Louisiana Voice

Let’s face it, U.S. Sen. John N. Kennedy just ain’t too good at figgurin.’

Back in 1999 (that’s 26 years ago if you’re using Kennedy math), when he first ran for Louisiana state treasurer, the then-secretary of the Department of Revenue boasted in a TV ad that during his tenure as the head of the Revenue Department, costs to small businesses had decreased by about 150 percent.

Of course, most people who have even a passing familiarity with numbers know that when you reduce anything by 100 percent, you’re at baseline zero. Ergo, while it’s possible to increase something like say, expenses to small businesses, by just about any percentage, it is impossible to reduce said number by more than 100 percent – unless we decide to start paying some sort of freaky bonuses to businesses.

When his 1999 campaign was informed of that gaffe, the ad was quickly pulled but it couldn’t erase the fact that this was the guy who wanted to be in charge of the state’s finances.

Fast forward to 2025 and we find that ol’ weed killer-drinker still hasn’t boned up on his math.

Oh, he’s skilled at grabbing TV camera face time with his homilies and aw-shucks Will Rogers wannabe word salad. Truth is, he reminds me more of actor Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney on Green Acres, than a latter-day Will Rogers.

“Mr. Douglas…” (Pat Buttram as Mr. Haney on Green Acres)

But a reader forwarded me a story from THE SHREVEPORT TIMES. the former Ewing family publication (which did a first-rate job in its investigation of the JIM LESLIE MURDER 50 years ago only to be subsequently sold in 1976 to Gannett which promptly gutted the newsroom staff and left the paper a shell of its former self).

The Times story’s hook was particularly interesting in that it illustrated that Kennedy hasn’t taken any remedial math courses in the past quarter-century.

The story said that last Tuesday (June 3) “Secretary of Education Linda McMahon tested (sic) before the Senate on behalf of Trump’s 2026 budget.”

Okay, with McMahon, a wrestling promoter, you have a disaster-in-waiting, but let’s not dwell on her lack of qualification for now but instead, focus on the exchange between her and Kennedy.

When McMahon confirmed to Kennedy that the government spent about $1.58 billion per year for the past ten years on a program to encourage low-income kids to attend college, the junior senator from Louisiana did some quick computing in that Foghorn Leghorn head of his and said (aloud, so everyone could hear), “So, that’s over a trillion dollars that we’ve spent on this program.”

Oblivious to his error, Kennedy then went on to imply that colleges and universities have been stealing that grant money from the government for their own purposes. McMahon likewise failed to catch Kennedy’s inflated number but Sen John Reed (D-Rhode Island) did.

“I’m not a great mathematician, but I think you were talking about a trillion dollars? I believe $1.5 billion times 10 is $15 billion, and that’s a little bit off from a trillion dollars,” The Times quoted Reed a saying.

McMahon then said that the budget actually cuts $1.2 billion, to which Reed said, “Well that would be $12 billion, not a trillion dollars.”

Oh, did I mention that for 16 years, Kennedy was in charge of the state’s finances?

You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.