forgotston.com

In a story in Wednesday’s Daily Monopoly Senate Prez “Doc” Hines and House Speaker Joe Salter offered the following reasons NOT to have veto session in order to give the citizens of LA a tax break:

[M]any lawmakers will be out of town attending the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, to be held this year in Boston Aug. 5-9, roughly the same week as the veto session.

Both said that significant numbers of legislative employees are also going to the Boston conference because the meeting will be held in New Orleans next summer and they will be looking at getting pointers for next year’s meeting.

Then Salter says:

“A lot of legislators are running for office (in the fall elections) . . . and want to be out campaigning….”

Unacceptable excuses

Such lame excuses are not only outrageous, but insulting to the hard-working people of Louisiana.

–They knew that a Veto Session was possible when they signed up for the conference.

–The veto session will not BEGIN until August 7. So the leges and staff may miss a few sight-seeing tours and elaborate dinners and parties if they flew back a day or so early. So what.

–All of these folks going on the junket to Boston are being paid while in Boston sight-seeing and enjoying themselves.

–Any lege out campaigning is still drawing their salary from the taxpayers.

–All of these folks are OUR employees.

–We need tax relief more than our employees need a taxpayer-funded vacation in Boston or need to be out campaigning.

Enough!

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of be slapped in the face by our employees. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Any lege who votes against having a veto session, if running for reelection or any other office, should be summarily defeated in October.

LET YOUR LEGES KNOW YOU WANT A TAX BREAK AND YOU WANT IT NOW!

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am

Earlier this year Governor Blanco assured us that all of the Road Home grants would be awarded by the end of this year.

The facts

As of last week (most current information available on-line) ICF, the contractor for Governor Blanco’s Road Home Program, has closed on 36,665 awards to homeowners.

The program has been officially operating now for almost 10 months. ICF is averaging 3,666 awards per month.

ICF has given out $2.26 BILLION. Congress has already appropriated a minimum $6 BILLION for the program.

Where’s the accountability?

We have been told that the program is run out of money and that is President Bush’s fault. That doesn’t explain why it is taking so long to give out the balance of the $6 BILLION plus.

The current number of applications total 158,489. At the current closure rate, it will take another 33 months to complete
the awards. At that time neither Governor Blanco nor President Bush will even be in office.

The lege adjourned the 2007 Session without addressing the failures of the Road Home Program. The same contractor is still in harge. This October all of the lege seats and the governor’s office are up for election. None of the wannabes have offered a solution to fix the obviously broken Road Home Program.

Where’s the beef?

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am

In a story in Sunday’s Daily Monopoly, the Recovery Czar of New Orleans, Dr. Ed Blakely made what I thought was a ridiculous suggestion for economic development in New Orleans.

Blakely said:

[Blakely] also talked about his idea to establish fish farms in New Orleans, possibly in the eastern part of the city, to raise barramundi, a white fish that is native to Australia.

Blakely, who has seen such fish farms in Australia, said they could offer economic and environmental benefits to the city. “These would be great things to have in New Orleans,” he said.

After a good night’s sleep, I finally see the wisdom of Dr. Blakely’s suggestion. Blakely has promised that “cranes will be in the air” in New Orleans by September. Clearly, fish farms will attract many Cranes.

C.B.

Uncategorized CB 8:00 am