forgotston.com

In today’s Baton Rouge paper ( here) is a story about a very damning report on our state’s economy.

The study shows that Louisiana continues to hemorrhage (out-migration of) our “best and brightest” to other states. Even worse we are replacing them with uneducated or under-educated young people.

Talk about your trade deficit. LA is exporting its “best and brightest” while importing the other states’ (and other countries) uneducated and under-educated.

”Any economist or demographer would tell you that migration is a function of the economy and that it’s based on people having a better opportunity somewhere than they currently have….” LSU Professor Troy Blanchard

Tell the truth

Where’s our Rhodes Scholar-in-chief’s “gold standard” for economic development? He has none. He’s flying around the state telling everyone the importance of jobs.

What Bobby is not telling the people is if one wants a good-paying job they should get their degree out-of-state so that they will already be located where they will be able to find a job suitable for their educational attainment. He should tell the public that if you want to work in Louisiana don’t even bother with getting a high school diploma, just get a new “career diploma.”

Fixing the problems requires more than rhetoric and a degree from Oxford, it requires hard work. Where’s the plan?

C.B.

1 CB 8:54 am

New uniform cap of LA Governor’s Office

Wednesday, our Rhodes Scholar governor wrote letters (see here and here) to the two commissions he formed to streamline state government, in general, and higher education, in particular, assigning THEM a goal of finding a combined $1 Billion in budget cuts.  Meanwhile Bobby continues touring the state exacerbating the budget problems by giving away money, literally, with both hands.

Article IV, Section 5, Paragraph D states: “The governor shall submit to the legislature an operating budget … as provided by Article VII, Section 11 of this constitution.”

Article VII, Section 11, Paragraph B, in part, states: “The governor shall cause to be submitted a general appropriation bill for proposed ordinary operating expenditures which shall be in conformity with the recommendations for appropriations contained in the budget estimate.”

I’m no Rhodes Scholar, but as I read the constitution, it is the governor’s job to submit a balanced budget in line with revenues, i.e. a “balanced budget.”

No alternative

If Bobby can’t reduce the budget to fit the revenues then another part of Article VII, Section B our constitution states: “The governor may cause to be submitted a bill or bills to raise additional revenues with proposals for the use of these revenues.”

That means Bobby can propose new or higher taxes to fund items which he doesn’t want to cut.  However, in the next Regular Session, raising taxes is prohibited.

Therefore, Bobby has no alternative except to cut the budget by $1 Billion which he says is necessary to have a balanced budget for 2010-11 Fiscal Year.

Cumbersome process

Why is Bobby passing the buck? It’s his job that he’s asking others to do for him.

The process is simple. Bobby should simply submit a budget to the lege that is $1 Billion less than the current one per his constitutionally-mandated job.  He has a huge capable staff whose sole job is to develop the state budget.  They buried the bodies who best know where to dig them up?

Instead Bobby created a cumbersome process for finding places to reduce the budget: 1) The subcommittees of these commissions must submit recommendations to full commissions which 2) submit their recommendations to the lege committees which 3) submit their recommendations to the lege, which 4)submit their recommendations to the governor.  This is just the opposite of what the constitution mandates Bobby to do.

If Bobby can’t do the job, he should resign and let Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu take a crack at doing the job. Perhaps as a Democrat Mitch may understand Harry Truman’s acceptance of the responsibility that THE BUCK STOPS ON HIS DESK.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

It appears that our Rhodes Scholar-in-chief has solved a problem that didn’t exist.

Yesterday afternoon late the Governor’s Office of Propaganda issued a press release saying that Bobby had issued an Executive Order to terminate state funding and contracts with ACORN.

According to the media reports from the Capitol, since Bobby has been governor the state has neither funded or contracted with ACORN.

Instead of addressing the real problems in our state, Bobby continues to grandstand for his national political ambitions.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am