re: Did JBE create the financial shortfall?

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I know nothing about this governor except that he INHERITED this mess.

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He was part of the state legislature and therefore part of the mess the whole time.

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SPENDING is the problem. the restriction in the constitution is the problem.

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Do you think JBE really wants to attack spending OR the protections on many parts of the budget by addressing the constitutional issues?

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many voters HATE HIM because he's a democrat.

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Because he is a democrat who will not address the spending problems and has already used the "we will close schools and take away your college football" card to scare people into more taxes.

While there is an awful lot of blame to go around, continuing to say one person or one group did it all alone is at least counterproductive. Jindal had an agenda but so did others. Who stopped some of the attempts to close SUNO and some of the unneeded schools? Did the legislature get a backbone and say we need to raise taxes or we will be in a hole in a year or so? There are lots of dirty hands in this, together with some bad luck with oil.

But we are unquestionably in a mess. Yes, I think that stopping the payment of the tops money was a grandstanding attempt to get people's attention, as was talking about no football, but the gov's limited agenda for a special session and his decision to get into the expanded medicaid makes me suspicious that this is pretty much national style politics brought home. Sort of the no crisis should be wasted attitude, and fix it the way you want but not necessarily the best way for all. If he is in good faith, a good place to start is by cutting his own and his cabinet salaries. Show that he is willing to give up something like the rest of us will need to do. I think that in the short term, there is no choice but to cut somewhere by a lot and probably a sales tax, which could be quickly implemented. Long term, we need to rewrite the constitution, partly to cut back the governor's power and partly to get rid of the mandates.

edited for typo

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1,000,000 - that's a million. that's .1% of the amount of shortfall we have. I would have to print that out 3,000 times to get to 4 billion.

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I know what you are trying to say here but your math skills didn't work out. I hope that your finger just slipped and hit the "4" instead of the "3" when you said 4 billion.

1,000,000
x 3,000
3,000,000,000 (not 4 Billion)

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Psychopathic Jindal and the other R's never could balance the budget which left Louisiana in a financial shite hole.

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No, I'm no fan of Jindal, but this mess would have happened no matter who was in office. The state was basing it's budget on the price of a barrel of oil running somewhere around $60.00....well, they did not count on it being under 30.00 a barrel....that's a big hit on the royalty payments which does account for quite a bit of money.

That being said, the people of the state will bitch and moan about the thieves and freeloaders in the state, but to be honest, the powers that be have never really thought all that highly about having an educated populace . The voting public thinks it can get optimal governmental performance on less than optimal revenues for the services that they expect....then they bitch about it.

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The la budget is 24.5 billion and was 27 billion when Jindal took office in 2008.

In DC that would be called an 800+% budget cut.

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Okay I'll rephrase to didn't cut enough spending. And many of the cuts he did make were to higher ed and healthcare. They weren't cuts that promote healthy government, a healthy economy, or a healthy constituency.

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From a college /university stand point, Louisiana has entirely too(FIFY) many 4 year college's. Look at the number of junior colleges our neighbors have. They are operated at a much cheaper rate and allows students to get their BS classes out of the way. Tennessee is making JC tuition free for in state students and they do not have a state tax. Maybe we should elect some of them down here, instead of all the idiots we have, Democrats and Republicans! !!

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While TN doesn't have a a typical state income tax, it does have other revenue streams. Tennessee state government does not impose tax on wages earned but rather, taxes individuals on dividends and bond interests if the total amount exceeds $1250 for single filers ($2500 for married couples) it is called a Halls Tax. The tax rate is 6% I believe.

Additionally they still have a state corporate income tax, and tourism brought in $3.8 billion just last year. There is a tourism tax in the state that offsets the personal income tax that we pay in Louisiana. The towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge alone bring in the majority of that. As for the free JC, it is essentially set up like TOPs is. Make the grades in the correct courses in High School, and get state paid tuition. Note that I did not say "free" tuition. However, since they limit it to 2 year colleges, they are saving money compared to TOPS since we pay for all four years.

Edited to fix a typo!

Someone posted on poli board that the state spending per capita is more than the federal spending in Louisiana. By like $400. If that was decreased to the federally spent amount their numbers showed a balanced budget.

QUIT THE SPENDING. And change it I think so that everything can be cut by "x" %!!

In my mind it's not that hard. Why should two departments always get the brunt? And yes I'm pissed still mostly because of the no work requirement for food stamp recipients. That's just awful. They could at least try to look for a job ... How about we cut out other handouts??

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QUIT THE SPENDING. And change it I think so that everything can be cut by "x" %!!

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This new governor actually expanded medicaid. That's a massive increase in spending.

It appeared to me that JBE was trying to be honest with the people of the state and educate them on how serious this deficit is. What he said about closing of LSU was that if there was no action in this legislative session THEN it would not make payroll through April 31, effectively shutting down the school and making student athletes ineligible next season. I don't believe he was "lying" or making any "threats", like it or not those are facts. Now, will that actually happen? No. LSU will not be shut down. Was it a scare tactic? I can definitely understand how it could be seen that way, because there is no way that this legislative session would allow for the school to shut down, and to digress into football was not necessary. Did JBE create the financial shortfall? Obviously he didn't do it by himself, but he was a member of the legislature who put us in this position soo I'd say yes.