The governor will announce his proposed budget at a 9 a.m. meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget. The fiscal year starts July 1.
The Advocate spoke with committee members Wednesday who said they have no idea how the governor will propose tackling the problem.
“I am looking forward to seeing it. I think it’s anybody’s guess. I think the only rational thing we can do is, you’re going to have to make the cuts,” said state Rep. Eddie Lambert, R-Prairieville and vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
State Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro and chairman of the legislative budget committee, said he expects to be briefed on the governor’s proposal Thursday night. “They’ve been pretty quiet so far,” Fannin said. “I hope he keeps the one-time money equal or less than (what) the growth in revenue is expected to be next year.”
Read more of The Advocate story here.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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Privatization of government services in the healthcare and penal systems will further sicken and criminalize respectively our citizenry. The financial crimes of the Bush Administration had brought us the Great Recession; now the Republican governors of the nation will bring us the Great Depression. Once you destroy state government jobs [city, region & state], you reduce further consumership, which reduces further the need for labor, which further reduces taxes paid into the system.
What is the purpose of all this damn nonsense on the part of the ignorant Republicans: it is the create a new Republican aristocracy supported on the backs of the working people! Once you destroy your vital middle class, it requires 50 to a 100 years to bring it back! Read world history. We are not the first society to destroy ourselves by overt financialization of our social-economic-political culture. [Read several books by Neil Fergusson of Jesus College, Oxford University & Harvard University; also read Professor David S. Landes, "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" (1998)]
What is the solution? There is none. Our society will grow anger, fear & pain (the raw ingredients of violence) in the consciousness of the majority of our citizens. This will lead to early and untimely death for millions of our citizens (about 30 million of them). These deaths will not be noteworthy, since it will be our poor, insane, and sick who die!
Lastly, it should be obvious what Governor Jindal will cut: He will decimate our educational and our health systems. The very two systems requird to bring one out of a Great Depression to stop the economic "vicious cycle."
Under the rubric of "fiscal prudence" more than ten thousand crimes will be committed against the majesty of the people of Louisiana by the small, narrow band of radical Republicans who are the paid whores of powerful corporate interests in our Energy, Insurance & Banking sectors. The peoiple will be crushed---they do not even stand a chance against this onslough of meretricious vulgar greed of 0.04% of our society!