Posted in Business, Economy, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Taxes on December 19, 2012| 4 Comments »
“If you’ve got some states doing it, it’s hard for the others not to do it. It’s like unilaterally disarming.”
—Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, on his unsuccessful efforts to rein in the runaway trend toward tax incentives offered by states to lure industry.
Posted in Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Economy, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Jobs, Taxes on December 19, 2012| 3 Comments »
Unless the Revenue Study Commission’s report on the state’s tax structure is destined to become just another government study that gathers dust, it must address one significant fact: that for every dollar in the state’s budget, 21 additional cents is given away in tax incentives, exemptions and credits.
The report is scheduled to be released sometime shortly after the first of the year.
The state, as has been the case the past several years, is facing a budgetary shortfall of about $1 billion for Fiscal Year 2013-14 and the Jindal administration on Friday, Dec. 14., announced another budget cut, this one $166 million—all in health care for the poor.
For the current budget of $25 billion, the state each year gives away almost $5 billion in various tax breaks which range from enterprise zone credits to 10-year property tax exemptions to sales and use tax rebates.
Louisiana corporate and industrial tax incentives were only $59 million as recently as 2001. The surge, of course, translates to less revenue in the state budget but Gov. Piyush Jindal has refused to offset the revenue losses with increased taxes elsewhere, choosing instead to cut services. As a consequence, higher education and health care have incurred devastating cuts.
Put another way, the Jindal administration continues to insist on transferring money from education and health care to businesses.
Louisiana commits $394 for every man, woman and child each year in tax breaks to manufacturers, retail outlets and movie production companies through the Louisiana Office of Economic Development (LED).
Those include:
• LED FastStart, which creates customized employee recruiting, screening and training solutions for eligible companies;
• Angel Investor Tax Credit of up to 35 percent for start-up and expansion investors;
• Digital Interactive Media and Software Development Incentive;
• Enterprise Zone tax credits of $2,500 for each new job created;
• Industrial tax exemption of 100 percent for up to 10 years on new manufacturing investment;
• Motion Picture Investor transferrable tax credit of up to 30 percent;
• Musical and Theatrical Production tax credit of 25 percent to 35 percent;
• Ports of Louisiana investor tax credit program to promote Louisiana ports;
• Quality Jobs program that offers up to 6 percent in rebates on annual payroll expenses for up to 10 years;
• Research and Development tax credits of up to 40 percent to existing businesses;
• Restoration Tax Abatement of 100 percent for five years for rehabilitation of existing structures;
• Sound Recording Investor Tax Credit of 25 percent;
• Technology Commercialization Credit and Jobs Program offering a 40 percent refundable tax credit and a 6 percent payroll rebate for firms that invest in the commercialization of Louisiana technology.
The New York Times recently conducted an extensive investigation into state tax incentives that revealed that Louisiana’s $1.79 billion in business tax breaks ranks 11th in the nation.
Local governments give up $9.1 million per hour ($80 billion per year) in tax incentives to business and industry, according to the Times story.
Movie maker Oliver Stone criticizes subsidies to industries but defends similar subsidies for movie production, the story noted.
Moreover, the $394 per capita cost is eighth highest in the U.S. and the 21-cent cost per state budget dollar is seventh highest in the country.
That $1.79 billion includes $1.61 billion in corporate income tax credits, rebates and reductions and $75 million in property tax abatement.
But one thing the Times story neglected to point out in its report is that the $1.79 billion in corporate tax breaks represents only about 40 percent of the total tax breaks given by Louisiana through other exemptions, including those for hazardous waste disposal, gift taxes, inheritance taxes, sales taxes on alcoholic beverages, tobacco, food and prescription drugs.
Only six other states had a higher ratio of tax incentives to state budget. Texas granted 51 cents per state budget dollar in corporate tax incentives. Following, in order were Nebraska (39 cents), Oklahoma and West Virginia (37 cents), Vermont (31 cents) and Michigan (30 cents).
Not surprisingly, Texas has the most corporate tax exemptions with $19.1 billion.
But Louisiana, like so many other states has plunged headlong into the ever-escalating race for industry and jobs and again, like other states, has placed a tremendous strain on state finances.
The current obsession with tax breaks began with the repeal of the Stelly Plan in Gov. Piyush Jindal’s first few months in office in 2008, a move that has cost the state approximately $300 million per year.
The repeal of the Stelly Plan, according to Jindal, was supposed to save individual taxpayers between $500 and $1,000 per year. But to save $500, a single filer would have to earn as much as $90,000 and joint filers would have to make more than $150,000 a year to save $1,000.
But the revenue losses caused by the ill-advised repeal of the Stelly Plan are dwarfed by the losses to the state treasury that have resulted in corporate tax incentives granted for projects that have produced few or no jobs.
In 2011, for example, the Board of Commerce and Industry approved exemptions totaling more than $2 billion in enterprise zone and property tax exemptions for new and expanded businesses that produced a mere 7,300 jobs, many of those low-salaried jobs.
But not even those comparatively few jobs turn out to be permanent.
• The Ormet Corporation kicked about 200 of its employees in Ascension Parish to the curb in November, only about a year after receiving tax credits worth about $1 million and a performance-based loan of $1.5 million from the state.
• International Paper Co. received more than $55 million in tax breaks while creating only 107 new jobs over the four-year period from 2008-2011. But that did not prevent IP from shutting down its plant in Bastrop in 2008 and another in Minden last May, putting 610 employees out of work.
• The $26.3 million in tax incentives received from the state by General Motors in 2008 and 2009 produced no new jobs and worse, failed to prevent closure of its Shreveport plant which sent 950 workers to the unemployment lines.
• Dow Chemical continued taking tax incentives from the state, even after announcing in 2009 that 2,500 workers would lose their jobs when three Louisiana plants that make ethylene and derivatives would close. Over the four years from 2008 through 2011, Dow accepted $70.3 million in tax incentives that resulted in not a single new job.
That could be because many established plants submit applications for renewals of existing 10-year exemptions, citing plant modernizations or improvements as justification for the continued tax break when in reality, many of the so-called modernization projects involve little more than landscaping, changing a few light bulbs or similar routine maintenance projects.
But even worse is the gnawing appearance of quid pro quo. Many recipients of the state’s generous tax incentives also made generous campaign contributions to Gov. Piyush Jindal.
In all, 29 separate entities received 32 tax exemptions totaling $774 million over the four-year period. Those same 29 have made $135,700 in campaign contributions to Jindal.
Some of the recipients, followed by total tax breaks and campaign contributions to Jindal, include:
• CLECO ($169 million, $14,000);
• Calumet Lubricants ($105 million, $1,000);
• Dow Chemical ($70.3 million, $13,000);
• Exxon/Mobil ($13.3 million, $11,000);
• Century Tel ($24.6 million, $5,000);
• The Coca Cola Co. ($23.9 million, $2,500);
• PPG Industries ($23.2 million, $1,000);
• Marathon Oil ($27.7 million, $11,000);
• Monsanto Co. ($38.7 million, $5,000);
• Conoco Phillips ($37.2 million, $5,000);
• General Motors ($26.7 million, $2,500);
• Stupp Corp. ($25.9 million, $6,000);
• DuPont ($21.3 million, $1,000);
• Select Energy ($14.3 million, $5,000);
• Dynamic Industries ($13.6 million, $5,000);
• General Electric ($11.2 million, $5,000);
• Syngenta Crop Protection ($11 million, $1,000);
• Georgia Pacific ($10.7 million, $4,200);
• Targa Midstream Services ($7.88 million, $5,000);
• Weyerhaeuser ($3.98 million, $5,000);
• Bollinger Shipyards and affiliated companies ($9.36 million, $63,850);
• Chevron ($3.7 million, $1,000);
• Rouse’s Enterprises ($3.48 million, $5,000);
• The GEO Group ($3 million), $5,000);
• Wal-Mart ($2.59 million, $5,000);
• Walgreens ($2.59 million, $5,000);
• Bruce Foods ($2.5 million, $4,500);
• Turner Industries ($2.42 million, $5,000);
• Boh Brothers ($1.76 million, $1,000);
In addition to campaign contributions, which are limited to $5,000 per individual per election cycle, several of the recipients of tax incentives have contributed even more generously to the Supriya Jindal Foundation, established by Jindal’s wife six months after Jindal took office.
Among the contributors are charter members (who give a minimum of $250,000) Marathon Oil, Dow Chemical and Wal-Mart.
Chevron is among the foundation’s Platinum members who pledge a minimum of $50,000.
Posted in Charters, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes, Vouchers on December 12, 2012| 12 Comments »
Fiscal Year 2012-13 is just half over but more deep budget cuts will be announced on Friday and, in the words of one state official, “It ain’t gonna be pretty.”
And the latest fiscal problems haven’t even encountered a looming tax rebate program being offered to encourage financial viability of state charter schools, a centerpiece of the Jindal administration.
With health care and higher education already devastated by previous cuts, it’s anyone’s guess who will suffer in the new round of belt tightening.
Higher education has already been hit with more than $426 million in cuts since 2009—$25 million since June—and Gov. Piyush Jindal has been conducting a fire sale to unload state hospitals and prisons, so it’s difficult to pinpoint where other cuts can be implemented.
The Revenue Estimating Conference will meet on Thursday and the Joint Committee on the Budget will meet on Friday to officially hear the bad news.
Without specifics (because they weren’t available when this was written), that bad news is:
• Personal income tax revenue is below projections;
• Corporate income tax revenue is below projections;
• Severance tax revenue is below projections (because of an unexpected drop in the price of natural gas);
• Sales tax revenue is below projections.
With the bulk of state revenue coming from income taxes and sales taxes, the news, it seems, couldn’t be much worse.
But it might.
Remember the alternative fuel tax credit?
That’s the bill authored by former Rep. Jane Smith (R-Bossier City) that promised a tax credit of up to $3,000 for vehicles that burn “alternative fuel. It was estimated at the time that the tax credit would cost the state $907,000 over five years.
After losing her bid to move up to the Senate in 2011, Jindal rewarded her loyalty (read: dedication to tax breaks) by appointing her as deputy secretary of the Department of Revenue.
The intent of the bill was to encourage the conversion of vehicles to propane but between the passage of Smith’s tax rebate bill and its implementation, flex-fuel vehicles that run on a blend of up to 85 percent ethanol hit the market.
These vehicles immediately qualified for the rebate and the real cost turned out to be more like $200 million, an increase of almost 1,900 percent after then-Revenue Secretary Cynthia Bridges got around to creating rules for the program.
Caught in a potential fiscal crisis over the tax credits, Jindal promptly fired Bridges, promoted Smith (who authored the bill in the first place) to interim secretary and rescinded the tax credits.
Now, a similar scenario may have arisen in the form of last session’s House Bill 969.
HB 969, by Rep. Kirk Talbot (R-Baton Rouge), which was subsequently signed into law by Piyush as Act 25, offers tax rebates to those making contributions to charter schools.
Piyush vetoed a similar bill by Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) that would have given tax rebates of up to $10 million to those making contributions to public schools because, he said, there was no provision in the state budget for the rebates.
The only problem is, the provisions of Act 25 contain no dollar cap which, like the alternative fuel tax, could blow a gaping hole in the state’s budget should a sufficient number of people make contributions to the private scholarship program.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Boy Blunder handles the latest financial crisis since the state is running out of one-time money with which to plug budget holes, thousands of state jobs have already been eliminated, there are few remaining assets that can be sold off, and health care and higher education have already been cut just about as much as they can stand and still function.
Perhaps Piyush might actually see the need to jettison a few six-figure appointive positions handed out to former legislators like Smith, Noble Ellington, Troy Hebert, Lane Carson and numerous others.
That would be a start—a show of good faith, at least.
Posted in Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Politicians, Privatization, Revenue, Taxes, Transparency, Vitter, Vouchers on September 21, 2012| 11 Comments »
This is about arrogance. More specifically, it is about the arrogance of two men, both from Louisiana and each elected to represent his constituents to the best of his ability.
And to that end, each has failed miserably while taking his individual insolence to new levels—in very different ways. One we have written about extensively in the past. The other, not so much, though perhaps he may well warrant closer attention in the future.
We are talking about Gov. Piyush Jindal and U.S. Sen. David Vitter.
The first, Jindal, has repeatedly displayed his cowardice, his spinelessness, by taking actions to close state facilities without bothering to notify affected legislators of his plans in advance. He has consistently ignored the plight of hundreds of state employees he forced into unemployment by cutting services and corporate taxes, further exacerbating the state’s budgetary crisis.
Vitter’s vote on a Senate bill last week can only described as despicable and hypocritical.
We will get to him presently.
It was not enough that Jindal announced the closure of Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville and C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in Dequincy without extending the courtesy of a heads up to the legislative delegation in southeast and southwest Louisiana, the two areas affected.
But in doing so, he appeared to give little regard to or concern for the hundreds of employees at the two facilities who will be adversely impacted by layoffs or, in a few cases, transfers.
Then, on the heels of the announcement of the C. Paul Phelps closure The Baton Rouge League of Women Voters held a panel discussion to discuss Jindal’s continued privatization of state agencies, including the Office of Risk Management, the Office of Group Benefits, charter schools, educational vouchers, state hospital privatization and Medicaid cutbacks.
Invited to attend were representatives of the Jindal administration and proponents of privatization as well as four opponents, including an education coalition representative and Dr. Fred Cerise, former head of the LSU Health Care System.
One end of the head table was fully represented. On the other end, not a single person appeared on behalf of the administration. Cowardice. If an administration cannot publicly defend its actions—and make no mistake, Jindal never does—then that can only be described as cowardly.
Oh, they all had excuses. Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater said he had to attend a State Bond Commission meeting. But that meeting was over before the panel forum began across town. Bottom line, no one from the administration could—or would—find the time to defend the governor’s program.
Of course, Jindal had plenty time to attend a Republican unity breakfast in New Hampshire a week before and agreed to participate in a Sept. 26 Leaders of Iowans for Freedom “No Wiggins” bus tour—a rally in opposition to the re-election of Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins who voted with the majority to rule the state’s one-man, one-woman marriage law unconstitutional.
We have to wonder how our governor, who, metaphorically speaking, has more snakes than he can kill right here at home, can find time to involve himself in a supreme court race in Iowa. Does the state Medicaid budget’s gaping budget hole not keep him sufficiently occupied without his having to traipse off to Iowa? Isn’t the fiscal plight of the state’s colleges and universities of enough concern to deter him from having breakfast in New Hampshire?
Or could it be more than mere coincidence that the first presidential primary and party caucus will be in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, in about three years? Could Jindal be that brazen, that disturbingly obvious? Well, yes. Could he really be that delusional, fooling himself into thinking he has a prayer? Yes again.
Piyush would be wise to awaken to the realization that Timmy Teepell is no Karl Rove.
LouisianaVoice has submitted a public records request to determine the cost of Jindal’s two trips including costs not only for Jindal, but for his security detail and any staff members who went along, including travel, lodging, meals and salaries—and including Jindal’s pro-rated salary for the days he is out of state.
Just for argument’s sake, let us say he made each trip in a single day. Giving his annual salary of $130,000, that would mean he should rebate the state a minimum $712 in salary while he was out of state attending to non-governor-type business—plus all the other expenses incurred on the trip for him and his entourage.
Now let’s talk about Vitter.
There was a bill up for a vote in the Senate last week. The Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012 would have made it easier for veterans in the future to transition to civilian life.
With veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars experiencing unemployment rates 3 percent higher than the general population, the bill would have put a lot of those veterans to work.
A majority (58-40) voted for the bill but that was two votes short of the three-fifths majority needed to overcome a budgetary point of order thrown up by Republicans.
Republicans said the bill violated the Budget Control Act by adding a program that would increase the deficit. Only five Republicans voted for the bill.
Vitter was one of 40 Republicans who voted no.
That’s correct. U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana), given a chance to vote up or down on a measure to help veterans, chose to vote down.
We’re talking about a $16 trillion deficit and the Republicans were quibbling over a budget item of $200 million per year over five years.
Given the propensity of Republicans to consistently vote for larger and larger appropriations for the Pentagon and military contractors and given Republicans’ support of two wars that have cost this country more than $4 trillion, a $1 billion appropriation to help our veterans re-enter the work force should not seem so unreasonable.
Given that most of these Republican chicken hawks have never experienced military service, it certainly is curious that they are so reluctant to lend a hand once these military personnel have sacrificed so much to defend the rhetoric of the pompous congressmen who while beating their collective breasts, are so quick, yea eager, to send them off to war.
It is heartless enough that military personnel with traumatic head injuries are unable to obtain adequate or timely medical treatment once they are no longer useful as fighters and as unwitting enablers of military contractors who milk the Pentagon budget of untold billions of dollars in unchecked cost overruns and outright fraud.
But when it came time to put his money where his patriotic, flag-waving mouth is, Vitter, rather than reaching out to the veterans, turns his back on them. What a coward.
And we thought his frequenting New Orleans prostitutes and cavorting with the D.C. Madam after all of his preaching about family values was hypocritical. That was child’s play, a victimless crime, as they say. His vote on the Veterans Jobs Corps Act dwarfed that transgression. There were thousands of victims of that callous action.
To demonstrate the Republican stance on American exceptionalism and righteous wars, one need look no further than to a statement made by Andrew Card, President George W. Bush’s chief of staff who, when asked about the timing of the March 2003 Iraqi invasion, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom, said, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”
There you have it. A half-century ago President Eisenhower said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
Despite that admonition, war—and the influence of that military-industrial complex—has become a marketing concept, a product to be introduced with the appropriately hyped mixture of patriotism, mom and apple pie, along with the oft-repeated need to defeat the newest threat to the American Way of Life, whatever that is.
And Vitter is right there with his fellow Republicans—until it’s time to help those who supported that policy—the men and women in uniform.
In 2003, he voted in favor of HR 1559, the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act. In 2008, he voted in favor of HR 2642 to approve funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan War—funding that has now exceeded the $4 trillion mark.
But in 2012, he and 39 other Republicans just could not bring themselves to waste a five-year, billion dollar expenditure to help military veterans return to the workforce.
We should be so very proud of our junior senator.
Posted in BESE, Broadband, Internet, Budget, Campaign Contributions, Charters, Civil Service, Commissions, Economy, Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Prison, Privatization, Regents, Retirement, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes, Transparency, Vouchers, Water Sales on August 13, 2012| 13 Comments »
The clock has run out on Gov. Bobby Jindal and like the Honey Badger, he’s now yesterday’s news insofar as any aspirations either one may have had for bigger and better things.
Realistically, time had run out on Louisiana’s wunderkind some time ago even though like a loyal trooper, he keeps soldiering on—perhaps hoping for a prestigious cabinet position like Secretary of Health and Human Services, something he denies aspiring to.
“I would not consider a cabinet post,” he sniffed like the spoiled little boy that he is after being passed over for the vice presidential nomination by Mitt Romney. “I consider being the governor of Louisiana to be more important and the best job there is.” Well, it is the only job he has for the moment and if he doesn’t challenge Mary Landrieu in 2014, we’re stuck with him through 2015.
Break out the champagne.
We can only surmise that Secretary of Education is out of the question since both Romney and Paul Ryan advocate that department’s abolishment in favor of state and local control (read: vouchers), although Romney has tempered his position somewhat.
But Jindal’s real quandary is not that he was passed over for vice president, but that he needs desperately to advance his career quickly—before all his “reforms” as governor come crashing down around him, doing even more damage to his reputation than that disastrous response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address in 2009.
That image as the crusading reformer who gets things done against all odds is already beginning to wear thin in Louisiana and it’s only a matter of time before the national media begin to take a critical look at his administration. The Washington Post and New York Times already have.
Beginning with his repeal of the Stelly Plan only a few months into his first term—the move is costing the state about $300 million a year while benefiting only couples earning more than $150,000 per year or individuals making $90,000 per year—through this year’s veto of a car rental tax renewal for New Orleans, Jindal his consistently found ways to cut taxes while doling out tax breaks to corporate entities.
In 2011, the legislature could not muster the votes to override a Jindal veto of a cigarette tax renewal and the renewal had to go before voters in the form of a constitutional amendment—which easily passed.
While he defiantly categorizes tax renewals as “new taxes,” to which he is adamantly opposed, he has no compunctions about cutbacks to higher education that force colleges and universities to increase tuition. He considers the tuition hikes as “fees,” not taxes.
While turning up his nose at federal grants for early childhood development ($60 million), broadband internet installation in rural parishes ($80.6 million) and for a high-speed rail system between Baton Rouge and New Orleans ($300 million), Jindal, upon slashing funding for parish libraries throughout the state, apparently saw no inconsistency in suggesting that the libraries apply for federal monies in lieu of state funding.
The grumblings began ever-so-slowly but they have been growing steadily. The legislature, albeit the right-wing Tea Party splinter clique of the Republican Party, finally stood up to Jindal toward the end of this year’s legislative session and refused to give in on the governor’s efforts to use one-time revenue to close a gaping hole in the state budget.
Other developments that did not bode well for the governor include:
• A state budget that lay in shambles, resulting in mid-year budget cuts of $500 million because of reductions in revenue—due largely to the roughly $5 billion per year in corporate tax breaks;
• Unexpected cuts to the state’s Medicaid program by the federal government which cost the state $859 million, including $329 million the first year to hospitals and clinics run by Louisiana State University—about a quarter of the health system’s annual budget. Those cuts will mean the loss of medical benefits for about 300,000 indigent citizens in Louisiana;
• Failed efforts to privatize state prisons, even though he did manage to close two prison facilities and a state hospital without bothering to notify legislators in the areas affected—a huge bone of contention for lawmakers who, besides having their own feathers ruffled, had to try and explain the sudden turn of events to constituents;
• Revelation that he had refused to return some $55,000 in laundered campaign funds from a St. Tammany bank president;
• Failed efforts to revamp the state employee retirement system for civil service employees. State police were exempted—perhaps because they form his security detail. And despite questions about the tax or Social Security implications, Jindal plans to plunge ahead with implementation of the part of the plan that did pass without the benefit of a ruling by the IRS—a ruling that could ultimately come back to bite him;
• A failed effort by the Sabine River Authority to sell water to a corporation headed up by two major Jindal campaign contributors—Donald “Boysie” Bollinger of Lockport and Aubrey Temple of DeRidder;
• A school voucher system that is nothing less than a train wreck, a political nightmare. State Education Superintendent John White, after Jindal rushed the voucher program through the legislature, rushed the vetting process for the awarding of vouchers through the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, abetted by members Penny Dastugue, Jay Guillot and Chas Roemer—quickly turning the entire process into a pathetic farce;
• A school in New Orleans run by a man calling himself an “Apostle,” a school in Ruston with no facilities—classrooms, desks, books or teachers—for the 165 vouchers for which the school was approved, tentative approval of vouchers for a school in DeRidder that could not even spell “scholarship” on its sign and for a school in Westlake that teaches that the “Trail of Tears” led many Native Americans to Christianity, that dragons were real, that dinosaurs and humans co-existed at the beginning of time (6,000 years ago, the approximate age of earth, according to its textbooks), that slave owners in America were kind, benevolent masters who treated slaves well, and that the Ku Klux Klan was a helpful reform-minded organization with malice toward none (Don’t laugh, folks; this is what many of these fundamentalist schools who qualified for vouchers are teaching.);
• Then there’s that charter school in Delhi that held girls to a slightly higher standard than boys. Any girl who became pregnant was expelled and any girl even suspected of being pregnant may be ordered to undergo an examination by a doctor of the school’s choice. The boy who gets her pregnant? Nothing. No punishment, no responsibility. Only after being subjected to public exposure, ridicule and criticism did the school alter its policy;
• A state legislator who said she approved of vouchers for Christian schools but not for an Islamic school in New Orleans because this country was founded on the Christian principles of the founding fathers, neglecting for the moment that the founding fathers were for the most part, Deists;
• And to top it all off, White smiles condescendingly and tells us that the criteria applied for approval of vouchers for these schools is part of the “deliberative process,” a catch-all exemption employed by the administration when it doesn’t wish to provide what are clearly public records—an administration, by the way, that touts its so-called “transparency.” Fortunately for the public, the Monroe News-Star is taking White’s pompous behind to court over that decision. (Confidentially, it is the humble opinion of LouisianaVoice that White never had any criteria and that he is creating policy and criteria on the fly because he simply is in way over his inexperienced, unqualified head as the leader of the agency charged with the education of our children. And that perhaps is the most shameful aspect of the entire voucher system and the single biggest act of betrayal on the part of a governor equally overwhelmed by the responsibilities of public office—especially an absentee governor.)
So as the Jindal Express rumbles down the track like a bad motorcycle going 90 miles per hour down a dead-end street (with apologies to Hank Snow) and things begin to unravel on the home front, just where is this absentee governor?
Well, it seems that rather than remain in the state and address the problems that are piling up and growing more complex with each passing day, he seems to prefer to spend his time stumping for Romney—or auditioning for a cabinet position he says he won’t accept—after seeing his chances for the vice presidency fall by the wayside.
A mature governor, a caring governor, a capable governor—one who is truly concerned about the welfare of his state—would defer from flitting all over the country spouting rhetoric on behalf of his presidential candidate in favor of remaining at home and addressing problems that are very real and very important to the people who elected him. Romney, after all, never once voted for Jindal.
There could be only one motive for turning his back on nearly 600,000 voters who first elected him in 2007 and the 673,000 who re-elected him last fall: he doesn’t really care about Louisiana and its people; he cares only about Bobby Jindal and those who can help him in the advancement of his political career.
If Gov. Jindal was truly concerned about the welfare of Louisiana, he certainly would have provided us with an encore of his hurricane and BP spill disaster performances: he would have headed straight to Assumption Parish to grab some TV face time at the Bayou Corne sinkhole and then flown away in a helicopter even as a ghost writer busied himself penning a book sequel: Failed Leadership and Fiscal Crisis: the Crash Landing.
That’s the very least he could do.
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Louisiana Voice 