forgotston.com

New lege t-shirts

One of my long-time mentors once told me that even the worst of us can serve a useful purpose; we can always serve as a bad example.

The story in Saturday’s Baton Rouge paper ( read it here) reports that the leges have just given themselves an “auto-magic” pay raise of over $1,000.

House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, said the increase is a reflection of whats going on in the economy. ibid

Say what?

– The United States is in a recession the likes of which has not been seen since the 1930s.

– Louisiana personal income fell 0.2% in the second quarter.

– Louisiana Medicaid (poor people) rolls are increasing to record levels.

– Social Security recipients, for the first time since 1975, will not receive a cost-of-living increase because of static (or negative) growth in the Consumer Price Index.

Before the latest raise, leges, for a part-time job, already made more than the average family of four in Louisiana.

My mentor was right. The leges are actually serving a useful purpose; they are very bad examples.

Perhaps we will remember that at election time.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

Often I have noted that the only consistency of LA’s Rhodes Scholar-in-chief is in his inconsistency.  However, that inconsistency is limited to his rhetoric versus his action.

The Rhodes Scholar remains consistent with his political endorsements of candidates for elective office. Whether he endorses a Democrat over another Democrat, a Democrat over a Republican, a Republican over a Democrat or one Republican over another Republican, his candidate loses.

The Rhodes Scholar went all-out for Jimmy Faircloth in a special election to fill a vacant seat on the LA Supreme Court.  Faircloth was running in the heart of the The Rhodes Scholar’s political base where he spends most Sundays helicoptering in to attend church and weekdays handling out checks from President Obama to the “courthouse gang.”

On Saturday night, the final election returns showed that The Rhodes Scholar remains consistent.  The Rhodes Scholar’s candidate was soundly beaten (53% to 47%) by Judge Marcus Clark.

Political kiss of death

The leges continue their meek subservience to The Rhodes Scholar in order to receive his fiscal largesse and blessings.

For those of us who want reverse our state’s declining fortunes, our hope lies in The Rhodes Scholar favoring the subservient leges in the 2011 elections.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

We’ve been told that the state government finances were about to go off of a “cliff.”

Yesterday, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) blindly (without having all the figures) approved the State Department of Education’s $2 Billion operating budget for fiscal year 2010-11.   See story here.

This was not the budget for operating the k-12 public schools in Louisiana.  This budget was for the department’s overhead and the non-public schools.

The fact that all but two members voted in favor of the “fill-in-the-blanks” budget isn’t even the worst part of the episode.  Here is what the head of the department’s finance office said:

Beth Scioneaux … said Thursday the proposal was presented as a “continuation budget” requesting the same amount as last year, plus some additional funds.

Translation: The LA Department of Education either isn’t well-educated or doesn’t care about the impending fiscal crisis.

C.B.

1 CB 9:25 am