Is Closing Mental Health Facility Immediately Necessary?

St. Tammany Parish residents, and the parish president , in particular, must feel like they’ve been played like fools when learning that the Jindal administration just circumvented legislative procedures to hire the new state revenue secretary, Tim Barfield, at more than double the salary of the previous person in that position.

Apparently Jindal's emergency proclamation of a job freeze by not filling vacancies to balance the budget doesn’t apply to his staff.   He would instead rather close hospitals.

Southeast Louisiana Hospital, in Mandeville, needs $555,000 to remain open until the end of the year, and team Jindal just came up with $250,000 to hire a new revenue secretary for the Revenue Department, which is running just fine with its present interim director.  To circumvent legislative approval of the higher salary, Jindal's boys added the title of executive council to the original job and floated it as a new position.  Again in violation of the administration's own departmental job freeze policy, no new positions.  At least that's what they released as policy through the media to the public.

To make matters worse, Rainwater, Commissioner of Administration, and the  governor’s chief budget advisor,  responding to questions about where the funds would come from to pay the salary said the state EASILY (my caps) can find the EXTRA (my caps) dollars to pay Barfield. He further brushed off the criticism of the inflated salary by stating, “That’s one tenth of one percent of the (revenue) department’s budget.”

Gee, if he would just add another one tenth of one percent of that budget, the folks in St Tammany could have their hospital remain open until the year's end which would give them more time for a possible alternative solution and allow for a smoother transition for the current patients.  Jindal plans to close it October 1st.

Apparently Jindal’s folks will resort to legislative trickery to find the money for themselves and not one dime for the mentally ill in the state.

Does everyone see something wrong with this picture?

One Mo Time

Trust me, I don't want to turn this blog into a full time Jindal bashing.  I'm really trying to concentrate on other issues, but Jindal just keeps astounding me with his off the cuff remarks. So forgive me one more time; I promise I'll try to do better!

Perhaps, our governor needs to check himself into one of the mental health facilities before it closes.  The state is facing a $860 million dollar shortfall in health care funding for the uninsured, over the past four years has reduced financing to colleges and universities by more than 26% of their state funded budgets, has had to use one time monies to balance the state budget this fiscal year, and most legislators, even Jindal's political puppets, claim they don’t know how they will produce a balanced budget next year.

Yet Bobby, in introducing his new revenue leader, Tim Barfield,  stated the following:  “Our top priority next legislative session is to reform Louisiana’s tax system so that we can make our tax code fairer, flatter, and LOWER (my caps) for Louisiana families and business”

At first I thought our governor was completely delusional, lower taxes when the state is near bankruptcy?  But then I realized that all Governor Jindal does is pull out one of his ‘pat’ statements that he always makes without even listening to what he is saying and not even realizing that it isn’t even applicable to the present situation.

He wants everyone in the rest of the country to know he is the ‘no tax guy’ and will use every opportunity to foster his own imagine at the expense of everyone involved in the realities of the situation.

He’s like one of those doll’s my daughter had when she was a child.  You know, the one with the string out the back and you pulled it and the doll said about five or six different things over and over and over again.  

I cannot believe how selfish and self-centered Jindal is when it comes to shepherding the people of this state. 

He simply does not care about the suffering he has caused and will continue to cause for all he was elected to serve. 

Bobby As V.P., In Your Dreams !

The wait is over and Mitt has named his V.P. candidate and much, to only Louisianans’ surprise, Bobby Jindal wasn’t chosen.  The sad part is no one outside of Louisiana ever thought he would be.

In fact, most respected nationally syndicated media outlets repeatedly wrote articles about why he wouldn’t be chosen.  But true to form, Louisiana's media refused to acknowledge the facts and continued to perpetuate the in-state myth.  The truth of the matter being,  HE WAS ONLY CONSIDERED IN A FLEETING MOMENT, BUT NEVER IN A SERIOUS ONE!

However, the delusions about old “Bobby” seem to die hard in Louisiana.

A perfect example of this persistent delirious condition is a recent statement  by former Louisiana’s 4th District U.S. Representative Jim McCrey  when responding to a question about Jindal not being  chosen as V.P. after campaigning hard for Romney.  McCrey responded,   “Now Bobby’s political prospects will be judged solely by his resume of public service, especially his job as Governor of Louisiana.  He has a very bright future in public service if he continues to desire that path in his professional life.”

Let’s see that resume includes:  Cutting colleges' and universities' allocations over $420 million so far during his governorship, gutting financing to public education in grades K-12 by initiating a non-accountable school voucher system, repeated failures to obtain educational grants from  the Feds (losing over $80 million in PreK grants alone), the closing of hospitals, emergency room services, and operating rooms to offset $860 million dollars in cuts to health care for the more than 750,000 uninsured in LA while at the same time refusing additional Medicaid funds being offered to states by the Federal government beginning in 2014, the dismantling of the Office of Group Benefits self-administered PPO Health Insurance Plan for  state teacher retirees which was one of the most successfully run in the nation,  the plan to hire a third party management company for prescription drug allocations for Medicaid patients that will lead to the demise  of small independent pharmacies and the exclusion of certain previously paid for prescription drugs for the sick and elderly, the refusal of Federal funds that would have provided a high speed rail system between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the squandering of $80 million dollars in broadband funds for northern Louisiana, the continuation of business tax credits which are contributing to tremendous deficits within the state budget, and the refusal to conduct a transparent executive branch of government.  The list goes on and on!

In fact, as of 2010, just two years into Bobby's first term as governor, it  was estimated that Governor Jindal had already refused or lost more than $600 million dollars in federal funds for the citizens of Louisiana, and that figure continues to rise even further during his continuing years of reign.

Obviously, I don't get it.  How can anyone from either political party talk about the 'good' Bobby Jindal has done for the people of our state?  In fact, I worry that if he keeps going he will jeopardize all of our present  state retirement systems by forcing the state into bankruptcy.

But,  McCrey and other Louisiana  political experts  are probably correct about one aspect of Bobby’s political future.  If Mitt Romney is elected  he certainly  will  give Bobby a cabinet position.  Most likely it will be a newly created one tailored solely to Jindal’s legacy, the  head of the National Department of Sanitation, whose main focus will be directed towards cleaning up the massive pile of fiscal garbage the Jindal administration has left in Louisiana.