For the sixth time in seven years of
his service, our governor has run out of money in the state budget to finish
the fiscal year. Since Jindal has almost nothing left to cut, his
architect of the state budget, Kristy Nichols, is now proposing getting the
shortfall from our state workers, health care services, infrastructure repair
and maintenance, tourism and departmental cuts.
However, all of these cuts may not be
necessary, for the solution to Jindal’s latest budget crisis came to me in a
dream. In my dream, the salaries of the governor, and Bobby’s
entire inner circle of administrators, which included the heads of the
Department of Revenue, the Division of Administration, the Department of Health
and Hospitals, the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of the
Economic Development, the Department of Justice, the Department of Insurance,
the Department of Education, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections,
and Jindal’s executive counsel were rolled back, Walmart style, to $39,510.
This is the state’s average earned salary according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ most recent update.
As far as our state legislators were
concerned, their rolled back salary was $100 a day, plus mileage, for each day
they showed up at the capital. That seemed reasonable since most basically
ignore the wishes of their constituents anyway and are primarily responsible
for creating this money shortage by their refusal to undo any of Jindal’s smoke
and mirrors budgets. They also have never held a special summer session to
override any of Jindal’s vetoes of their legislative bills.
My dream had a happy ending because
in addition to helping solve the state’s budget crisis the added bonus of these
salary rollbacks was providing a ‘reality check’ for all these individuals by
allowing them to financially identify with the people they served; something
that no longer exists at our state capital as exemplified by Jindal’s latest
out of touch response in a recent interview where he underestimated the yearly
cost to attend LSU by over $10,000.
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