re: What kind of fear mongering will we see from JBE this morning?

quote:

---

Why don't you start and tell us what you would cut?

---

Well I would cut medicaid reimbursement of provider services at least 10%.

I would cut payments to film makers 100%

I would cut payments to live music providers 100%

I would cut payment to digital media companies 100%

I would spin all the higher education institutes off as private entities and absorb all their debt so they will be debt free and then issue vouchers to any Louisiana resident that wants to go to college equal to an amount up to 97% of what we spend per student now.

I would merge the secretary of state and lt. governor's office.

I would take food inspection services away from the department of agriculture and would create a food industry financed private entity like Underwriter's Laboratory to handle food inspections and agricultural testing. I would do the same for weights and measures. I would then eliminate the rest of the department of agriculture's regulatory personnel in similar ways.

I would make the interstates toll roads so that we would collect millions from the out of state people AND reserve that money in funds that could only be used for road maintenance and construction.

I would put fire marshal responsibility on to the parishes and eliminate that agency.

I would completely close the department of education and end state financing of teacher salaries by imposing a statewide 10-20 mil property tax that would be direct income to the local governments to pay these salaries. The tax millage per parish could not raise more than the amount of financing any single parish gets today from the state for teachers salaries.

Now I can think of some more but as you can see I would put a LOT more of state services at the local level and dramatically reduce the size of state government. I would also head off the disaster that is coming with our technology challenges to our brick and mortar higher ed system by freeing the schools to adapt without government interference while have a very large population of well vouchered financed customers to attract to their schools.

quote:

---

What kind of fear mongering will we see from JBE this morning?

---

(sarcasm alert):
"Unless you raise taxes, I am going to force LSU to rehire Les Miles and give Johnny Jones a 20 year guaranteed contract extension." - Gov Edwards. (end sarcasm)

quote:

---

Edwards wants to use more than $119 million from Louisiana's "rainy day" fund to partially fill the shortfall and eliminate the rest of the deficit with cuts.

---

So much for our honorable governor not resulting to budget tricks, gimmicks, & one time use money to balance the budget.

quote:

---

"There will be no proposal from my administration to raise a single tax or fee," he said.

But the governor said Republican and Democratic lawmakers have asked that he allow them to consider fee hikes, so he'll give lawmakers that option in the parameters of the special session that he'll call.

---

Translation: The governor will not call for tax or fee hikes but he'll tell the democratic members of the legislature to do so and then he'll fully back that measure and the republicans will cave after minor objections.

Cut out the film industry tax credit completely.

Cut out the pork projects the state does every year in the parishes and municipalities.

Look at K-12, they've gotten a free pass.

Look at the pension, reign them in. They are way out of line, and very costly.

And yes I'd look at the universities to see where the money is being spent, and whether or not its being spent in the best places. Are there too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

I said the property tax is for new plants. The further processing exemption never phases out. It is always there. I'm not wrong on this.

quote:

---

They won't tell you the movie industry has gotten over a billion dollars of state money over the last several years, they'll just find examples of people in need and act as if there is no money for them.

As I see it there is money for them, it just goes to the movies, and other entities who do not need it as much as that little boy did.

---

I've been thinking a lot about the film credits. I think I have a solution. It's not as good a deal for the film industry, but it's something and it won't destroy the budget.

Give them a sales tax exemption.

Anything they buy in the state for use in the production is exempt from all state sales taxes (and I think local governments should be able to do this as well if they choose to do so).

Most of the money spent here would not be spent here anyways, so it's not like the state is really "losing" any money. And the spending will still slosh around the economy, creating jobs and income taxes.

quote:

---

I agree not at 50K a day. They should work for free if they need another special session.

---

One could make the argument that because the legislature basically BS'd the revenue numbers in the budget, that they created this mess. They should fix it for free.