Who and what is to be blamed for the State of Louisiana's needing a third-special session just this year to attempt to fashion a operating document that funds government, provides necessary services yet provides room for businesses to grow? What is the state doing that other states are not doing that has resulted in ongoing budgetary crises, year after year after year? Are the legislature and Governor John Bel Edwards, being successful in their tackling the real issue, that is, the actual structure in which we raise revenues and appropriate spending, or, are we simply putting out raging fires, every spring?
As we have come to expect from the left, caricature and oversimplification make for lots of red meat thrown to the unthinking masses, but it’s a lousy method for valid understanding of public policy ramifications.
Just such as example comes from a leftist opinion writer named David Leonhardt on the pages of the New York Times. In a recent piece, he attempted to use Louisiana’s income tax cutting during the former Gov. Bobby Jindal years as an indictment against that option, alleging that promises that “tax cuts would lead to an economic boom” didn’t pan out and produced the state’s budgetary difficulty.
Ready or not, the Louisiana spring special session is coming to a Capitol near you.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards will call another special session for the Louisiana legislature, something he said he was not going to do unless there was an agreement between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has penned an oped published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that took a not-to-subtle swipe at Republican President Donald Trump, the Republican Party and of course, the Democrats and President Barack Obama. The column was somewhat reminiscent to Jindal's "stupid party" statement he made post-Mitt Romney presidential loss.
Hold on to your hernia belts, a potential court decision either could make Louisiana state budgeting more intractable or become a catalyst for badly needed change.
Grab your popcorn and coke. The Senator John Kennedy vs. Governor John Bel Edwards fight is soon to begin as speculation mounts whether the freshman US Senator is running for the Governor’s spot, come 2019.
The latest spat involves the former State Police head, Superintendent Mike Edmonson. Kennedy, who had been State Treasurer and the Secretary of Revenues before that, believes that Edmonson should pay back taxes on certain income on services and accommodations provided to him over the past years as he headed the State Police.
Is Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, taking on Trump like he did Governors Blanco, Jindal?
It appears that Louisiana Senator John Kennedy is beginning to show the type of independence that made him popular when he was State Treasurer. Despite substantial bombarding of ads over the airwaves urging voters to support President Donald Trump’s judicial nominee, Kyle Duncan, he opted not to do so. But, it might be some of the questions he asked that gives rise to his current departure of voting along party lines, particularly, supporting President Trump.