Louis R. Avallone

Category: Economy

  • Faithfully and Impartially

    Faithfully and Impartially

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    Elected Officials Should Do Their Own Work.

    Imagine you were in the hospital to have an important, life-altering medical procedure. As you are being wheeled into the operating room, your doctor informs you that he isn’t actually familiar with the relevant procedure needed to treat your condition. In fact, he doesn’t really understand the surgery he is about to perform on you. However, he tells you that he had a really smart, young nurse study up on it, and that the nurse has given him a good enough idea of what needs to be done and that he’s sure that everything will be fine. How comfortable would you be knowing that your life depended on how well the nurse was able to explain to the doctor a complex surgical procedure, step-by-step, as well as the risk factors involved?

    You probably would not be very comfortable at all. Yet, very similarly, the officials we elect to serve us on our school boards, in our statehouses, and in Congress, are increasingly voting on legislation which they have not read, nor fully understand the risks involved. The responsibility for doing so, instead, is delegated to staff – all whom we haven’t elected whatsoever.

    Remember the 2,700 pages of the Affordable Care Act? Nancy Pelosi famously urged lawmakers to “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Then Congressman Conyers jumped in and said it was pointless to read that bill unless you had “two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you’ve read it.” And even our own Congressman Fleming, who actually did read the bill, said that the 10,535 pages of final regulations are “incomprehensible.”

    Then there was the $790 billion stimulus package in 2009. It was voted on without a single member of either chamber reading it before voting on it. After all, the 1,073-page document wasn’t posted on the government’s website until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote was taken in Congress to pass it.

    The cap-and-trade bill in 2009 had a 300-page amendment added to it at 3:09 a.m. – and amazingly it still passed when it came up for a vote – on the very same day.

    Even here in Louisiana, the only required “reading” for a bill to become a law is that the title must be read, on three separate days in each house. And that’s it.

    Many contend that our elected officials are simply too busy to read the legislation themselves. After all, many officials say that if they spent all their time reading legislation, they would never get anything done. But impossible for every elected official to merely read the actual legislation itself? C’mon now.

    If your elected official is not able to do that, they should resign or be removed from office, because they’re incompetent.

    We can easily see how important this is in our legislatures, but the same is true in our parish commissions, city councils, and school boards. Consider that the Caddo Parish School Board recently voted to ask voters for $108 million in tax revenue, which effectively doubles the outstanding debt of the school system, even though the Census Bureau shows the population of school-aged children in Caddo Parish continues to decline.

    Even though one-half of the school board members were reporting for duty for the first time since taking their oath of office, the staff of the Caddo Parish school system put this debt-doubling tax before them anyways.

    There was no public debate amongst the newly elected board members that night. No reference to how many hours the school board members themselves had already studied the matter, the finances, or the demographics.

    Instead, the school system staff, like legislative staffers who read and interpret bills for our elected officials in Congress, simply said to each school board member, “sign here”. And they did, unanimously.

    For the veteran school board members that night, they know the history, and this wasn’t their first rodeo. But for the 50% of the brand-spanking new board members who just showed up the night of the vote for the first time, maybe they would have appreciated a little more time to consider the matter before voting to spend $108 million of taxpayer money on their first day on the job. Shame on the school system, though, who put them in that position to begin with.

    Regardless of whether you support the tax proposition or not, that’s not the point here. The bottom line is that our elected officials should understand what they are voting on, before they get ready to go into the chamber to vote, and not just before they go on television to be interviewed. No, we can’t fix our government solely by forcing our elected officials to read the bills. But we can start by voting for folks who actually will do the job to we hired them to do to begin with.

     

  • Stupid is as Stupid Does

    Stupid is as Stupid Does

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    Sometimes we get so caught up in using labels that we miss the forest for the trees. Of course, labels help us organize our world, which is increasingly loud, confusing, and misleading. Folks often bite their tongue, or hold their comments back, afraid that they will be called a racist, or an elitist, a liberal, or a conservative, a sexist, or an anti-environmentalist – for simply what they believe.

    But no matter the label, I think it all boils down to the plain wisdom of Forest Gump’s momma when she said, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

    And the world is certainly full of lots of examples of stupid. It’s hard to comment on any of it, or engage someone in a meaningful discussion about it, without offending them – or some group – or risk being branded as a heartless so-and-so, or an insensitive you-know-what. Thus, lots of folks just keep their opinions to themselves.

    And a recent Pew Research poll indicated this as well: Most people who regularly use social media sites are less likely to share their opinions, even offline, unless they know their audience agrees. Our fear of isolation from others, it seems, keeps too many of us from sharing our opinions, and this encourages a sense of apathy, or a “to each his own” mentality.

    The problem with that, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., is that “(o)ur lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

    For example, does it matter that welfare spending has increased 16-fold since the federal government began the “War on Poverty” in the 1960s, and that welfare spending has risen 32% since Obama took office? Yet the number of people on food stamps in the U.S. today exceeds the total population of Argentina (43,024,374)?

    Doesn’t it matter that Obama said earlier this month that he was “proud of saving the economy,” during the same week that 25,000 Americans filed for unemployment, and that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 93 million Americans being unemployed now, or not even looking for work?

    Does it bother you that our federal government is borrowing 14¢ out of every dollar it spends now, just to keep the “lights on”, and yet Obama’s Executive Order on immigration enables those here illegally to get a check from the federal government through the Earned Income Tax Credit, even retroactively, going back 3 years? And did you know that last year the IRS sent $4.2 billion in checks to illegal immigrants in our country?

    This is exactly the kind of “stupid is that stupid does” thinking that will do us in. It’s contagious and it’s reaching epidemic levels – especially with the nonsense thinking in our society that places more value on how something looks or feels, rather than what it is actually.

    Does it bother you that our president is more concerned with “showing” the world that Americans are united together to fight ISIS terrorists, instead of him simply freeing up our military commanders to go break things and kill the bad guys (instead of just “showing” the bad guys how united we are in spirit)?

    And does it bother you that NBC anchor Brian Williams wanted to look more heroic when said his helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as he was covering the Iraq war in 2003 (when it really didn’t), or when Hilary Clinton said that she landed in Bosnia in 1996 under sniper fire (when there wasn’t any)? Or when Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal wanted to appear as a war hero and said he served in Vietnam (when he hadn’t).

    If any of these examples bother you, speak out, be heard. There’s more people who think like you do than you might realize. And like fleas, roaches, rats, rust, and termites, if you say nothing, or ignore the problem, it will only become worse.

    Our society too often confuses doing something with actually accomplishing something. We give more praise and attention to those who care more, than those who actually help more.

    And it’s got to stop.

    So don’t be silent about things that matter, and call it like it is, no matter what side of the aisle you are on. And if anyone happens to get offended by you defending what you believe, especially the intellectuals who “know better” than the rest of us, just tell them to go see Forest’s momma. It’s not any more complicated than that.

    Image credit to grabgewalt.deviantart.com

  • Democrats and Denial – Not Just a River in Egypt

    Democrats and Denial – Not Just a River in Egypt

    Psychologists call it “confirmation bias”, which is the tendency to search for, or otherwise interpret information in a way that confirms what you already believe, regardless of the facts. You may call it “rationalizing”. Others may call it “missing the forest for the trees”. I call it “denial”, and as the old saying goes, denial is not just a river in Egypt.

    You see, almost 50% of Americans say the mid-term election results were a vote against the President’s policies. And almost every poll shows it too. At least 3 out of 4 of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, not to mention that the President’s approval rating with the American people – and within the black community, as well – is at the lowest level of his presidency. In fact, black voter participation this year increased from the last midterm election, and yet Democrats now hold less elected offices, at both the federal and state level, than at any time since the 1920s.

    Considering that the Obama administration has lost control of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, Democrats are turning to a familiar, but worn out explanation: It’s not the President’s policies being rejected by the voters. It’s that white people don’t like having a black man in the White House.

    Really? Yes, really. And be prepared to hear a lot of that in the next couple of years whenever Republicans stand in the way of the President’s agenda or oppose his executive orders, from immigration to gun control.

    Nevermind that it was white voters, in a largely white nation, who elected a black man to its highest office in the land. In fact, it was Iowa – which is 95% white – that made him into a contender for 2008. Still, he stirs the pot by telling reporters earlier this year that, “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president.”

    Seriously? Nevermind that folks might not really like the idea that their President told them, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your healthcare plan,” while, almost 100,000 Louisianans have had their health insurance policies cancelled this year. Nevermind that you deliberately allowed American guns to make their way illegally into Mexico, where they were used by drug cartels to kill dozens – including a U.S. Border Patrol Agent. Nevermind that you promised Americans an administration filled with “transparency and the rule of law”, even though you issue executive order after executive order, thereby escaping the glare of the legislative process, the need to debate the issues, or to humbly ask for support from the 319 million Americans in this country.

    Race is just about the only song that the Democrats have left to sing now, but it will be completely out of key, though. You only need to look across the country to understand why. In Utah, they just elected young Republican Mia Love to the U.S. House of Representatives (she also happens to be black), and in South Carolina, Republican Tim Scott was elected as the first black U.S. Senator since reconstruction, and is the only black have also been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Then here at home, there’s State Senator Elbert Guillory from Opelousas. He also happens to be black, and he switched to the Republican Party, after years of seeing the continued plight of blacks in America, who traditionally vote Democrat every time, without any measurable improvement to their communities. Or how about Rev. C.L. Bryant, former NAACP leader and host of America on the Edge radio show here in Shreveport, who says that there is no reason for blacks or Latinos to support this president, when you look at the economic numbers.

    And he’s right. Since 2008, black poverty is up, and unemployment is down. 40% of black males are incarcerated, and 72% of black children are still being born to unmarried mothers. There are fewer blacks participating in the labor force and the unemployment rate among blacks is more than double than it is in among whites.

    This is, in part, why black Republicans are being elected to so many statehouses, city halls, and to Congress. People are voting for these black Republican candidates because of what they believe, not because of the color of their skin. Go ahead Democrats, sing the race song, but the rest of America is humming a different tune these days.

    Mary Landrieu, and Democrats everywhere, can rationalize both hers and the President’s diminishing popularity with the voters by saying that “(t)he South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans,” but the truth of the matter is that the South is no longer the friendliest place for empty suit politicians that leave any communities – black, white, or otherwise – with little more than empty hands.

    Democrats have paddled minority communities up this river of denial one too many times. And the problem now for Democrats, more than ever before, is that an increasing number of folks in these communities are simply tired of being taken for a ride.

  • There’s No Wizard In Oz

    There’s No Wizard In Oz

    By Louis R. Avallone
    –
    The Shreveport Mayor’s race has been wrought with lots of hand wringing, anxiety, and foretelling of the doom and gloom that awaits this great city, if only the voters happen to choose this candidate over another. Many express great concern about the continuation of the backroom deals that have plagued our community – and the wealthy benefactors and power brokers who have made that possible. And while most voters want to elect a leader this time that actually knows the way, shows the way – and then gets out of our way – we must also realize this: There is no “wizard” in Oz to save us.

    There is no “magical” leader that will solve all of the daunting challenges of our fair city. Much like the Tin Man needed a heart, or the Lion needed courage, we also have some seemingly, insurmountable dilemmas: We are facing a diminishing tax base, while at the same time needing to finance $200 million in underfunded pension plans, $342 million in water and sewer improvement projects, plus an estimated $400 million of road repair projects that are needed to be done right now.

    If the people of Shreveport wish to pick themselves back up this election season, dust themselves off, and take the reins of a proud Shreveport which future generations will build upon, and that we can preserve for our children, it won’t be because we relied upon any one “magical” leader or “wizard” in City Hall as mayor.

    No, we will pick ourselves up because more and more concerned citizens stepped-up, and contributed their time and talent towards shaping our community. By becoming more informed about the issues. By recruiting, and supporting, more candidates for the city council and parish commission who are more interested in solving our problems, instead of theirs. By changing our political culture and saying, “enough already” with how it’s been done before.

    Is the Mayor’s office an important one? Absolutely. But to invest too much dependence on a single individual is half-baked to start with, because it oversimplifies the tasks at hand, and provides too many voters with an easy way to stop paying attention after the election, when the real governing begins.

    You see, voting is not a kitchen countertop rotisserie, where you can just “set it and forget it” on election day. This is because, as Ronald Reagan once remarked, “Governments have a tendency not to solve problems, only to rearrange them”.

    So to solve problems, we need the most talented, competent, and skillful people working in City Hall, not more laws or ordinances, or throwing money at issues, more backroom dealings, or appointing another committee or hiring another consultant to study our problems. This time around, for real change, we must change, because our leaders have only that power which we are willing to give up.

    Don’t get me wrong, there are some other valuable lessons from the movie, The Wizard of Oz. For example, don’t stand next to windows during tornados. When something knocks the “stuffings” out of you, just stuff it back in and move on. The grass isn’t always greener over the rainbow. When you think you are the most helpless, you still have an amazing ability to help yourself. And, of course, the biggest lesson, there is no place like home.

    Well, Shreveport is my home and there’s no other place like it for me. And like Dorothy with her ruby red shoes, we’ve always had the power to help ourselves and get off the proverbial “yellow brick” road, and get back home to the basics of honesty and accountability in government.

    The question this time around, since we know there’s no “wizard”, nor the next great city of the south at the end of the “yellow brick” road we’re on now, how long before the so-called “powers that be” in our city realize it’s been a dead end road for them too?

  • State spending on health care growing faster in non-Medicaid expansion states, website reports

    State spending on health care growing faster in non-Medicaid expansion states, website reports

  • Legislature Says NO to Raising Taxes in New Orleans

    Legislature Says NO to Raising Taxes in New Orleans

    By Louis R. Avallone
    –
    Should Caddo/Bossier Follow Suit?

    It’s a popular business adage that you have to spend money to make money. The question for taxpayers on November 4 is how much money, and whose money are you spending?

    You see, there’s an initiative on the ballot in November that will increase the sales tax on hotel guests in Caddo/Bossier by 2%, making the total occupancy tax 6.5% (and among the highest in the state). If passed, this means for every $100 in hotel bills, paid by guests to our area, $6.50 will be collected from them in taxes.

    The added 2% will generate an estimated $3 million in dedicated revenue for the Independence Bowl Foundation, as well as the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission and the Ark-La-Tex Regional Air Service Alliance. These organizations are composed of hundreds of volunteers and supporters who give their time, and considerable talent, to promote our communities, and improve our quality of life, not only for today, but as a legacy for the next generation.

    They are a big reason that the Independence Bowl is the largest sporting event in the state of Louisiana outside of New Orleans and LSU home football games. And that it’s the 11th oldest bowl in our country, and that it is being televised for the 23rd year in a row on ESPN. So, with their share of the almost $1 million in recurring annual revenue expected from the proposed tax, the Independence Bowl Foundation says that it can attract even better teams to the bowl, and preserve the bowl for years and years to come.

    Indeed, the Independence Bowl has pioneered sports tourism for our region, opening the doors to events like the Bassmaster Classic last year – which generated an estimated $7 million for the local economy. The Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission says it can attract even more of these quality sporting events with its $750,000 share in taxes that it is expected to receive each year, if voters say “yes” next month.

    And, of course, if you are going to invite folks from all over the country for such events, you surely have to make an easy path for them to get here. But with our region’s current air service, that’s not always convenient, or affordable. Maybe that is why over 50% of all travelers flying from the Ark-La-Tex do so from anywhere else but Shreveport Regional. This is why the non-profit organization, Ark-La-Tex Regional Air Service Alliance, says it needs their expected $1 million share of the annual revenue provided by the proposed tax. They say that if they could get just one (1) new route, with a 50-seat regional airliner, it could make as much as a $4 million impact each year.

    Yes, objectives of these organizations are honorable, no doubt, and deserve our support and attention. We have to be careful, though, when folks start saying that such support, through an additional 2% hotel tax, will be at “no cost to the citizens of Caddo and Bossier parishes” or that it will be paid entirely by “out-of-town visitors”.

    That’s just not necessarily true – it affects our entire economy. In fact, for this very reason, Louisiana legislators just recently voted down Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s efforts to raise the New Orleans’ hotel-motel occupancy tax by another 1.75%. If they had raised the tax, New Orleans would have been on the same level as New York City, which has the highest hotel-motel taxes in the country. And according to Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne, he says doing that would have made it difficult to position ourselves as a “destination”, or even to attract events like the Superbowl, back to Louisiana.

    The proposed tax in Caddo/Bossier could mean that folks will stay fewer nights in our community, or hoteliers will offer less services, in an effort to compete with hotels in surrounding parishes, where the taxes are lower. After all, taxes can literally “move” people.

    Consider the meteoric population growth of Bossier Parish, and the stagnating population growth in Caddo Parish, over the past 20 years. Is it just a coincidence that Caddo Parish also has the highest property taxes in the state? Probably not. Or look at the number folks migrating from Louisiana to states with no state income taxes whatsoever. Again, coincidence? Probably not.

    You see, supporting this tax increase in November may be worthy of voter support, but it should never be because we can persuade enough people that “somebody else will pay the bill”.

    After all, we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity. If we could, we would have reduced the nation’s unemployment rate, paid down the federal debt, decreased the poverty rate, lowered healthcare costs, and increased national security at our borders years and years (and billions of wasted tax dollars) ago.

    No, we have to be careful here, on this slippery slope of increasing taxes in our community, whether it’s an occupancy tax or any other, for that matter.

    As we go to the polls in November, we need to remember, as Ronald Reagan said, that we have some people around here “who have never met a tax they didn’t hike”.

    And to those folks, I’d just say, remember whose money you’re spending – and that folks vote with their feet too.

  • Mary, why don you ak right?

    Mary, why don you ak right?

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    Senator Mary Landrieu is reimbursing taxpayers several thousands of dollars that she took and spent for a charter flight to attend campaign events, including a fundraiser in Dallas. She has an estimated net worth between $894,018 and $2.6 million, with assets totaling $1.9 million to $3.1 million, according to her own disclosure forms, yet she doesn’t maintain as much as an apartment in this great state of Louisiana.

    She represents the Louisiana people in Congress, but no longer finds it necessary to live here herself – even her voter registration card lists her primary residence as Washington, D.C. Maybe it’s because, as she said in a recent interview, “I really can appreciate the life that we live on the Hill.”

    And she’s done a lot living on the Hill, indeed, with the citizens of Washington, D.C. She sponsored a bill allocating $2 million for District of Columbia schools, which are ranked 26th in the nation, while schools in Louisiana still remain ranked near the bottom – 49th in the nation. She’s an advocate for the District of Columbia, as she said in a speech recently, and she wants “to speak on their behalf”. No doubt this is why the mayor of Washington, D.C. has proudly called Landrieu “the Senator representing the District of Columbia until we become the 51st state of the United States.”

    Goodness gracious, Mary. What’s wrong with you? Or as our south Louisiana family might say, “Mary, why don you ak right?”

    The truth is that these Mary shenanigans represent the last vestiges of Louisiana populist politics that asks the question first (and last), “What’s in for me?”

    There’s lots of examples of this in our state’s history. Governor Huey P. Long, even while wildly protesting against the wealthy in the 1930s, and proposing to guarantee every family a basic annual income, was himself making plans to become that which he so publicly abhorred – being wealthy. As a result of Long’s allegedly questionable acquisition of mineral rights to state owned properties, concentrated in wetland areas along our coast, those mineral rights have generated nearly $1 billion in royalties for his family and associates – and continue to do so still today.

    Then there was Governor Edwin Edwards. He was a populist, and was elected 4 times as governor because of it. In the end, though, he was found guilty of racketeering charges and sentenced to ten years in prison. In that case, Edwards had asked the question, “What’s in it for me?” and received $845,000 from a contractor who wanted to do business with the state, while at the same time raising taxes on the people of Louisiana by almost $1 billion.

    Then there was populist U.S. Representative Bill Jefferson from New Orleans, who rose from poverty to then serve in Congress. He accepted $500,000 in bribes while in office, in exchange for his influence in Congress. He hid some of that money in his freezer, as you may recall, but was sentenced to 13 years in prison after everything had thawed out.

    Then there was New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin who recently was convicted on 20 of 21 counts of bribery, and is now serving 10 years in prison. Prosecutors explained that Nagin sold the mayor’s office, for personal gain, which included lavish trips and cash, even after Katrina, where he had ignored federal and state offers of help, and their recommendations to evacuate the city before the storm.

    All of these examples share a common denominator: These politicians all claimed to be champions of the people, and defender of the “little guy”. Instead, the people lived under one set of rules, while their elected leaders lived by another. They said one thing, and then did another.

    They may have had good intentions, but one only needs to look around to see what decades of politicians’ good intentions have done to our nation, and our communities. Intentions are powerful beginnings. They provide a spark to ignite a purpose, launch a plan, and to direct the mind, but they tell you nothing about the actual outcome.

    Huey Long made famous the slogan, “Every man a king, but no one wears a crown.” Sounds good, but history has shown it’s often the politicians who end up wearing the crowns. All politicians, to some degree, sound alike – and it’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

    But at least they ought to live in the state that they are representing, so we can keep an eye on them, and figure it out for ourselves.

    Robert Frost wrote famously in a poem about how two roads diverged in the woods, and how he chose the one less traveled, and how “that has made all the difference”. For our state’s elected officials in Washington, shouldn’t they choose the road back home, as well?

     

  • Original Ideas

    Original Ideas

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    The trouble with too many elected officials is that there is no idea too stupid for them to subsidize with your money. After all, these bureaucrats have more of your money than they do any original ideas of their own. In fact, many of them would not recognize an original idea if it bit them on the butt.
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    Instead of leading, our elected officials prefer to be more chameleon-like, and simply be what others want them to be.
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    But that’s backwards, right? Authentic leaders don’t watch polls to win popularity contests, or calibrate their convictions to win elections. They do the hard work of first setting goals, and then taking initiative.
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    They spend money on projects that are for the public good, and not merely on projects that help them while they are in office. Genuine leaders are transparent and they cut costs first, instead of raising your taxes. They set examples of good behavior for us, instead of merely legislating what’s good for us. They don’t blame, and they take responsibility for their actions.
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    As long as government has more of our money than good ideas, this type of leader will become more nostalgic in today’s “modern” world – and increasingly rare among elected officials everywhere.
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    In fact, Margaret Thatcher once wrote, “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” Maybe that’s why our federal government spent almost $600,000 to study where in a chimpanzee’s brain they get the idea to throw feces. Or why they spent $200 million to fund a reality television show in India to advertise U.S. cotton.
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    Or why Congress spent over $1 trillion in economic stimulus spending, when the results were record unemployment rates and the highest number ever of Americans collecting food stamps. Is there really any question that it was a good idea?
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    Or was it really a good idea for the President to propose a $1.5 trillion health care expansion and a $15 billion Medicaid bailout, when over 93,000 of our fellow Louisianans are still receiving cancellation notices for their health insurance, and premium costs are expected to rise, even for healthy citizens of our state, by an average of 266 percent this year?
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    Is there really any question that $3.7 billion in emergency spending on immigration is a good idea right now, when the current administration is encouraging the very activity that makes $3.7 billion in spending necessary in the first place? If this President won’t enforce immigration laws, aren’t we are only encouraging more illegal activity, and the billions in spending needed to deal with it?
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    These are all proof-positive examples of a system of government that has more of your money than they do good ideas. If the government spending more of your money was all that was needed to reduce the unemployment rate, pay down the federal debt, decrease the poverty rate, lower healthcare costs, and increase national security at our borders, wouldn’t we have achieved all of this long, long, long ago?
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    Especially in this election year, the leadership model for our elected officials, which currently measures leadership success by money and power, must be retired, and sent off to the scrap yard of history. We must elect leaders now who have more ideas – and not just more of our money – to solve our country’s most pressing problems.
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    Perhaps it is true that politics is the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary. But if this remains the conventional wisdom, then how can we really be surprised with the results?

  • It’s Not My Party, It’s Some “Other Party”

    It’s Not My Party, It’s Some “Other Party”

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    People of all ages are becoming less engaged with the political process. Unlike Thomas Edison’s adage that “genius is 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration”, it seems nowadays that voter participation in the political process is wholly dependent on the reverse of that adage: it’s 1% perspiration and 99% inspiration. Here’s what I mean:

    There are ample reasons why folks don’t feel “inspired” by our politicians. In fact, 1 in 5 Americans don’t trust either the Democrats or Republicans. There is such broad dissatisfaction with both parties in Congress, in fact, that nearly 7 out of 10 Americans say they are inclined to look around for someone new this fall to send to Washington.

    That’s not a big surprise, though. For example, most Americans don’t want Democrats handling their healthcare, and fully 40% of Americans feel that neither the Democrats or the Republican parties are accountable enough to the people…or that either party has done enough to fix our immigration system…or reduce the national debt…or provide meaningful campaign finance reform…or decrease the partisanship in Washington, which they feel is now the biggest problem facing America.

    And here in Louisiana, we’re seeing the same. The number of voters registering as “other party” is increasing – now 1 out of every 4 registered voters. And even though Republicans are winning major state elections here at home, The Advocate also reported recently that voters “registered as ‘other party’ or not registered with any political party, are climbing too, as voters distance themselves from either of the mainstream political parties”.

    The problem here is that the data shows that “other party” voter turnout is historically lower, compared to those who are registered as Democrat or Republican. If this trend continues, both parties will likely continue to see their numbers decline, and we’ll have an electorate that will be even more detached from the political process than we do now.

    So what is really going on here? Voter participation in the political process has decreased, but the number of folks registering as “other party” has increased, and yet Louisiana voters have still elected Republicans to every statewide office. What gives?

    We could sit here and make a well-reasoned and analytical explanation, just to make sense of it all, of course. However, I think the migration trend of some voters to “other party” can be explained very simply: voters are not inspired.

    Voters increasingly are less and less inspired to follow any political party, it seems. In his book, Start with Why, author Simon Sinek explains that people don’t buy “what” you do, but they buy “why” you do it. For example, how many voters know “why” the Democrat and Republican parties exist? Or “why” these parties should matter to anyone?

    The answer may be fuzzy at first, but that’s the rub in all of this. You see, once a political party, or any organization for that matter, clearly communicates their “why” (their purpose, their cause, their belief), then (and only then) can they inspire others to follow.

    Contrary to conventional wisdom, though, the increasing number of “other party” voters is not because these voters are seeking some agnostic middle ground, where there is neither right nor wrong. Instead, these “other party” voters seem to be growing because they don’t feel like either party “gets” them, or understands their purpose, their cause, or their belief. These voters abandoned party labels because they saw their party as moving too far from its core values and couldn’t trust the direction it was headed.

    And that makes sense. It’s about trust for these “other party” voters. As in business, for example, when we choose one product, service or company over another, it’s because we feel we can trust them more. And when choosing a political party, the decision making process is exactly the same. But we must start with “why” if we are going to inspire others to action.

    Our state is served well by individuals who get involved in party politics, and don’t merely check off a box on their voter registration card. These are the volunteers that are the lifeblood to our democratic process. They are the ones walking the neighborhoods, calling supporters, and who spend countless hours organizing party events, speakers, luncheons, and rallies.

    They are the ones whose efforts are the least recognized, or appreciated, but perhaps are the most important. They do it because they believe the political process is meaningful and that their work makes a difference…they do it because they are inspired.

    Although it was the ethos of hard work and sweat that built this nation, perhaps right now we need less perspiration, and a great deal more of inspiration, to get voters involved in the very democratic process that has nourished our republic now for almost 238 years – before we lose an entire generation to some “other party”.

  • Walking Around Money: The Rich Get Richer

    Walking Around Money: The Rich Get Richer

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    The rich just get richer. If there was ever any question about that statement, the Caddo Parish Commission has certainly put it to rest now. And not only are the rich getting richer, they are doing so with your money, and more of it than ever before in history.

    It matters not to them about the hard-working people trying to get ahead, or to perhaps save a little money for a son or daughter to go to college. Or to put a down payment on a house for their family. Or to save a few dollars so they could help an elderly parent who is living on a very fixed income, or even save a few dollars for their own retirement.

    None of that matters to the rich. They seemingly are concerned with only getting richer. And who are the rich here? The Caddo Parish Commission.

    You see, there’s a special election being held on May 3 in Caddo Parish to increase taxes on every Caddo Parish family by $333, or $23 million overall, supposedly needed to make improvements to parish roads, parks, and other facilities.

    But that’s a false argument, because the premise is that without the $23 million, potholes will become deeper, and children will have no place to play. That’s simply not true, though.

    In fact, the Commission already has on hand $160 million in cash currently, according to demographer and pollster Elliott Stonecipher – and all the while, Caddo Parish families are still paying the highest property taxes of any other parish in Louisiana.

    With that much cash in hand already, and without increasing taxes, the Commission has enough walking around money now to last them 140 years.

    It doesn’t make sense. After increases in federal income taxes, rising Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, and higher state and local taxes, the average middle-class taxpayer pays nearly 50 percent of their income in taxes. Why ask Caddo Parish families to contribute more, especially when the Commission just passed a resolution acknowledging that Louisiana has the second highest poverty rate in the country.

    The May 3 ballot proposal to increase ad valorem taxes will boost property taxes – and history is littered with communities where higher property taxes have provided disincentives to start businesses, or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created, and declining population growth, as families migrate to those communities where there are jobs, and better opportunities.

    Caddo Parish has had almost no population growth for almost 25 years, yet the Commission has increased its revenues by 42 percent to-date, or $23 million, according to research by Stonecipher. And the Commission wants to borrow more of our money?

    Let’s ask Detroit how that worked for them. They went bankrupt largely because elected officials continued borrowing money, even while population growth and property values declined. The same is true for Cleveland, Buffalo, St. Louis and even Washington, D.C.

    And in almost every instance, whenever government officials increase taxes in one city, parish or state, then new businesses expand, or start-up altogether, in another city, parish or state. Again, families move where the businesses are, and businesses locate wherever they can be the most competitive in a global economy.

    The May 3 vote is already costing our families $145,000, just to set-up the voting machines. And we already did this last October, less than six months ago, when parish residents voted “no” to this same bond proposition. Let’s not add insult to injury here, this time around, by giving Caddo Commissioners the equivalent of 160 years of walking around money.

    If it’s true, as Will Rogers said, “We should be thankful that we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for,” then the residents of Caddo Parish must consider themselves the most thankful citizens in our great state.