“New Year, same political debate.”
“New cuts, but same old Jindal.”
“New year, same budget woes.”
Any Louisiana citizen looking for
better news out of the state Capitol in 2013 is going to be sorely
disappointed. Those headlines
from various news sources don’t paint an encouraging picture.
Gov. Bobby Jindal has been governor for
five full years now, and the state has had five successive budgets cuts
in the middle
of the fiscal year. The Legislature meets again on April 8 for a
fiscal session, and lawmakers will have to deal with a $1.2
billion budget shortfall. That, too, is nothing new.
You would think that would disturb the governor, but he is the eternal optimist. And he is about as inflexible as they come,
insisting everything is right with the world.
“As always, our budget will be balanced, won’t raise taxes, will protect higher education and health care funding and help
foster an environment where businesses want to invest and create jobs,” Jindal said.
The truth is higher education and
health care haven’t been protected. Colleges and universities have lost
$450 million in
state funding since Jindal took office in 2008. The governor says
those budget cuts have been made up with higher tuition,
but that simply isn’t the case. Ask any higher education official
who isn’t afraid to speak on the record, and he or she will
tell you recent times have been awfully tough.
Health care is now down to the point of
eliminating programs like hospice care for the dying and services to
battered women
and children. Charity hospitals are being phased out, and that is
probably a good thing. However, there are still no guarantees
in place that private hospitals are ready to take on those
responsibilities in every community.
The way state government works is a big part of the problem. The governor proposes the budget, it gets debated and rewritten
in the state House of Representatives and is put back in its original form in the state Senate.
The Advocate, which has never been a fan of the governor, explained the Jindal method of operation in a recent editorial.
“Year after year, in a truly Olympic
display of dexterity, the administration has raided small funds
throughout the budget,
milked expedients such as sale of state property and shuffled
money around so that large amounts of one-time money could be
included in the operating budget...,” the newspaper said.
Jindal was opposed to the use of
one-time money when he campaigned for governor, but it has become an
annual crutch he uses
to balance the budget. The situation has become so perplexing a
group of “fiscal hawks” in the House has been organized to
try and restore some sanity to budget writing. They predicted that
using one-time money would lead to mid-year budget cuts,
and that is exactly what has happened.
Although their numbers are growing, the prospects of better budgeting aren’t good. Too many legislators aren’t ready to give
up the committee assignments they get for playing ball with the governor. They also don’t want to face the potential loss
of projects for the folks back home. Jindal has proved he will go to any lengths to punish those who don’t follow his game
plan, and then insist it wasn’t his doing.
The governor not only fashions the budget. He has line-item veto power to remove projects inserted by legislators who don’t
play by his rules.
Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, is his team leader in the upper chamber, and he reaps tremendous rewards for his
loyalty. State Treasurer John Kennedy said back in November the state’s construction budget was crammed with projects for
Alario’s legislative district. One official suggested it would take two computer discs to list them all.
Legislators continue to give the governor even more power. They approved a $325 million bond issue for rural road improvements
at their last session and let Jindal pick the projects. Lawmakers who won’t follow the leader complained last month their
areas haven’t received any of that money, but they should have known what was coming.
A study of more than 460 tax breaks and exemptions costing $6.8 billion annually has been going on during the interim. Some
legislators had hopes they could eliminate those not paying dividends to free up needed funds. Jindal said it isn’t going
to happen. He said he would veto any suggestions along those lines and exemptions will have to either be given to someone
else or tax rates have to be lowered.
The state’s unemployment rate is low,
new companies are coming into the state and existing businesses are
expanding. However,
the income and sales taxes aren’t growing, and maybe it’s because
those tax breaks are too liberal. It is a subject someone
in state government should pursue in order to get some answers.
For whatever reason, the headlines we
mentioned at the start are right on target. The state might be able to
get out of its
financial rut if the Legislature assumed its constitutional role
as an equal branch of government. The odds of that happening
are slim, but we can always hope for a miracle.
• • •
Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than five decades. Contact him at 494-4025 or jbeam@americanpress.com