The main argument I hear in favor of a referendum is the amount of money potentially being spent. To begin with, this amount keeps being escalated by the plan's opponents. Let's just take the numbers. If LUS were to actually use all the money they are asking to have available, it would amount to approximately $1,000 for every man, woman and child in Lafayette Parish. Seems like a lot, but it's spread over a long period of time and will only be used in total if the plan is an enormous success.
If these activists were so intent on being watchdogs of our money, then why are they not screaming for a referendum on the state's budget? At $16 billion, that breaks down to more than $3,500 for every man, woman and child in the entire state. To make matters worse, that's just for one year, and supplemental requests are likely. If being guardians of our money is truly why they are in this, then I believe their time would be much better spent filing a lawsuit against the state Legislature.
Another argument I hear and read is that government should not compete with private enterprise. Being a business owner, I am not in favor of government doing much of anything except protect and defend. If these obstructionists are so interested in government staying out of private business, why aren't they filing a lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture and stop Bob Odom from building his pet sugar mills? Nearly everyone agrees we are better served having LUS in our community, and there is a long history of local governments doing certain types of infrastructure business in the interest of the people. That is exactly what LUS is doing now.
We voted precisely in the way that our founding fathers meant our representative democratic republic to work. We elect representatives to handle our government business. Let them do their jobs. If we don't like the job they do, we can always un-elect them next time around, or if we believe they really screwed up, we can always start a recall.
Terry, Joey, et al.: You go guys!
MAY 20 This post by blogger CB Forgotston draws parallels between Gov. Bobby Jindal and two individuals he probably doesn't want to be aligned with: President Obama and former governor Edwin Edwards. CB says Jindal's trying to jack up the debt ceiling (an Obama play, according to CB) and buy votes from GOP leges who normally wouldn't go for that (an Edwards play, CB says).
MAY 20 Here's a post in the Baptist Message from an alumnus of Louisiana College. The author, Larry Burgess, calls on the leadership of the private school to take care of some pressing problems. Physical plant issues are critical and unaddressed, some faculty make so little they need government health care, and there is an atmosphere that does not encourage honest discussion, he writes. It's time to get things back in order, he says.
MAY 20 This post in Gambit tells of a benefit concert scheduled to raise money for the 19 people shot during a Mother's Day second line on Frenchmen Street in NOLA. Among them was Gambit blogger Deb Cotton, who spoke frequently about violence in the city and reported on the city's second line culture. Gambit's foundation, along with other NOLA non-profits, also is selling t-shirts to raise money for the victims.
MAY 20 Blogger Robert Mann is critical of the personal interest some legislators take in their work here, sharing the comments one NOLA solon made in explaining his decision to vote against a bill that would require people to stop discriminating against female workers. His wife might lose some salary, so he was going to have to vote against the equal pay bill, Conrad Appel said. Appel and everyone who heard him should have been ashamed, but they weren't, and that's what is wrong in that building, Mann argues.
MAY 20 American Press columnist Jim Beam writes about the budget again here, urging kudos for the House and its efforts to try to fix the budget as opposed to passing on a flawed and messy rubber-stamped document as it usually does. The Senate already is poo-pooing the effort, but instead Senators should be trying to find a way to improve it as well, Beam argues. He also has some predictions in here from LABI and CABL.
MAY 20 Here's a link to the photo gallery from Tulane's graduation this past weekend. Dr. John and Allen Toussaint played together and received honorary degrees. The Dalai Lama was so entranced by their performance he got up from his seat and walked across the stage to stand next to them. He even participated in a second line with his own personal, saffron-colored umbrella. To the graduates, he urged them to think about creating a peaceful, hopeful life and society.
MAY 20 This Picayune story questions the rhetoric of NOLA officials who say the city, aside from having a "murder problem," is safe. The talking points generally are that the criminals are killing each other, but everything else is OK. The police chief there says that even Lafayette is more dangerous than NOLA. But crime experts interviewed here say that NOLA's numbers indicate one of two things: either people are so used to violence they don't report it, or somebody's "fudging the numbers."
MAY 20 The Advocate's Mark Ballard writes about some of the background maneuvering that took place during the development of budget alternatives in the Legislature. From Rep. Joel Robideaux being called a "tax and spend liberal" to robo-call influence, Ballard lets us in on some of the work that happens behind the scenes but usually doesn't make it into the Advocate's daily coverage of the session.
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