forgotston.com

In a story in Saturday’s Baton Rouge paper ( see here) about the latest D.C. bailout for the states is found these statements from the Jindal Administration:

“We will not support any proposal to spend these dollars in a way that will make next year’s budget problem even worse.

“We know we face considerable challenges next year and we cannot afford to simply kick those tough decisions down the road,….”

Either the “Roads Scholar’s” fiscal policy is extremely flexible or the above comments represent a policy about-face.

“The Scholar” just spent over $2 BILLION in non-recurring (won’t be there next year), Federal bailout funds on recurring expenses for the current fiscal year ending.  That decision only serves one purpose; to kick those tough decisions down the road.

Does anyone pay attention to what “The Scholar” does versus what he says?

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

In February of this year, Bobby Jindal presented to the lege the State Operating Budget for the current fiscal year. The total was $24.2 BILLION. The budget contained NO additional CUTS to healthcare and higher education.

When the leges finished going over the State Budget, by June it had ballooned-up to $26.9 BILLION; plus it contained significant CUTS to healthcare and higher education.

In other words, the leges added $2.7 BILLION to the budget but reduced funding to Healthcare and Higher Education.

In addition to the additional cuts to Higher Education, the leges increased the tax on college students and their parents.

It gets worse.  The current budget contains $2.8 BILLION in non-recurring revenues; meaning the funds will not be there at this time next year.

To put the non-recurring figure into perspective, it will require doubling the state’s 4% Sales Tax (8% plus local taxes) to replace those revenues.   Or the leges could increase the State Sales Tax to 7% plus reimpose the Stelly Tax via the Personal Income Tax.

Finally, for the really bad news; the governor and leges all know the above, but they have no plan to address the fiscal crisis or its impact on our economy and there is nobody even working on a solution.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

Millions of gallons of oil are flowing into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan due to a leaking 30 inch pipeline.  ( See story here.)

In keeping with the cautious decision by the Feds decision to stop all deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, all pipelines of 30 inches or larger criss-crossing the U.S. should be closed temporarily until the appropriate Federal agencies have a chance to inspect every pipeline in America.

It might cause a little inconvenience for for the people in America who depend on natural gas for cooking, heating and electricity.   I’m sure that everyone can temporarily switch over to other forms of energy such as propane or coal.

Anyone put out of work temporarily can just draw Unemployment Compensation.

I doubt that the price of gasoline will get much above $10 per gallon temporarily while we depend on 18-wheel tank trucks to deliver gasoline from the refineries to the retailers around the country.   The price of gasoline could rise higher depending on how many supertankers it will take to bring the foreign oil to the refineries in America.

A pipeline moratorium is the least that our government can do.   Why should Louisiana be the only state protected from oil spills.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am