How Bobby Jindal Broke the Louisiana Economy
BY STEPHANIE GRACE
These are not happy times in Baton Rouge, where government officials are desperately trying to plug a $1.6 billion budget shortfall. But even by that standard, Wednesday, April 22, was particularly fraught.
In the imposing state capitol that Huey Long built, the Senate Finance Committee was wrestling with a complicated cost-cutting scheme to repeal an inventory tax that businesses pay to local governments and that the state rebates to the businesses, all while promising to somehow make stressed-out local leaders whole.
Just down the road, Louisiana State University President and Chancellor F. King Alexander said that the state’s flagship university, which could lose 80 percent of state funding after years of already deep cuts, was developing a worst-case scenario plan for financial exigency—basically, the academic equivalent of bankruptcy.
n the midst of it all came a message from Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, whose policies and priorities have contributed mightily to the state’s fiscal mess.
“Help wish my friends Willie, Phil and Si a happy birthday,” said the tweet, which was accompanied by a photo of Willie Robertson, whose family is featured on the popular homegrown reality TV show Duck Dynasty. It then directed readers to the website for the American Future Project, a 527 advocacy group that Jindal has set up in advance of his anticipated presidential run.
If the tweet suggests a stunning disconnect from the dire budget situation that’s unfolding on his watch, well, that’s how it is these days.
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