In 2005, Hurricanes Katrin and Rita devastated south Louisiana.  While a number of austerity measures were undertaken in a special session in November of 2005,  the predicted severe drop in state revenues was woefully mistaken.  Instead, the flurry of rebuilding activity throughout the storm-damaged areas resulted in more than $1 billion in un-appropriated revenues.

Interestingly enough, the state had adopted into the constitution a package of fiscal reforms in the early 1990′s which required the legislature to pass a balanced budget, based on realistic anticipated revenues.  It limited where the state could spend surplus dollars to highways, paying down debt, and a couple more.  It created a budget stabilization fund, which was designed to force the government to deal responsibly with volitile mineral revenues.  And, relative to the subject matter at hand, it created an expenditure limit.

This expendure limit was designed to limit the growth of state government to the growth of personal income.  Naturally, the legislature had set up a formula they thought would never actually come into play.  However, the flood of revenues flowing into the state coffers after the storms set up an interesting situation:  in order for the legislature to spend the extra money, a resolution allowing them to exceed the expenditure limit had to pass both chambers of the legislature with a 2/3 vote in each.

Governor Blanco called a special session in late 2006, referred to by many conservatives as the “Santa Claus” session.  She and her allies in the legislature wanted to spend every nickel of the money, and while a lot of it would have gone to good purposes, a lot of it would not. 

House Republicans, led by stalwart conservative Jim Tucker (whose leadership on this issue contributed to his subsequent election as Speaker of the House) were in the minority, but I think they had 37 out of 105 seats.  The Republicans were noticeably nervous about standing in the way of $1 billion in goodies for their contituents, but enough of them stood firm that, when joined by several conservative Democrats, the resolution to increase the expenditure limit failed on two votes in the House.  They fell 11 votes shy the first time, and 13 votes shy the next.   

Noone who voted against the resolution was defeated for re-election.  Congressional Republicans should take note.  If they are worried, they should spend a few minutes with Steve Scalise (R-LA-01).  He was there.

I don’t know how many recess appointments President Obama has made, but it seems like he is skirting the intent of the recess appointment authority, which would be to appoint someone whom the Senate refuses to schedule hearings for or perhaps an emergency appointment.  It is evident that he is abusing the authority of the Executive Branch and violating the “advise and consent” clause of the Constitution by using the recess appointment authority to bypass the Senate and appoint people who would either be controversial or unable to gain confirmation by the Senate.  Does anyone else think it would be a good idea for any of the conservative candidates for both houses of Congress to make this an issue?  I think a potential stand would be to promise to refuse to fund any agency that is led by a recess appointment who was not denied a Senate confirmation hearing.  This would tend to nationalize the elections and might swing liberal voters who tend to have a sense of fair play.  Obviously, the hard core activist would be unaffected, but the average nice guy who is just misinformed might come over to our side…

More conservative groups oppose Governor Jindal’s decision to raid funds rather than reduce the size of the government:

It might be tea time and counting…for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. In fact, an announcement today   might not have  come  at a worse time should Jindal be entertaining a run for a national office in the near future.

Right as Jindal has an opportunity to promote his conservative credentials at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this week (along with the likes of Sarah Palin and a prominent list of other speakers) the Louisiana Tea Party has come out against major budgetary mechanisms some controversial ones Jindal favors.

In a press release, today, the Louisiana Tea Party, The Tea Party of Louisiana  (TPoL) has announced that it will vigorously oppose all efforts in the current legislative session to balance next year’s state budget by raiding trust fund monies and diverting dedicated fees, from things such as hunting and fishing licenses, away from their intended use and into the state general fund.

The group says that it will work to “protect monies currently locked away in voter created, protected funds, such as the Budget Stabilization Fund and the 8(g) Educational Trust Fund”.

From Steve Sabludowsky

Like many states, Louisiana is facing a budget shortfall.  However, the last time the Revenue Estimating Conference met they estimated that next year’s state revenues actually would be MORE than this year’s.  The shortfall is due to fewer federal dollars coming into the state. Amazingly enough, rising Republican star Bobby Jindal used one-time federal revenues two years ago (not sure of the number but I think it was around $1 billion) to fund RECURRING health care and higher ed expenses.

Louisiana has more 4 year colleges and universities per capita than any other state, and two higher education boards to oversee them.  With a state population of around 4 million, there are 4 year institutions, most if not all offering post graduate degrees, in Lake Charles (McNeese), Alexandria (LSU-A), Thibodaux (Nichols State), Hammond (Southeastern), Monroe (U of LA Monroe), Grambling St.,  Ruston (La Tech.  Ruston is within spitting distance of Grambling…), Shreveport (LSU and Southern),  New Orleans (UNO and Southern, which share a property line!) and Baton Rouge (LSU and Southern).  I don’t know what the overall graduation rate is, but in most of these institutions it is abysmal, with Grambling and Southern New Orleans less than 20 percent.

This is fiscally unsustainable, and the solution, while not easy, is simple. Turn the poor-performing institutions into community/junior colleges, and provide full state support for the institutions that at least meet minimum standards.  From the Edwin Edwards years, through Roemer, Foster and Blanco, this untenable situation was maintained because state leaders determined it was “politically impossible” to reform.

I (and a whole bunch of others!) voted for Bobby Jindal with every expectation that he would be the governor who would have the character to finally make the hard choices.

So far, Jindal’s solution is to make it easier for the legislature to get their hands on constitutionally protected trust funds.  Is this the kind of leadership conservatives seek?

Dan Juneau, the president of Louisiana Association of Business and Industry wrote a letter to LA Gov. Bobby Jindal regarding Jindal’s support for legislation that would make it easier for his administration – and future administrations well – to raid a number of trust funds that voters locked away decades ago.

The letter has caused a bit of a stir in Louisiana.  The Times Picayune reported on this yesterday, and the Baton Rouge Advocate carried a story today.

A copy of Juneau’s letter is at LABI’s website.  The letter explains the history of the funds, and in my opinion the business group’s position on this is much more “small government” oriented than Jindal’s is.

Juneau’s letter does not imply, nor have is seen anywhere else, that this legislation is part of Jindal’s legislative package for this year, although he reportedly mentioned the bill numbers and his support for the legislation during his address to the Legislature on the opening day of the session. Regardless, Jindal’s supports for raiding decades-old trust funds to avoid making the hard decisions we elected him to make is troubling to me.

It seems to me that the government has become an adversary of the citizens, and I think it is in large part due to the appropriations process. In an effort to keep their power, incumbents of all parties become comfortable spending taxpayer money on non-necessary but cool things like entitlements, museums, parks, buildings, etc. The taxpayer in Minnesota contributes to a bridge in rural Louisiana, while the Louisianians money goes to help build a school in Massachusetts.  Projects into which the federal government has no business sticking its nose, much less our tax dollars, sprout like weeds around the entire nation, year after year after year.

At election time, incumbents emphasize to their constituents the value of Congressional seniority, and many voters fall for it without thinking about the sheer idiocy of reelecting someone who thinks it’s a great accomplishment to return a miniscule portion of tax dollars to those from whom they were taken. Insanity!

At any rate, I think it would be advantageous for challengers for Congress to include in their platform a commitment to propose and support amending the Constitution to limit anyone to a maximum of 12 years in Congress.  If the outrage we are seeing is deep enough, and if some early challengers make this an issue and it catches on, then maybe some incumbents might pledge to support term limits as well.

Proposed Amendment XXVIII

Senators and Representatives shall not serve more than twelve years in the aggregate in the Congress.  This Article shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of Senator or Representative during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of Senator or Representative during the remainder of such term.