forgotston.com

We now know that Bobby Jindal has hired over 4,000 new state employees in his first year in office. (See commentary Monday below.)

Publicly, Bobby claims to have reduced the number of state employees. For those who don’t understand government speak, Bobby is either ignorant of what is happening in his administration or he is purposely obfuscating the truth — translation: lying.

What we don’t know is the cost to us taxpayers of Bobby having increased the number of state employees by 4.2%.

Based on recent figures from the LA Department of Civil Service, I’ve calculated the average cost to the taxpayers (salary and benefits) for each state employee is, conservatively, $62,000.

Therefore, 4,000 new employees were added at a cost of almost $250 MILLION.

Of that amount, at least $87 MILLION has been added to the cost of operating state government since the state announced it was facing a deficit and would have to cut higher education and health care.

Bobby’s plan for our state appears to be to spend us into prosperity.

C.B.

1 CB 6:34 am

In case anyone besides LA’s ethically-challenged Secretary of Economic Development Stephen Moret doesn’t know that the auto manufacturing industry in America (and worldwide) is in the ditch indefinitely, they need only look at what is happening in our sister state of Mississippi.

There’s an interesting column about Mississippi’s auto plant efforts in Sunday’s Washington Times. See here.

Toyota has put off, indefinitely, the construction of its new and unfinished plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi.

According to the column, the taxpayers of Mississippi may be left holding an empty bag for which they paid $235 Million.  Even worse, the property taxes of existing businesses may rise as a result of the unfinished plant’s tax incentives failing to produce any return on investment.

Louisiana’s folly

It seems that some in LA are inflicted with a disease known as “hard-of -learning.”  It causes a person’s mind to become like a steel traps. Once a thought is captured, no further facts can get into the brain.

For example, Moret just spent over $600,000 of our hard-earned tax dollars to hire a firm from Chicago (Economic development for the ethically-challenged Governor Blagojevich) to tell him how to attract an auto manufacturing plant to LA.

Funny thing, but as one of the highest paid economic developers in the U.S. I would have thought he already knew how. But, I digress.

Additional evidence: has Moret not heard about the national recession/depression that is causing havoc in the auto industry? Perhaps not.

Surely, Moret must have heard that his boss man, Bobby Jindal, believes the state of Louisiana will have a $2 Billion budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year.

Nevertheless, Moret continues to hoard, with the backing of the Jindal Administration and the Jindal lapdogs in the lege, over $400 Million in a slush fund to — get this — attract an unnamed, unknown and highly suspect auto manufacturing plant to Louisiana!

I would like to say that the auto plant folly is further proof that our “best and brightest” have left the state. However, Moret received his MBA at Harvard and he’s still here.

Please “splain”

Bobby and his lege flacks are telling old people, poor people and children that they might not get needed medical care in the upcoming year due to budget cuts while Moret hoards money for an unknown auto plant.

The same folks are telling the hard-working taxpayers of LA that their children (read that, them) are going have to, without warning, reach deeper into their shallow pockets to pay higher taxes (disguised as tuition) to educate their children.

Perhaps their leges can explain that to them, it’s way beyond my LA Public School education.

C.B.

1 CB 7:17 am

Despite a “hiring freeze” for the first 10 months of Bobby Jindal’s term as governor, as of December 1, 2008, the number of state employees (not positions, but bodies) INCREASED by 2,778. Source: LA Department of Civil Service.

On December 1, 2008, Bobby instituted another “hiring freeze.”

In an article (see here) in Sunday’s Baton Rouge we learned that the current number of state employees is 103,775.

In less than 2 months of the latest “hiring freeze” the number of state employees has INCREASED by 1,424.

Thus, in one year and two “hiring freezes” the total number of state employees has INCREASED by 4,202 or 4.2%.

We don’t have a “freeze.”   What we have is a “snow job.”

C.B.

1 CB 7:34 am