Jay Dardenne, Governor Edwards Commissioner of Administration reported he is confident the state will report a balanced budget with surplus when the final budget numbers come in for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022. Last fiscal year's surplus was $699 million according to Dardenne. Governor Edwards plans and policies brought fiscal sanity to Louisiana's fiscal house after 8 years of unbalanced budgets by former Governor Jindal and the republican controlled state legislature.
And the Governor's administration accomplished fiscal sanity in a balanced way with state revenue increases, federal money, priority spending and budget cuts and adopting the ACA under the medicaid expansion for health insurance. The fiscal turnaround was possible because democrats govern with plans and policy that address the real issues while the GOP govern by ideology, a personal code unrelated to the issues at hand. The fiscal sanity was accomplished even though the Governor took office in 2016 with a projected $2.6 billion state deficit. Governor Edwards plans and policies for fiscal sanity put an end to Jindal's massive budget cuts to education, health care and other needed services that took the brunt of Jindal's and the GOP controlled state legislature's cuts each year.
Now that the state has balanced budgets and surpluses, some in the legislature are clamoring to eliminate Louisiana's state income tax that brings in approximately $5 billion annually in tax revenue, but they have no proposed plan to offset that lost revenue. Dardenne warned, "we should not create a situation where the next governor or a new legislature has to immediately fix a problem we created." Governor Edwards leaves office in January 2024.
Former Governor Jindal and the GOP controlled state legislature inherited a $787 million surplus from democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco and they blew it bid time with their fiscal disaster and governing by ideology. Governor Edwards administration reversed all of that. It is a mirror image of what the Trump administration left President Biden when he took office in January 2021. That tragic gift to Biden was a $2.77 trillion federal deficit. And one can bet when the Biden administration's first fiscal year ends on 9/30/22 the budget deficit will be much less than Trump's record deficit.
There is more good news that the Louisiana Workforce Commission announced. The Louisiana unemployment rate for August was 3.8%. The unemployment rate when Jindal left off ice was 6.2%, so as of August 2022 the unemployment rate has fallen 2.4% on Edwards watch. The unemployment rate when Jindal took office in January of 2008 was 3.8% so unemployment increased 2.4% on Jindal's watch.
The fiscal sanity that has taken place on Governor Edwards watch is a mirror image that has taken place on the democratic watch nationally for the past 42 plus years. And Politidose commentary was there calling the shots before they ever took place because of the past record of precedent. So, forget the noise of the media in general and stay tuned to Politidose, your daily dose of political commentary.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
