As recently as Jan. 16, a headline on NOLA.com proclaimed, “No mid-year budget cuts will be required as Louisiana revenue dips only slightly.”
For the first time in six years, the ensuing story said, “Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration will not have to make mid-year budget cuts because of less than projected state revenue.”
Fast forward to last Friday, April 4, (late Friday, that is; the tradition of announcing bad news late on Fridays is known in political circles as “taking out the trash,” according to our friend Bob Mann):
Jindal releases a five-page executive order that, says, among other things:
- Whereas, to ensure that the State of Louisiana will not suffer a budget deficit…prudent money management practices dictate that the best interests of the citizens of the State of Louisiana will be served by implementing an expenditure freeze throughout the executive branch of state government;
- Now, therefore, I, Bobby Jindal…do hereby order and direct as follows:
- “All departments, agencies, and/or budget units of the executive branch…shall freeze expenditures as provided in this executive order;
- “No department, agency, and/or budget unit of the executive branch…shall make any expenditure of funds related to…travel, operating services, supplies, professional services, other charges, interagency transfers, acquisitions and major repairs.”
There followed, as is the case in all such executive orders, a laundry list of exemptions and escape clauses.
But the bottom line nevertheless is tantamount to mid-year budget cuts; the meaning is the same, no matter how the governor tries to spin it.
Oh, there are those who will, of course, argue that a spending freeze is not a budget cut. Those would be the same people (read: Jindal) who said a couple of years back he would veto a 5-cent per pack cigarette tax renewal because he was opposed to new taxes.
Or, taking to its extreme, the administration could trot out Sen. Elbert Guillory (R-D-R-Opelousas—we never know from one day to the next if the announced candidate for lieutenant governor is Republican or Democrat; he’s been both Republican, Democrat and back again) who so eloquently explained the subtle difference between cockfighting and “chicken boxing” during the current legislative session. And yes, he actually did employ that term in defending the activity that is illegal in every single state, including New Mexico, the last to ban cockfighting.
That’s a quick turnaround: less than three months after Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols assured us that a projected $35 million budgetary shortfall could be made up with extra revenue expected to be generated by the state’s recent tax amnesty program.
Apparently not.
House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles), a member of the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference, blamed Internet shopping for part of the shortfall, saying Louisiana internet shoppers were not submitting sales taxes on their purchases.
Other states—including Arkansas and Alabama who must not have Internet access for their citizens—have experienced increases in sales tax revenues.
All this voodoo economics (to borrow a term from George Bush the First) boils down to one simple yes-or-no question we all should ask of ourselves:
Would we trust this governor or this commissioner of administration to do our taxes?
Here’s the sobering answer to that not-so-rhetorical question: we already are.
Indeed, we have been for the past six years.
Louisiana Voice 
.http://businessreport.com/article/20140408/BUSINESSREPORT0112/140409812
And, let’s not forget this little $55 million hole in the state education budget this year (just revealed today) which carries over to create another $50 million next year – If we are to believe the state’s education superintendent. But, hey, he was wrong about common core according to the Governor, so how can he be right about something so ephemeral as the state’s Minimum Foundation Program formula? And, besides, we have plenty of money this year so another $55 million is a piece of cake even if he’s right. Sound budget practices have assured this.
And, we have been assured next year’s budget as submitted by the administration is perfectly okay so I’m sure the $900 million hole projected in next year’s “balanced” budget by others before this $50 million addition is no problem because we have been assured by the administration that our budgets for the past several years always were, are, and always will be constitutionally balanced in full compliance with the constitution and all our state laws on top of being based on sound financial principles and practices.
In the word of the pharaohs, “So let it be written, so let it be done.” I know I feel good about everything because, just like with my insurance company, we’re in good hands. This whole freeze thing is just an extra precaution geared toward ending the year with another big surplus to use on good things like roads, deferred maintenance, and the UAL of the retirement systems just like we’ve been able to do every year.
Baldfaced lies and incompetence are the only things we can dependably expect from Piyush. And the most pathetic thing of all is that this delusional little man does not care a whit about what Louisiana people think – or he would demand that his “staff” make damn sure that revenue estimates are accurate so continual budget cuts are not the Jindal norm. If he cared what we think Piyush would have replaced everyone responsible for the financial mess the first year and not allowed it to happen ever again. So, are he and his minions too stupid to govern or do they arrogantly think we are too stupid to notice that his corporate welfare program is deliberately starving the state?
Either way, Jindal and company are a disaster. Be warned America: a very real threat to the national interest: America Next.
Amen, earthmother !
You know, Tom, if all those highly-paid appointees were to be furloughed for the next year, that would make more sense than any other jindal cuts and it would work for the good of the state of Louisiana.