Louisiana's broke, but the real question is will LSU play football in 2016?

Jindal broke it worse when he took the state from a billion dollar surplus (admittedly fed by high gas prices and post Katrina aid) through six tax cuts right into the dumper. Nothing like having a governor who intends to run for President and wants to impress the Grover Norquist crowd to fuck up your state's finances. Now they are looking at a $900m shortfall for the fiscal year that is a couple of months from ending and $2b next year. There simply are not enough cuts you can make to cover that, not and have any state employees or services left.

 

The root cause of the problem, as it often seems to be in cases like this, is expecting certain "flexible" tax dollars like oil and gas taxes to remain trending upward forever. Then when a market comes back to earth, the tax income drops and you're screwed.
Louisiana's treasurer had the Republican response and knocked it out of the park. He pointed out hundreds of millions of dollars in waste, fraud and stupidity -- like a $1.1 million contract for a sculpture at a hospital and a $12 million marketing consultant contract for the office of economic development -- and that the state budget has increased $10 billion in the past decade. Now that the state government is facing a shortfall, instead of cutting back some of that $10 billion the governor wants to raise taxes to pay for it without cutting anything. It's as bad a solution as not raising taxes at all, because the only way to sustain this level of funding and services is to keep raising taxes.
It really showcases the difference these days between Republicans and Democrats on taxes and economics. Republicans don't want to pay for anything. Democrats want to pay for everything. Both are bad approaches, and we need to find a happy medium.

ICYMI: State Treasurer John Kennedy responds to Governor's address

 

Louisiana's budget is a fiscal mess: How did we get here?

 

Fraud and waste are nice dog whistles, but everyone knows it doesn't come close to bridging the gap.

 

The bottom line is that when you get into a fiscal mess like that the only way to dig out is to cut spending and increase taxes. There is a limit to how much you can cut, especially after you've done it for several years.

 

Speaking of bridging the gap, why don't you go find those five initiatives that the Republicans have done primarily for the middle class and poor ($80K and below) in the last 30 years?

 

And that's the root of the problem. Republicans don't want to increase taxes and Democrats don't want to cut spending. So we're stuck on a merry-go-round of irresponsibility.

 

It simply requires both, and compromise is an increasingly endangered species.

 

You're the one who challenged me. I accepted and responded. And now you cut and run away when you were challenged.

Also sounds like you have experience in making those calls. How many times have you called about your brother with the four kids by three women?

 

Hey, you're the one who keeps bringing up other posters' families. If you want to play, stay in the sandbox.

Now, once again ... five initiatives that the Republicans have done primarily for the middle class and poor ($80K and below) in the last 30 years. Go.

 

Given "the stakes," does anyone really think the NCAA would allow a school's inability to pay for classes to interfere with student-athletes ability to play? They would find some ruling that would allow the students to take on-line courses from some other school to satisfy their academic requirements. We've seen it at the high school level where "academies" farm the academic stuff out to other schools and focus on their efforts on getting their players athletic scholarships.