy but rather a representative republic which, by definition, is a representative government ruled by law—in our case, the U.S. Constitution.

But the question must be asked: representative of whom or more accurately, representative of whose interests?

To illustrate how elected officials react to the jingle of loose lobbyist change as opposed to the real needs of constituents, let’s bring the story up close and personal as we consider the story of Billy Tauzin.

Remember Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Democrat turned Republican from Chackbay?

Tauzin, you may recall, was Louisiana’s congressman from the 3rd Congressional District from 1980 to 2004.

In a move that should cloud the rosiest of rose colored glasses, Tauzin in 2003 helped draft the bill that created a Medicare drug benefit but which, at Tauzin’s insistence, barred the government from negotiating drug prices. In other words, whatever the pharmaceutical firms wanted to charge for prescription drugs for Medicare patients was what they got. No discounts as when Medicare discounts physician and hospital charges. Pharmaceutical prices were set in stone.

Then, in December of 2004, Tauzin abruptly resigned from Congress to become president of….(drum roll, please)…the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

As if that were not egregious enough, Tauzin in his role as PhRMA President, later cut a deal with President Obama in which PhRMA volunteered to help cover the uninsured and to reduce drug prices for some senior citizens in exchange for a promise from Obama that the administration block any congressional effort to allow the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices. The deal was Tauzin’s effort to concede a few bucks on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry in exchange for a guarantee that a much more lucrative—and long-term—deal would remain intact.

Except it didn’t. And only when the deal unraveled did we learn the sordid details of the aborted agreement.

Ironically enough, it was the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the very committee that Tauzin chaired when he cut his original deal to prevent negotiating drug prices in 2004 that ultimately torpedoed him by amending the health reform bill to allow Medicare drug negotiation.

“Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don’t keep their word?” sniffed the man who sold his soul—and his office—to PhRMA.

Should we feel betrayed by Tauzin? Should we be outraged?

Why should we? The little episode just described is only one of hundreds upon hundreds of cases of greed-driven deceit carried out by virtually each of the 535 members of Congress. In short, what he did is only symptomatic of a much larger problem in Washington and which filters down to every one of the 50 state legislatures and assemblies.

Whoever coined the phrase “Money talks, B.S. walks” should be enshrined in some kind of exclusive (as in its only member) philosopher’s hall of fame—and dual membership in the political hall of fame as well.

It’s been that way for more than a century now of course, but on Jan. 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court made it official with its 5-4 ruling on Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission. All that ruling did was open the floodgates for corporate money to flow on behalf of any member of Congress who might be for sale. (And just in case it may still be unclear, make no mistake that the word “any” in this case is synonymous with “all.”)

The Citizens United decision said that the government had no business regulating political speech—even by corporations which were—and are—still prohibited from contributing directly to federal campaigns but were now free to pour unlimited funds into political action committees (PACs) which in turn could purchase political advertisement on behalf of or in opposition to any issue or candidate.

Those PACs, more accurately described as “Super PACs,” proliferated overnight, cluttering the landscape with TV ads baring nothing more than a tiny “paid for” line at the bottom of the screen to identify the origins of the attack ads.

Like her or not, Hate or love the Affordable Care Act, it should gall every Louisiana citizen to know that it is one of those Super PACs that is buying all of those TV attack ads trying to tie Sen. Mary Landrieu to President Obama. It should nauseate television viewers in this state to know (of course they don’t tell you) that all those TV ad testimonials from Louisiana citizens that tell how Obamacare has devastated their lives and wrecked their homes come from actors—none of whom are Louisiana citizens. That is deceptive advertising in every sense of the word and yet it’s perfectly legal—all the illegitimate child of Citizens United.

So, what exactly is Citizens United? We hear the word bandied about but no one tells us just what it is. Well, here it is in all its ugly trappings:

Citizens United was founded as a PAC in 1988 by Washington political consultant Floyd Brown. More important than the founder’s identity was is the fact that the bulk of the organization’s funding comes from none other than the infamous Koch brothers, the moving force behind the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

So, on the one hand, the Koch brothers financially underwrite favorable federal candidates to the tune of millions of dollars through Citizens United. On the other hand, at the state level, ALEC conducts training sessions to develop “model legislation” for state legislators to take back to their home states for passage—legislation, for example, that keeps the minimum wage down, denies medical coverage for the poor, insures the continued existence of those payday loan companies, privatizes prisons and other services for the profit of member companies who run them, establishes “education reform” through charter schools and online virtual schools, and opposes employee unions while gutting employee pensions.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with the Kochs are members of the Walton family, Bill Gates and Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate to whom all the 2016 Republic presidential hopefuls, Bobby Jindal included, paid the requisite homage recently by making the pilgrimage to Vegas to bow and scrape before his throne in the hope that he would anoint one of them as the Republican candidate for President. (It must have been a sickening sight to watch those sycophants suck up to him like so many shameless American Idol audition hopefuls.)

As the Super PACs proliferated, so, too, did the money poured into political spending. Comparing the last two presidential election years, we see that Super PAC spending on all federal races went from nearly $40 million in 2008 to almost $90 million in 2012.

Being realistic, suppose that you, a citizen, contribute $1,000 to a congressional candidate who at the same time benefits from hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on his behalf by a Super PAC representing, say, a large pipeline company owned by someone like, say, the Koch brothers. That pipeline is projected to run right across prime cattle grazing land that you own and you aren’t too keen on the idea. So you contact your congressman to voice your opposition. Now, just who do you think has his ear—you and your $1,000 contribution or that Super PAC and its hundreds of thousands of dollars? That’s what we thought.

All these Super PACs were formed as either 501(c)(4) or 527 organizations—both tax exempt but with one major difference.

Tax-exempt 527s must make available the names of all their contributors while 501(c)(4) PACs can keep their donors’ identities a closely held secret, thus giving birth to the term “dark money” in political campaign vernacular. When Jindal formed his Believe in Louisiana as a 527 several years ago, for example, he dutifully listed all contributors, as well as all expenditures, as required. That may have embarrassing after LouisianaVoice published a lot of the names of both contributors and expenditures, including millions paid Timmy Teepell and OnMessage.

When Jindal formed his new America Next PAC earlier this year, it was formed as a 501(c)(1), meaning he could keep the names of his donors confidential so as to continue to promote his transparency doctrine as he gads about the country in his attempt to grab the brass ring. He apparently learned a lesson about forming as a 527 and about true transparency.

So, we reiterate: you the voting citizen of Louisiana and America are no longer relevant. Your vote has already been decided by those 527s, the 501s and the political consulting firms that will package the TV ads purchased by the PACs to present to you, the pawns in a huge chess game, so you can validate those ads by obediently trekking to the polls to pull the lever in an election whose outcome will have already been pre-ordained. Oh, there will be some upsets along the way just to keep up the appearance of democracy in action but in the long run, it won’t matter one whit.

The voice of the candidate whose passion is sincere, who is concerned about the issues, who cares for the voters, and who holds the ideals of fairness and constituents’ interests close to his heart, will never be heard. His appeals to justice and equality and a promise of an office that will not be for sale will be drowned out by anonymous actors flickering across your TV screen who pretend to be one of you—but really aren’t—and who will pound into your brain the truth as determined by corporate interests—a message that will resonate with you despite the efforts of that obscure candidate who would, if he only could, be an example of everything that should be good about this country.

That is the sad epitaph for the American representative republic (b. July 4, 1776; d. Jan. 21, 2010).

And if this doesn’t make your blood boil, shame on you.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Congress, Elections, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, PACs | 8 Comments »

Legislative members of ALEC check their principles at door when it comes to accepting farm subsidy (welfare) payments

April 23, 2014 by tomaswell

The Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) agenda, as we have shown here on numerous occasions, promotes unyielding opposition to any legislation that smacks of benefits to workers, the unemployed and the poor.

Among other things, ALEC, led by the Koch brothers, pushes legislation that:

  • Opposes an extension of unemployment benefits;
  • Undermines the rights of injured workers to hold their corporate employers accountable
  • Promotes for-profit schools at the expense of public education;
  • Opposes consumers’ right to know the origin of food we consume;
  • Opposes an increase in the federal minimum wage;
  • Limits patient rights and undermines safety net programs including, of all things a call to end licensing and certification of doctors and other medical professionals.

While the effort to end licensing and certification of medical professionals might play into the hands of State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R-D-R-Opelousas) and his affinity for witch doctors, such a move probably would not work to the benefit of the average patient.

Chameleon Sen. Elbert Guillory: Republican, Democrat, Republican, runs for Lt. Gov. after consulting witch doctor

And while ALEC vehemently opposes any legislation that might remotely resemble benefits to the poor or which might invoke that hated word welfare, the organization’s agenda remains something of a paradox when one takes a step back and examines the spate of corporate welfare programs enacted by willing accomplices in the highest reaches of Louisiana politics.

Generous tax exemptions, credits, and incentives have proliferated to an extent not even imagined by the injured or unemployed worker trying to provide for his family—while generating few, if any, real benefits in the way of new jobs.

Probably the most glaring abuse of the incentives offered by our Office of Economic Development are the absurd tax dodges meted out to the movie industry and for what—being able to boast that we’re now recognized as Hollywood East.” That offers little encouragement to the guy trying to pay for a mortgage, a car payment, education of his kids, and health care if he’s hurt or can’t find a job.

By contrast, LouisianaVoice has found a few federal farm subsidy payments to several “persons of interest” which may come as a surprise to Louisiana’s great unwashed. Then again, maybe not.

For example, we have former legislator (he served in both the House and Senate) Noble Ellington, two years ago appointed to the $130,000 per year position of Deputy Commissioner of Insurance despite his having no experience in the field of insurance.

Ellington, a Republican from Winnsboro, also served until his retirement from the legislature as ALEC’s national president and even hosted the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans in 2011 so it stands to reason that he would, on principle alone, reject out of hand any form of welfare—even such as might be to his own financial benefit.

Not so much.

From 1995 to 2012, Ellington received $335,273 in federal farm subsidies while sons Ryan Ellington and Noble Ellington, III, received $89,000 and $25,223, respectively—nearly $450,000 for the three.

Granted, the senior Ellington made his fortune as a cotton merchant so we suppose that qualifies him to the subsidies—except for his position as National President of ALEC which is diametrically opposed to welfare. Oops, we forgot; that’s diametrically opposed to welfare for all but the corporate world. Our bad.

And then there’s Ellington’s successor to the Louisiana House, Rep. Steve Pylant (R-Winnsboro), who introduced a bill during last year’s session that would have required the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to “adopt rules and regulations that require all public high school students beginning with those entering ninth grade in the fall of 2014, to successfully complete at least one course offered by a BESE-authorized online or virtual course provider as a prerequisite to graduation.”

If that’s not corporate welfare, in that it guarantees a constant revenue stream in the form of state payments to private concerns offering those Course Choice courses, we will shine your shoes free for a year.

During the same time period, 1995 to 2012, Pylant received nearly $104,400 in federal farm subsidies.

His occupation prior to his election to the Louisiana House? He was sheriff of Franklin Parish.

Another ALEC member, State Sen. Francis Thompson (D-Delhi), also received $472,952 in federal farm subsidies for the same time period as Ellington and Pylant.

Thompson holds an Ed.D. Degree from the University of Louisiana Monroe (formerly Northeast Louisiana University) and lists his occupation as educator and developer.

Other ALEC members, their occupations and federal farm subsidies received between 1995 and 2012:

  • Bogalusa Democratic Sen. Ben Nevers—electrical contractor, $20,000;
  • State Rep. Andy Anders (D-Vidalia)—salesman for Scott Equipment, $34,175;
  • Rep. Jim Fannin (R-Jonesboro)—Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, “independent businessman” and also has a background in education, nearly $2600—a pittance by comparison but still indicative of the mindset of the ALEC membership when it comes to applying a heaping helping of double standard to the public trough.

To be completely fair, however, it should be pointed out that Nevers introduced a bill this session (SB96) that called for a constitutional amendment that would make health care available under Medicaid to all state residents at or below 138 per cent of the federal poverty level—an effort that sets him apart from those who parrot the standard ALEC position on medical care for the poor. Of course his bill failed in committee by a 6-2 vote today (April 23) after Sen. Dan Claitor (R-Baton Rouge) moved to defer action.

Perhaps voters will remember Claitor’s compassion for those without health care in this fall’s (Nov. 4) congressional election.

Two other legislators and two political appointees of Gov. Bobby Jindal who are not members of ALEC also combined to receive nearly $561,000 in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2012, records show. They are:

  • State Rep. Richard Burford (R-Stonewall)— dairy and beef farmer, $38,000;
  • State Rep. John Morris (R-Monroe)— attorney, $11,625;
  • Robert Barham of Oak Ridge—Secretary, Department of Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, $489,700;
  • Lee Mallett of Iowa, LA.—member of the LSU Board of Supervisors, $21,600.

All but Burford and Mallett reside in the 5th Congressional District formerly represented by Rodney Alexander (R-Jonesboro), who now heads the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs.

The 5th District includes the Louisiana Delta which make up one of the largest row crop farming communities of any congressional district in the nation.

Accordingly, the $289,000 paid out to recipients in 2012 was easily the highest of Louisiana’s six congressional districts, more than double the 4th District represented by John Fleming and accounting for 50.6 percent of the statewide total.

For the period of 1995-2012, the 5th District also ranked highest in federal farm subsidies with the $23.7 million paid out representing 31.2 percent of the total and ranking slightly ahead of the 3rd Congressional District of Charles Boustany, which had $21.1 million (27.8 percent).

Of the $292.5 billion paid in subsidies nationwide from 1995-2012, the top 10 percent of recipients received 75 percent of all subsidies, or an average of slightly more than $32,000 per recipient per year for the 18-year period reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA records also reveal that 62 percent of all farms in the U.S. received no subsidy payments.

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Congress, Corruption, Economy, Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians | 14 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

April 22, 2014 by tomaswell

“I have made the decision to wind down the organization over the coming months. It wasn’t an easy decision, and the unavailability of this technology is a real missed opportunity for teachers and school districts seeking to improve student learning.”

—Iwan Streichenberger, Chief Executive Officer of inBloom, in announcing the decision to terminate efforts to gather and store confidential student information in a massive data bank controlled by Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates.

Posted in BESE, Education, Notable Quotables | 4 Comments »

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