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Our chair Alan Lovell reflects on our progress to achieve government's Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) goals. One year ago, the government published the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) to halt and reverse the decline of nature in our country. With climate …

Even if playing with house money that eventually
sunsets the program, Louisiana legislators should reject allowing the state's
Motion Picture Investors tax credit to bleed, even if reduced fashion, the state for another dozen years.

In this session, legislators have the option of
extending the life of the exception past its scheduled end-of-fiscal year 2025 sunset.
HB 562 by
Republican Speaker Clay Schexnayder
would give it another decade of life after that, and originally would have
freed it from a $150 million annual cap on issuance although the $180 million annual
cap on redemption would remain.

The credit allows for reimbursement of expenses in
film or television production anywhere from 25 to 55 percent of expenses from a
base amount of $50,000 to $300,000 on state income taxes; alternatively, these
may act as a refundable credit at 90 cents to the buck (minus two percent as a
transfer fee). Almost all monies paid out occur through this route, as according
to the latest
data nearly 97 percent goes to corporations, and overwhelmingly to out-of-state
entities that have minimal Louisiana income tax liability. Simply, it's taxpayer
dollars siphoned directly into the pockets of filmmakers, only some of which
makes it back into the state's economic stream.

And not very much at that. Data show Louisiana
taxpayers take a bath on this, even as supporters throw out figures about how
much revenues and jobs the industry generates. The fact is, it loses
77 cents (another estimate puts it closer to 95 cents) on the dollar, with
each job generated costing about $13,300 each (and the methodology suggests
this exaggerates the actual full-time employment, making each job cost to
taxpayers more like $25,000). Nonetheless, this vampire staggers on as special
interests jealously guard the transfer of taxpayer wealth to them and have mesmerized
a number of legislators who should know better to back them.

This was apparent at the April House Ways and Means
Committee hearing,
with dozens of beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse and their representatives in
attendance. Schexnayder testified for it and offered up minor amendments, most
prominently putting a FY 2035 sunset back on. It garnered unanimous
support, which appeared unusual particularly as one committee member in support,
GOP state Rep. Philip
DeVillier, had a bill cued that would have restricted the program and
extensively questioned testifiers, and another, Republican state Rep. Tanner Magee –
Speaker pro tem and a Schexnayder ally – mentioned he felt threatened by
intense industry lobbying but would vote for it.

But when the House dealt with the bill last week,
it seems something had been up. There, DeVillier offered amendments that would
scale back the transferability of the credit by 7.5 percent through the sunset
date, which now only can happen to the state as previous changes to the law
discontinued transfers between individuals and corporations after FY 2017. This
would allow for the backlog of claims that take years for application after
issuance to be turned in and paid off. (Even if terminated on schedule, paying
off will continue for years.)

In other words, DeVillier's amendment – which
could be seen percolating during his committee questioning – gradually ends the
cash rebate which constitutes nearly all of the credit's cost and makes it a
more defensible credit only on tax liability (which in the film business often
wouldn't be owed anyway because for films income generated from within state
boundaries less deductible expenses often is less than zero). Further, it
disallows banking credits for future use.

It is an inspired way to wring out its most
objectionable feature over time, yet still trigger the eventual neutering and
termination while placating a significant number of usually fiscally conservative
Republicans who throw out the window principles when the bright lights of
Hollywood shine in their eyes, by forcing them to acknowledge, as DeVillier
noted during floor debate, that the program was established on an intent to
wean itself from taxpayer assistance after industry establishment. Even more interesting,
Schexnayder apparently acquiesced to this arrangement, which only could happen
if a large portion of legislators – obviously Republicans as seldom ever has a
Democrat voted against this giveaway – signaled they wouldn't support the bill without
it.

The amendment
was added on without objection (despite some grumbling from economic illiterates
such as Democrat state Rep. Mandie Landry,
who alleged no business makes money without government subsidization and admitted
she couldn't understand the economic arguments against the bill), and the bill
passed with only 23 Republicans voting against. Several who voted against
also voted for an amendment, turned back by the body, that would have had
subsidized films list in their credits the amount of subsidy.

Things became still more interesting days later
when Magee offered an amendment during debate of HB 1, the
general appropriations bill, that would provide $51 million for early childhood
education, essentially to replace temporary federal funding going away, if repealing
the entire film tax credit. It was the only amendment to make it onto the bill
and hypocritically
opposed by almost every Democrat, who had caterwauled the absolute
necessity of replacing the federal money with state money yet voted against it to
allow state dollars to make more movies.

That loomed only symbolically, as no move is afoot
to repeal the credit immediately. However, HB 562 in its present form will have
a delayed but growing salutary fiscal effect and is another way to skin the cat.

Nonetheless, even if it puts the program in far
better shape than at present if passed, the bill still should be defeated. The industry
has known for years about the sunset in just over two years and has had three
decades to build itself to the point that it can attract makers of movies, and
if it hasn't done it by now, it's not likely ever to. Even as weaning has its
benefits, it's a stay of execution where its beneficiaries gain time to work in
the future to prevent its needed extinction and to restore refundability.

Any legislator who calls himself a "fiscal
conservative" or "fiscal hawk" should ask himself two questions on this issue:
if the benefits are so great should not the state remove the caps and sunset
and argue for unlimited 100 percent refundability, and if he truly believes that
government should subsidize the private sector in this fashion then should not
the state enact programs like this for every industry, vastly expanding
government and tax burdens, such as in manufacturing widgets? If unable to
answer the affirmative to both, ideological consistency and adherence to
principle demands a vote against.

It's not about self-improvement. It's about being a good member of society.

Frederick Douglass devoted his entire life to one central principle: the principle of equal liberty enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the Constitution.

Going home from the hospital can be a scary time. Many patients and caregivers report feeling unprepared, especially since historically hospital stays have gotten shorter. That lack of preparedness for caregivers is compounded by feeling left out of the discharge planning process. The stakes are especially high for the 20% of elderly patients who get […]

I was very pleased to receive a new 'think piece' by Tom C Veblen — yes, he is related to the great Theory of the Leisure Class author, and his daughter worked at ASI for a while too. His piece is called America's Exceptional Experiment in Self-Government and it imagines a cultural and political revival of that great nation, now struggling through its self-induced cultural and political mess.Among other things, Veblen cites a guide for surviving a seaplane crash on water. When that happens, they tend to come to rest upside down, so you need to have your wits about you. You must stay calm. Grab your life vest. Open the exit and work out your escape route before releasing your seat belt. If the obvious way out is blocked, work out another before you unbuckle yourself. Don't let go until you are out. If you are underwater, follow the bubbles to the surface. Then inflate your life vest.Veblen says it's an analogy for 'getting out alive' from the wrecked political systems we have, and the more you think about it, the more apt the analogy is. You need to stay calm. Too many politicians see problems emerging — inflation, for example, leading to widespread complaints and strikes over pay, rising borrowing costs, falling house prices and soaring prices for essentials like food and energy — then rush into some 'quick fix' solution that actually makes things worse. Like huge domestic heating subsidies to households, both rich and poor, which require vast new public borrowing to finance. Or windfall taxes on oil producers alongside calls to cap energy prices, which have the effect of driving energy investment out of the country. Or capping the price of bread and milk and other basic groceries, which (as the author of Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls can tell you), won't work and will just lead to shortages. No quick fixes will get you out of this crash. You need to grab your life vest, the thing that's going to keep you afloat. And that life vest is what Adam Smith (whose 300th birthday we celebrate this month) called the 'simple system of natural liberty'. Make sure your money is sound, protect the basic institutions of open markets, competition, individual liberty and the rule of law. Leave people free to go their own way, and they will collaborate and boost value and progress before any government bureaucrat has even got the spreadsheet functioning.Then you need to work out your escape route. That's not always easy, as we discovered during the early 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher's government tried to roll back a bloated state. Efficiency experts were brought in, and when they left again, things reverted back to their sad normal. We needed instead to work out a way to get the all-dominating nationalised industries (utilities, communications, transport, manufacturing and all the rest) out of state protection and into the chill wind of competition. The solution to each was different, and some worked better than others. It's not easy to find your way out of a crashed state.Follow the bubbles — look at what other people round the world are doing that actually works, and do that, rather than clinging to some ideological totem pole like the National Health Service. And, when you have done all that, distance yourself from the wreckage and inflate your life vest. Deploy the system of natural liberty, and you can float free.

One of the repelling magnets of the subject matter of economics, at least for many encountering it for the first time, is the assumption that people are self-interested. In the telling of this assumption, what listeners seem to hear is that economists believe that people are always selfish. Any distinctions are lost: for example, the … Continue reading Tocqueville on Self-Interest Well Understood
The post Tocqueville on Self-Interest Well Understood first appeared on Conversable Economist.

Self-driving vehicles have the potential to radically transform the UK's roads. But to enable their benefits and achieve the government's ambition to 'make the UK the best place in the world to deploy connected and automated vehicles', developers and manufacturers …

Bans on standard magazines benefit criminals and endanger victims

Carnival krewes often venture into politics as a
subject of their parading. But in Shreveport, politics
has ventured into carnival krewes' parading.

In great contrast to his predecessor, Republican
Shreveport Mayor Tom
Arceneaux has kept things low key and not tried to induce drama into his
governance. Until recently, when he began dictating terms to the area's two
oldest and largest Carnival krewes, sticking his head into a hornet's nest
somewhat voluntarily.

About half a year prior to their next parading,
the Krewes of Gemini and Centaur received notification of these changes. For
many years now they have marched on the first and second Saturdays of Carnival,
typically towards the later afternoon beginning at the southern end of downtown
on the Clyde Fant Parkway, then hanging a right at Shreveport Barksdale Highway
until going left onto East Kings Highway and ending up at Preston Avenue,
typically finishing around 8:30 PM. They used to start in Bossier City and
crossed over the Shreveport Barksdale Highway Bridge until city officials on
the east bank didn't like to be inconvenienced and kicked them out.

In 2024, the calendar puts Mardi Gras on Feb. 13,
and the two krewes alternate Saturdays each year, meaning next year Centaur
parades on Feb. 3 and Gemini on Feb. 10. The ecclesiastic calendar on which Ash
Wednesday and Easter Sunday is based is well established with these dates known
far into the future.

That means every so often either Saturday also ends
up as the first Saturday of February, which many governments and cultural organizations,
including Shreveport, celebrate as African American History Month. For the past
34 years – about as long as the two krewes have marched – various organizations
have put together the Shreveport African American Parade on that date. It
meanders around the downtown area and in the early afternoon, leaving little
room for physical and temporal conflict whenever krewe parade dates coincide.

Except that it does put a strain on city services,
mainly public safety, to have both happen so close to each other. This
motivated Arceneaux to declare, initially without any negotiation, that changes
would occur for 2024, in that krewe parading had to start at 2:30, it could
start only around the Stoner Avenue intersection with the Parkway, and that Centaur
could not march on Feb. 3.

Arceneaux's rationale began with increasing public
safety incidents over the years that he and police assessed would become less likely
the more light was in the sky. But bumping back the time would create greater
interference with the African American Parade, so this necessitated a different
date. Shortening the route also would create less public safety strain.

Yet that reduction made the least sense since the
area customarily used allowed for better marshalling of parade elements, and
after launch only had sparse crowds lining the route so initially it would move
fairly quickly, not saving much time. Krewes also objected to the earlier time because
floats tend to be not so gaudily decorated except for heavy emphasis on the
lights.

The date change, however, was the biggest sticking
point. At this late date, preparations focused on the traditional date already
was well under way for Centaur. Why Arceneaux didn't pursue these changes
immediately after this year's parades, which could have minimized the amount of
controversy, is unknown but betrays inattentiveness.

Crucially, a lot of marketing for tourism purposes
goes into northwest Louisiana Carnival. Admittedly, the two parades pale in
comparison to their New Orleans-area brethren, but they are two of the largest
in number of floats (not so much in float size or number of other elements) in
the state and tourism officials estimate hundreds of thousands of people line
the route, with a significant portion not from the area. Changing the date at
this late date creates all sorts of complications.

It's understandable why Arceneaux would move to a
date change, given the situation of an understaffed
police department down around 300 officers. Never publicly discussed,
however, is why preference was given to the African American Parade. After all,
it has a whole month of Saturdays from which to choose, so its rescheduling
would seem more logical and, with the possible exception of the earlier start time
designed to avoid violence along the route, would have made the need for changes
moot.

The answer may lie in electoral calculations. Only
unusual circumstances permitted Arceneaux, who is white, to triumph last
year in a majority black city with about half of voters registered as
Democrats. While he received a significantly smaller proportion of the black
vote than did his opponent, black Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver, that was well above
historical norms for a white Republican candidate and attributed to the mixed
feelings Tarver stoked among the black electorate.

Chances are in 2026 one or more black Democrats
without Tarver's baggage will contest for the mayoralty and likely one will end
up in a runoff against Arceneaux, who would be expected to run for a final
term. That would set up difficult dynamics for a repeat triumph, so perhaps Arceneaux's
deference in this instance was an attempt to not alienate potential votes needed
in a difficult reelection task – although he should realize this isn't
something that would win him a lot of votes from that bloc.

Regardless of motivation, in net the backlash may
end up costing him votes, and has attracted the attention of the state's top
tourism officials, Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser
who is running for reelection this fall. After proclaiming the demands
non-negotiable, under Nungesser's and the public's pressure Arceneaux has begun
to soften his stance, now saying the original routes may be run and that
negotiations have started with the krewes. Nungesser and he plan to meet on the
issue on Sep. 29.

This was an unforced error by Arceneaux. Had he
undertaken this months ago, likely any conflict would have remained behind
closed doors. And if preference to the African American Parade continues, even
if the reason behind that isn't part of an electoral strategy, politically he
will have taken a hit among some city voters – krewe members, Carnival fans,
and businesses who profit from the parades – who will see him as a north
Louisiana, Republican, male, and pale version of Dorothy
Mae Taylor for the impact he will have on krewes.

Further, no matter the outcome, the public nature
of the incident's resolution only draws attention to public safety concerns, where
anything but significant progress over the next three years on this almost
certainly dooms any reelection chances that Arceneaux may have. This departure from
his overall unflashy but steady governance will prove detrimental in that
regard.

Allen Sumrall (Law School & Government Department, Unversity of Texas at Austin) & Beau J. Baumann (Yale Law School) have posted Clarifying Judicial Aggrandizement (University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Scholars argue that the...

The Department of Labor is encouraging workforce programs to allow beneficiaries to self-certify their eligibility. Policymakers should be on guard that this seemingly innocuous expansion in self-certification for minor workforce programs is not used to justify reviving the same policy for far costlier unemployment checks.
The post Recalling Pandemic Lessons on "Self-Certifying" Eligibility appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

The horrific atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on Israelis and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza amid Israel's response have rightfully focused policymakers on what needs to be done to respond to the immediate crisis and prevent further tragedy. Unfortunately, some of the calls for action from Congress risk increasing humanitarian suffering and further punishing ordinary civilians. This includes reckless calls by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and others to expand the war to Iran, which would further embroil Americans, Israelis, and Iranians alike in more senseless bloodshed.Less bombastic, but also unwise, are calls from Senate Republicans, and a handful of Democrats facing challenging elections next year, for the U.S. to renege on the recent agreement that freed five Iranian-American hostages by "freezing" Iran's access to $6 billion held in Qatari banks that can only be used for humanitarian purchases of food and medicine.These calls reflect a fundamental misunderstanding regarding these funds and, if implemented, would likely violate exemptions in U.S. law that food, medicine, and humanitarian goods cannot be subjected to sanctions.The bulk of the funds originate from a 2018 Trump administration decision to grant short-term waivers for South Korea to continue to purchase Iranian oil. The funds expended for those purchases were deposited in restricted accounts within South Korea. Under existing sanctions exemptions, Iran could theoretically have used these funds to purchase non-sanctioned humanitarian goods within South Korea. However, due to practical complications, including concerns by South Korea of potentially running afoul of additional U.S. sanctions, the funds in this account remained largely untouched. As a result, the Biden administration used this as leverage to get something in return — the freeing of American dual nationals from Iran.The U.S. did not "unfreeze the funds." Rather, the U.S. allowed the money to be transferred to banks in Qatar, where they remain frozen, as they were in South Korea, for any use other than for humanitarian purchases. As a result, lawmakers who propose the funds be "frozen" are implying that they should be blocked from being used to purchase food and medicine, despite humanitarian exemptions built into U.S. law.U.S. officials have noted that these funds are being tightly monitored by the Treasury Department and can only be expended on legitimate humanitarian goods like food and medicine. Yet partisan critics of the prisoner release rapidly seized on the horrific events in Israel to falsely claim these funds were used to finance the attacks, forcing Biden administration officials to correct the record.This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made this point crystal clear, stating, "Not a single dollar from that account has actually been spent to date. And in any event, it's very carefully and closely regulated by the Treasury Department to make sure that it's only used for food, for medicine, for medical equipment." This matches earlier statements clarifying that the U.S. is closely watching how the funds are spent.As U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer explained in August, "the reason we can be confident" that the funds will only be used for humanitarian purchases "is that the U.S. Treasury Department has oversight over all of the funds in this account, and we'll be able to monitor any transactions that they are used for to make sure that they're used for the proper purposes…we are going to be very carefully monitoring and using very careful oversight, again, through the Treasury Department to make sure it's used the way it's intended."Beyond the unprecedented cancellation of humanitarian exemptions, blocking these funds would renege on yet another rare diplomatic agreement with Iran. This would render any diplomacy with Iran exceptionally difficult for Biden's remaining time in office, including on critically important issues like hostages, regional security, and the nuclear program. The Trump administration did untold damage to U.S. credibility by reneging on the multilateral 2015 nuclear deal with Iran struck under the Obama administration. This gave hardliners in Iran the upper hand in advocating against restoring the far-reaching nonproliferation accord under Biden, helping ensure Iran's nuclear program is on the cusp of weapons production today. As a result of this historically self-defeating foreign policy decision, a regional spillover of the conflict in Israel could now have nuclear dimensions.Reneging on a hostage deal would double down on this error and further diminish U.S. diplomatic credibility, and Biden's credibility in particular, with a range of adversarial nations. This would undoubtedly make it much more difficult to get Americans home safely from a host of places — including potentially Gaza. Biden has rightly made getting Americans home a priority -— including from Russia, Venezuela, Iran and other nations. It would be a major error to diminish that track record and convey a lack of seriousness that the U.S. will follow through to get its people home to safety. Diplomatic options to free wrongfully detained Americans will be even more difficult, if not fully taken off the table.Additionally, this knee jerk reaction seems to dismiss out of hand any possibility of determining whether Iran could conceivably be an interlocutor for getting hostages freed from Hamas. George H.W. Bush administration officials credited Iran with playing a critical role in securing the eventual release of American and other foreign hostages held for years by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Slamming the door on Iranian funds in Qatar risks removing one of the few levers that Biden can pull to secure freedom for Americans.While Iran offers material support for Hamas and has done so for quite some time, it appears that Tehran did not have a direct role in Hamas's decision to launch the attack in Israel. This makes it all the more important for policymakers to take time to understand the situation and consider how rapid shifts in U.S. policy could backfire amid a fast-moving situation. While it is understandable that some policymakers would speak rashly while emotions are running high, decision-making requires clear thinking. Rather than kneejerk reactions that risk backfiring, members of Congress should give the administration space to uphold its prior agreements with Iran and leave no stone unturned to secure freedom for Americans and move toward a ceasefire and just peace.

The best way for Taiwan to survive against an invasion attempt is an asymmetric defense or "porcupine" strategy.

On May 17, the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, dissolved the country's legislature in the midst of impeachment proceedings against him. Did Ecuador just have a self-coup? The answer matters greatly for the country's democratic trajectory and for the international community's response.