forgotston.com

Louisiana’s tax revenues are in decline forcing massive cuts to state government.

Rising unemployment in LA is exacerbating the problems of declining revenues and greater demand for government services.

LA has a state agency that is supposed to be focused on retaining existing jobs and businesses.  Apparently, the rest of state government hasn’t gotten the message about the need to support existing businesses in Louisiana.

Previously, we learned that there are no businesses in Louisiana qualified to assist the state colleges and universities in finding individuals to run them and the boards that govern them. Our tax dollars for “headhunter” firms go to other states while the Higher Education community bemoans its lack of funding.

Need a ticket?

It now appears that there are no travel agencies in Louisiana qualified to purchase commercial airline and ground transportation for our state employees.

According to the information posted by the Office of State Purchasing and Travel ( here): “State employee must purchase airfare through state contracted travel agency.”

The state lists only two “contracted” travel agencies. (See here.)

One of the contracted agencies is based in Waterloo, IA and has offices in Overland Park, KS and Topeka, KS. The other agency is in Chicago, IL.

It makes one question the sincerity efforts of the Jindal Administration to save existing Louisiana businesses while supporting their competitors in other states.

It is time for our state officials to quit focusing on extracting more dollars from our citizens and look at how and where it is spending the dollars it already has.  We need to be convinced that they are spending OUR money as if it was their own.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

My friend

You can imagine my surprise when I saw the name and subject in my email in-box on Friday.

It was from “Bobby Jindal.”  The subject line was: “Need Your Help.”

Yes, Bobby Jindal was asking for my help.

It wasn’t surprising that he needed my help, only that it took so long for him to ask.  Obviously, I thought, he wanted my help addressing the state’s impending “fiscal cliff.”

Then, I opened the email to read it.  Instead of using my nickname “CB” in the greeting he called me “Friends.”

Interestingly, while grammatically incorrect as the email was only addressed to me, Bobby stills considers me a friend.

Desperate times

Given all my constructive criticism of Bobby, a lesser man might not have addressed me in such a familiar way.  But then our state is about to go over a huge “fiscal cliff” and Bobby is obviously desperate to prevent that from happening.

Bobby has sort of backed himself into a corner by ignoring and attempting to discredit the solutions offered by our other prominent Oxford graduate, State Treasurer John Kennedy.

Of course, I thought to myself, I’ll help Bobby save our state.

Lesson learned

Knowing Bobby’s national ambitions, fragile ego and because this was a personal request from a friend, I decided my assistance would remain very much behind-the-scenes. I’d let Bobby have all the credit for my solutions.   Saving our state is too important to let his ego get in the way like it had with Kennedy.

I read further into the email.

It turns out that Bobby wasn’t the least interested in solving our state’s myriad of problems.

Disappointment

You can imagine how disappointed I was.  Despite our friendship, Bobby hadn’t told me who he supported in the Louisiana elections on Tuesday.

He wanted me to give money to help some candidates supported by a group called the “Republican Party of Louisiana.”

I know which candidates Bobby wanted me to give money to in Iowa, Florida, Texas, California, Wisconsin, and other states, but not in Louisiana.

I simply couldn’t take a chance that my money would go to help a candidate who my friend Bobby was not supporting like Republicans David Vitter, Jay Dardenne, Rodney Alexander, Joseph Cao, Steve Scalise, Bill Cassidy, Jeff Landry or John Fleming.

Unfortunately, instead of being in a position to help my friend Bobby, I must decline.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am