re: Louisiana finally has a budget surplus thanks to JBE

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Is has to do with the Stelly plan, from the Mike foster adminstration which taxed the rich and Blanco rolled back bc the oil and gas boom during her term. Jindal's dumbass repealled it completly his first year in office

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you literally are posting fake history

the Stelly plan repeal was passed with a veto-proof majority and was sponsored by...JBE

Jindal didn't want to repeal it, especially in one go, but his hands were tied

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senators, govenors work hard to try to fix the budget so we have have funds for Infrastructure and roads which ppl bitch about everyday

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state spending is dominated by medicaid, education, and prisons...not roads



why do you have to continuously lie to make your "point"?

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people need to quit thinking oil & gas will ever support our state government again, it doesn't now and won't in the future. in fact it will support less and less as shale production continues to increasingly dominate. it can't be done here like it can in other places

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Gave you an upvote on this

Now shut your whore mouth with all this talk of paying our own way, etc. This is Louisiana, we won't do that and when the money is not there for basic services or education, we'll blame the politicians and their "corruption" as we always do.....It's safer that way.

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state spending is dominated by medicaid, education

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that minimum foundation program could be reduced by letting localities tax industry. the locals need to be fully paying for their schools anyway
you mentioned prisons- where does that fall and how big is it? i was under the impression that after Health & MFP, the next-largest specific item was a very distant third

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Jindal financially ruined the state

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What does this mean???

I did not experience any financial ruin and I am citizen of the state.

Please explain or please quit using the term "state" when you really mean the "government bureaucracy of Louisiana".

(Nobody here was a bigger critic of Jindal than ole IB but I suspect my criticism was for a much different reason than yours. I criticized him for not being conservative with our money---doing things like giving it to film makers and steel mills ect.)

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the Advocate had several lengthily articles illustrating all the tax breaks industry gets, the film business gets, and how many business skate on taxes

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the "cut" crowd doesn't even consider that stuff "spending", although I agree with you that it is

it doesn't even touch that $30 billion that's actually budgeted either

Surpluses (or mid-year deficits) aren't particularly indicative of the fiscal health of a budget.

They are more an indication of volatility in revenue. So budgets based on oil revenue with have greater surpluses and shortfalls. Unfortunately sales tax, while better than oil revenue, is still pretty volatile.

Large well funded budgets can have surpluses and shortfalls, and smaller budgets can too.

To the extent JBE deserves credit, sure, I guess. But remember they used $100 million of rainy day fund so that really just makes them even.

And don't forget, Jindal had budget surpluses too. Just like JBE he had a mid-year deficit and a year-end surplus. (I think that happened twice- too much of a pain to look it up). So all you Jindal haters probably shouldn't hang your hat on surpluses as the measure of a healthy budget.

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that minimum foundation program could be reduced by letting localities tax industry. the locals need to be fully paying for their schools anyway

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I agree the locals need to be paying for their schools---we need to eliminate ALL property exemptions while holding actual collections still for one year so the millages will adjust downward and then let the locals vote on taxes to fund their schools. (A lot of homeowners would actually see their taxes go down as the millages fall.)

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the health providers who are minting money from it.

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Ochsner is loving it. Have you seen the building boom they have embarked on?

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Is the 'fiscal cliff' they keep talking about still a problem? Louisiana really needs to diversify the tax base and have a stable model that won't fold every time the oil and gas market dips.

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The taxes put in place in the 2016 special sessions sunset in 2018. This creates the fiscal cliff. The legislature simply refused to address it even though several very good bills were brought forth. Supposed conservatives like Lance Harris and Chris Broadwater sought to protect special interests instead of looking into solutions to the fiscal cliff.