Louisiana Governor Jindal, The State Legislature and Balanced/Unbalanced State Budgets

Louisiana is required by law to balance the state budget and every year since Jindal became governor the state has balanced its unbalanced budgets only to become unbalanced again before the fiscal year is over. And the current fiscal year was no exception.

Now Jindal and the legislature has come up with a $26 billion budget for the next fiscal year and he and the legislature already know it will be out of balance and in deficit before the fiscal year is over and in fact many in the legislature has already predicted the deficit will be the larger than in the past.

Once again the state and its people have been high jacked by a republican conservative ideology that gets into the average persons pocket a 100 different ways under the disguise of smaller government. As pointed out by Edward Ashworth, director of the Louisiana Budget Project in a recent comment in the Times Picayune, approximately $7 billion in the states budget is for tax exemptions that don't show up in the states budget and receive almost no scruting. Of course, most people realize those billions of dollars of exemptions go to businesses, the least who need them because the tax code is already stacked in their favor. Those exemptions take revenue from the budget that should be used to improve the quality of life for the people.

The billion dollar surplus that Jindal and the legislature inherited from the previous administration was quickly blown away by a conservative ideology and every year since then deficits have shown up that had to be plugged by cutting the budget. But the $7 billion or so tax exemptions have never been touched. Fiscal conservatives? It does not exist in this administration just like it never existed on the federal level under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. Their rhetoric sounds good but their actions and lack of leadership and courage speaks loud and clear.