forgotston.com

Thanks to a lot of hard work by our Congressional Delegation, citizen activists and many others, LA has now back to where it should have been in the late 1940s with respect to the offshore oil and gas tax revenues. It took 60 years to overcome the mistakes of the earlier LA politicians. While that’s certainly progress by LA standards; let’s not repeat the error.

There will now be a serious Federal tax revenue stream dedicated to coastal erosion in LA. The initial stream will be rather weak, but it is projected to grow stronger over time. Some politicians are already talking about bonding the stream to generate the big bucks needed to stop the coastal erosion and supposedly rebuild some of our coastline.

That’s all good. Now what?

Before we decide to bond the money, what’s the plan to spend it?

What’s the specific plan to stop the erosion and rebuild the coast? Who will do it? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? The LA Department of Transportation and Development?

These are simple questions to which I’ve not seen the answers.

I’m no longer in the mind set of entrusting my life, liberty and property to the U.S.A.C.E. They have been about building mounds of dirt (levees) to stop flooding for over 80 years. They still haven’t figured out how to do it. As of this day it remains a matter of trial and error engineering.

The DOTD was incapable of providing buses to help evacuate the citizens who were flooded. That’s a lot more simple job than saving and rebuilding the coast.

Even the decision to build the mounds of levees remains an open question. At the time of the massive levee building program some scientists were suggesting that the best way to reduce or eliminate flooding by the Mississippi River was to dredge the river as opposed to building levees. After the most recent man-made catastrophes, it is still an unanswered question.

So, we have the money or could have it Plus the state is overflowing with money. Saving and rebuilding the coast is no longer an academic question. Political rhetoric is no longer acceptable.

What’s the plan to save the coast? Where is it? Has there been public input? Who will do the engineering design? Assuming that the construction work will be bid, who will supervise the construction? The answers are not of some small interest. Our recent man-made disasters require these questions to be given very close scrutiny.

Who has the answers? I’d like to know. Our future depends on them.

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:13 am

Despite it having been around since the early 1990s, Governor Blanco and others apparently just discovered the constitutional spending “cap” (LA Const. Article VII, Section 10(C) a few weeks ago.

Needless to say, it has upset the governor in no small way because there is a minority of our leges who believe in the purpose of the “cap” which was set by the people of LA.

The purpose of the “cap” is to ensure that state government does not grow disproportionately to the private sector.

The “cap” contains a growth factor which is the “average annual percentage rate of change of personal income for Louisiana … for the three calendar years prior to the fiscal year for which the limit is calculated.”

Therefore, there is a simple solution to the governor and her successor’s quandary. Simple focus their efforts on growing the private sector in LA. As the private sector grows, the personal income will rise. And thus the “cap” will rise.

I can assure the governor and her successor that increasing the public payroll alone will not raise the personal income rate in LA enough to give them any relief. There’s simply a few million more citizens in LA than there are public employees.

Not only is the solution a simple one, but it is the fiscally-responsible thing for any governor or lege to do. Refocusing her efforts just might bring the governor’s current grade on fiscal responsibility up from an “F.” Heck, it might even improve her grade with the voters.

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am

Before the just-ended special session began, Clerk of the LA House of Representatives Butch Speer asked me to give kudos to the leges for any tax breaks they passed during the session. I agreed that if the leges did anything worthwhile I would give them appropriate recognition.

The lege passed one tax break for the citizens of Louisiana. They passed HB 120 which provides a dollar-for-dollar rebateable Income Tax credit for the extra charge we all pay on our Homeowners Insurance policies to bail out the state-back Citizens Fund Insurance. This legislation is particularly noteworthy because it was precisely the plan I suggested to the lege in October. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a new day where the leges are willing to listen to and enact ideas proposed by a mere citizen of LA.

The other major accomplishment of the session was the early adjournment on Friday without doing any serious damage to our state.

Being a man of my word — KUDOS! (Or should it be Kudo?)

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am