garbage-in-garbage-out

On Sunday, Team Jindal’s Propaganda Unit sent out a press release bragging about an opinion piece (see here) that claims that Bobby Jindal has cut the state budget by 25% since 2008.

Normally, I don’t find fault with opinion pieces. They are just that — one’s opinion. However, in this case, the premise of the budget cutting claim is base on misleading information to conclude a 25% cut was made.

According to the piece, “In January 2008, the state had a budget of $34.3 billion.”

The facts as listed on the state’s website say otherwise.

The Fiscal Year 2008 state budget which Jindal inherited from the Kathleen Blanco Administration was base on the state receiving an estimated $19.8 Billion from the Federal government.

In fairness, when Blanco submitted the budget she only estimated $15.6 Billion in Fed funds. Apparently, the leges boosted the estimated Fed Funds during the 2007 Regular Session.

However, the state actually received only $12.9 Billion from the Feds during Fiscal Year 2008. That alone accounted for $6.9 Billion of the $9 Billion that Bobby claims he “cut” from the state budget over 4 years.

Even the $2.1 Billion difference in alleged “cuts” is suspect because it is not based on the final numbers for the current fiscal year. The actual size of the current budget will not be known until late 2013 or early 2014.

Now, my opinion, not spending money one doesn’t have isn’t the same as cutting one’s budget.

C.B.