Louisiana Governor Edwards met with House and Senate members this week and offered his much awaited budget proposal for the state's fiscal year beginning July 1. The proposal included cuts to the TOPS educational program, hospitals, prisons, public schools and other areas. It is a budget of reality that will allow the legislature and the public for once address the seriousness of the state's fiscal problems.
The governor nor the legislature wants to see those cuts take place especially the TOPS program which is pegged at a reduction of 66%/ Edwards knows this is serious business and one time money and temporary funding that won't be there in the future will not be used like in past budgets.
The House and Senate will have to bite the bullet and do the job they failed to do in the special session. The truth and facts now have to be faced with answers that truly put the state's fiscal house in order. Anything less is a failure. The current budget that ends June 30 is still $30-70 million out of balance. The budget year that begins July 1 is $750 million out of balance. Reruns of Jindal's budgets can not be tolerated.
The $8 billion of loss revenue because of tax breaks, tax credits and other goodies to business need to be closed. If TOPS, hospitals and needed services have to take a hit, so should the $8 billion. Its called fairness.The TOPS program started out costing $50 million a year and is now well over $200 million a year. If TOPS is important then the legislature has to find the financial resources to fund it with out the gimmicks or scale it back until a source of funding is found to keep the program running.
The republican controlled legislature has to correct its past budget failures and work with governor Edwards to solve the problems. Reality is what it is. Now is the time to deal with it. The fairy tale has finally been exposed and the status quo is not acceptable.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
