A Gambler's Paradise

Apparently our Baton Rouge legislators can add ‘gambler’ to their list of legislative skills as they attempt to manage the fiscal problems of this state.  Yesterday it was reported by state auditors that Louisiana gambled away over $1 billion in tax break incentives to people and corporations last year.

I say “gambled” because according to the auditors, “There are no specifications in the tax break statues regarding the method of calculation to be use in determining the (return) related to each incentive.”  The Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office further stated, “With no guidelines or restrictions, the accuracy of the (return on investment) calculation and the appropriateness of the methodology used cannot readily be determined.”  To simplify, our elected officials in the State Capital are giving away up to $1 billion a year to stimulate the state’s economy with absolutely no idea of how much money (economic stimulation) our state gets in return for these investments

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When the state’s Revenue Secretary, Kimberly Robinson, was confronted with these startling facts, she responded that the state is working on developing procedures to get a handle on determining the returns the state actually gets on these investments.  Sure hope she doesn’t handle her family’s spending budget, for it would seem to me you would set up these procedures BEFORE you gave out the cash incentives.

So as you go to your favorite stores and continue to pay one of the highest sales taxes in the nation, just remember that your state legislators have your back by gambling away your hard earned cash.

Also remember that the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry headed by the former Jindal munchkin, Stephen Waguespack, is the major legislator puppeteer in our state legislature, and the leading proponent of these tax incentives.  LABI champions these incentives in the name of “economic development” for our state and is basically pretty content to leave the present system of ‘no accountability’ in place; for it is a lucrative cash cow.

I’m all for “economic development” for our state; it is necessary for our fiscal survival.  However, it’s time for our legislators to break free from LABI’s control, ignore its recommendations, and to start doing their job by independently analyzing just which tax incentives really do provide an economic benefit to the state rather than simply exist to line the pockets of people and corporations. 

Sadly, I suspect, that with the present crew of “ fiscally responsible” Republican legislators, there is little hope that any  change will occur, for it’s always business as usual in our great state.  This can change if you vote them out when given the chance.

An embrace of a crooked bank

Apparently the State Bond Commission of Louisiana is more interested in protecting manufacturers and sellers of guns rather than protecting its citizens from unethical money scammers.  Earlier this year they passed a resolution forbidding the state of Louisiana from seeking bond funding bids from CITI Bank and The Bank of American because of their moral stand on restricting their business with manufactures and sellers of guns, yet they have no problem awarding their recent bond bid to Wells Fargo Bank.

In the last few years, Wells Fargo Bank committed serious crimes. That’s the clear takeaway from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s decision which resulted in it is levying its largest-ever fine against the bank. Wells Fargo had to pay out $100 million to the CFPB, plus $85 million to other authorities, for a pattern of fraud, dating back to 2011, in which its employees opened up a vast number of new checking and credit accounts without the account holders’ consent or knowledge.

Additionally, more recently, thousands of customers who bought cars with loans from Wells Fargo were forced to buy unnecessary insurance policies from the bank with premiums that topped a $1,000 a year. The bank said the policies could have contributed to about 27,000 customers having their cars repossessed after defaulting on their loans.

So, as is so often the case in Louisiana, morality and ethics are cast aside in favor of rewarding crooked, unlawful practices.  Way to go to go: Treasurer John M. Schroder; Attorney General Jeff Landry; Speaker of the House Taylor F. Barras, R-New Iberia; Rep. Stephen Dwight, R-Lake Charles; Rep. Blake Miguez, R-Erath; and Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, all of whom voted for the restrictive resolution and yesterday voted to accept the Wells Fargo bid.

A Final Message

On August 20th my wife, Liz, passed away after a 10 1/2 journey with ovarian cancer.  Before she passed she wrote the following: 

When my obituary appears in the newspaper, it will not say “Elizabeth lost her battle to ovarian cancer.”  Cancer will not defeat me.  We will travel into the great beyond together knowing that our companionship has changed me along the way, making me more aware of the beauty in everyday living; awakening my Christian spirit and awareness of God’s grace.  Compassionately understanding that every one of us on this earth has struggles not visible to others; traveling through time aware and grateful for every day’s smallest gift.

Misspoke, unlikely!

Remember the famous Hillary Clinton line about Trump’s supporters being “deplorable people” and the backlash it created among his supporters?   President Trump’s backtracking of his statements made at Helsinki with Putin may have even surpassed Clinton’s.  After President Trump realized that throwing the entire U.S. under the bus for President Putin was imbecilic, he attempted to still justify this faux pas by tweeting Wednesday morning, "So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki.”

So is Trump saying, if you thought he really screwed up by denying every U.S. Intelligence Agencies’ findings that the Russians hacked into our electoral cyberspace, you are somewhat lacking in intelligence?  Even Fox News was critical of Trump’s condescending and erratic performance echoing the other Trump-labeled “fake news” outlets.

I always thought standing up for your country was a sign of patriotism; guess I am just being dumb according to our Commander in Chief.

Trump’s opinion of just how dumb I really am is further reinforced by his attempted backtracking of his aberrant Helsinki behavior, namely that he misspoke.   He claimed he misspoke by using the word “would” for “wouldn’t” in his statement regarding Russian cyber hacking.

In front of the entire world President Trump stated regarding a question about the reports of Russian cyber hacking, “My people came to me… they said they think it’s Russia.   I have President Putin.   He just said it’s not Russia.   I will say this.   I don’t see any reason why it would be Russia.”    A day later in a tweet, which was not on display throughout the entire world, he said he meant to say “wouldn’t be Russia.”

If you believe any of this, I am embarrassed for you.

Luckily President Trump doesn’t lead combat missions abroad.  I have this picture in my mind that our troops are approaching a village inhabited by peaceful villagers and Trump says, “If you see anyone in your view, do fire.”  After all the peaceful villagers are killed and his superiors ask why his platoon killed all the villagers, Trump replies, “I meant to say don’t fire.  Granted this is an absurd example, but cited to make my point.

At the Helsinki  Summit I truly believe President Trump, at the time, said exactly what he meant to say because I can’t recall any such misspoken admissions by Trump regarding any of the other often bizarre things he has previously espoused.

For the moment President Trump is seen as Putin’s puppet worldwide and, thanks to our President,  one of the world’s most devious and ruthless dictators has come off as someone U.S. citizens should trust over our country’s own intelligence agencies.

However, as Trump boldly stated during one of his campaign speeches in Iowa, “I could stand in the middle of 5^th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”  To all President Trump’s loyal supporters, President Trump doesn’t misspeak.

In reality, where is the "Fake News"

I can assure you I try really hard to believe President Trump when he makes a proclamation via his tweets, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to do so in light of the fact that during his 466 days of rule he has made 3001 incorrect or misleading claims, averaging 6.5 per day.

Some of the more noteworthy claims include the following:

The claim, that he passed the biggest tax cut in history, when in fact it ranks eighth.

The claim, that a border wall was needed to stop the flow of drugs across the southern border, even though the Drug Enforcement Administration says a wall would not limit this illegal trade, as much of it travels through legal borders or under tunnels unaffected by any possible physical barrier.

The claim his long-promised border wall is already being built, even though Congress denied him the major funding and prohibited the use of prototypes he had viewed with great fanfare.

The claim, that he has created 3 million jobs “since the election,” even though he did not assume the presidency until almost three months later. About 2.5 million jobs have been created since Trump took the oath of office.

The claim he made after his first year in office, that he had “incredible success” in terms of job growth, even though annual job growth under his presidency has been slower than the last five years of Obama’s term, and during Trump’s first year Americans witnessed the slowest job growth in six years.

The claim that, “wages are going up for the first time in many, many years,” even though they have been rising steadily since 2014.

The claim, that under the Iran nuclear agreement, the United States gave the country $150 billion. That money was always Iran’s money. Iran had billions of dollars in frozen assets in foreign banks around the globe because of international sanctions over its nuclear program. It was simply their money that was unfrozen which Iran estimated at $32 billion.

The claim, that President Xi Jinping of China instantly agreed to a request from Trump to allow the sale of U.S. beef after years of blocking it. China had already agreed to such sales under a deal brokered by the Obama administration.

The claim, that the U.S. trade deficit with China is $500 billion. In reality it is about $300 billion.

The claim “we have done more than anybody in a year” and “I accomplished more than I promised.” In reality, at the end of his first year, Trump had signed fewer bills than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.  However, he has made up for lost time since the one year mark and in a year and a half is now tied with George W. Bush.

The claim by President Donald Trump that he is “undoing the government’s rampant spending that occurred under former President Obama’s watch.”   The facts are President Trump signed  a  tax plan that will increase the deficit by an estimated $1.7 trillion.

 

The claim Trump made about rescinding the recent policy of separating border crossing immigrants from their children, “You can’t do it through an executive order.”  President Trump three days later signed an executive order doing just that.

However, one of my favorite Trumpian tweets was made approximately two weeks ago.  After the historical North Korean Summit our President stated, “Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea.  President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!”

Last Friday Trump stated, “The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material [nuclear] on the Korean Peninsula [and] the actions and policies of the Government of North Korea . . . continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

Guess we shouldn’t “sleep well” after all, since this basically contradicts his earlier message.

President Trump consistently labels media outlets as “Fake News” and untrustworthy information sources for our citizens.  Perhaps as the old saying goes, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”