The new math

Remarkable that the more power we give the ostensible "fiscally conservative" party to operate in Louisiana, the more likely we are to working with completely made up numbers.  Republicans have been balking at the revenue estimates ever since they took over the House in 2015. This week, they fired the legislative fiscal officer because he wouldn't let them block parish lawsuits against oil and gas companies.

The ouster of Carpenter comes three weeks after state senators blasted a fiscal note that said a bill they favored could have prohibitive costs.

The public rebuke of Carpenter’s office occurred on May 19 when a fiscal note produced by staffer Rebecca Robinson reported that a bill to kill lawsuits filed by coastal parishes against oil and gas companies could result in “a significant increase in expenditures” if the state were to take over the suits. That’s because, Robinson found, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources estimated it would cost the state at least $4.3 million to take over each of the 43 cases, or up to possibly $185 million for all of them.

Before we get too far in the way of defending the technocrats here, we should acknowledge that forecasting revenues and costing out legislation is often as much are as science. This year's budget projection, complicated several times over by the volatile price of oil among other effects of the COVID crisis is as sure an example of that as any. We try to make sophisticated guesses about these things but we are still, largely, making guesses.

So the argument here is really about power.  If you have the power to affect the guess, then you try to make the guess favor your desired policy outcome.  Republicans in the state legislature want to protect oil companies and insurers from liability. They want to protect rich people from having to pay taxes. They're a lot closer to getting that stuff done if their version of the guessing the numbers is what sets the parameters of debate.  That's really half the battle right there. Or maybe three fourths depending on who is estimating.