It's time to cut Jindal's full-time pay

At the state capital the legislative session has concluded for the year.  However, our esteemed legislators needed to pass one more piece of legislation, a bill making it illegal to work less than full time as the governor of this state.  If a governor can’t show that he/she devoted a minimum of 40 hours per week doing the business of the state, he/she must resign the position.  Bobby Jindal already misses that mark, but his official declaration of running for his party’s presidential nod clearly leaves no doubt that he will not be a full-time state worker.  The Louisiana Constitution states that all public officials shall take and subscribe to the Oath of Office required by the Louisiana Constitution, Article X, Section 30, before acting in their respective offices.  The Louisiana Oath of Office states, “I…… do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution and the laws of this state and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties incumbent as governor according to the best of my ability and understanding, so help me God.”

Consequently, the passage of my proposed legislation would easily allow the citizens of this state to file a class action suit against any governor failing to adhere to the Oath of Office.

According to various media reports, in 2013 Jindal spent 74 days out of the state.  In 2014 that figure ballooned to 165 days or 45 percent of the time out of the state.  Records that are available show that Jindal’s jaunts included giving out-of-state talks on praising the reality television show “Duck Dynasty”; raising money and campaigning for more than a dozen GOP candidates; speaking at conferences sponsored by the Koch brothers and several other political events; attending fund raisers across the country; promoting America Next, the group he formed to comment on national policies; visiting casino magnate and GOP funder Sheldon Adelson; and even attending an event for Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, in suburban Detroit.  The list goes on and on, but clearly there is enough evidence to support Jindal’s failure to work as a full-time governor.

Incidentally, Jindal not only feels that he still has the right to draw a governor’s full salary, but also that the state should incur costs for these trips, providing security on the taxpayers’ dime; the total figure well-hidden from public record.

 

How many Louisiana residents are afforded the luxury of getting paid full time by an employer and showing up only 50 percent of the time?  And Jindal sees nothing morally or ethically wrong with this behavior, a fine trait for a man running for a presidential nod.  Jindal claims he’s going to “rock the boat” if elected president.  He’s done more than that in Louisiana.  He rocked it so much that it sank!

The real term limit solution

While the leaders of our colleges and universities in the state have all agreed to forgive and forget all the damage our esteemed legislators have done to their learning institutions over the past seven years, it must be remembered that the repercussions of these past actions will haunt the education system in this state for generations to come.   Our legislators voted to cut educational funding by over 53% during their tenure in the legislature with Jindal.  This money will NEVER be restored because we are operating in a fiscally broke state thanks to our legislators’ allegiance to the governor.  Even the money sources our legislators are bragging about that they created to “save higher ed from funding cuts this next fiscal year” will almost completely evaporate after next year because the major source of this funding, from the business community in this state, is set to expire in 2016.

It is quite apparent that all this concern for higher ed , that suddenly was elevated to crisis status by our legislators, was simply a ploy to get re-elected.  If they were genuinely concerned about the fiscal stability of higher ed and the state as a whole, our legislators would have fixed the fiscal problems rather than “kicking the can down the road’ once more by already saddling the year after next year’s fiscal budget with a $1 billion deficit.

We have legislators in the Baton Rouge Capital that range from one year to over 43 years of service.  Many have played the term limit system by getting voters to continually allow them to do damage to our state.  Term limit laws are chamber specific and don’t really reflect the intent of the voters.   When term limit in one chamber is reached, legislators simple run for election to the other chamber.  When term limit is up in that chamber, they run again for the previous chamber.  And the voters don’t care enough to stop this.

There is really only one sure fire term limit method, and that lies with the voter.  Most legislators are up for re-election in five months.  Please ask each of your representatives a single question, “Did you vote in each of the past seven years in favor of Jindal’s smoke and mirrors budgets packed with one time monies?"  If the answer is “yes”, vote for the other candidate.

Don’t be fooled by the hypocrisy of your legislator, most got us into this mess and you, as a voter, can put an end to this by voting these men and women out of office.  It’s time to end the shenanigans.

Warning to higher ed - Don’t’ count your chickens before they hatch

Thursday, Senate President, John Alario and his Senate minions were able to once again strong arm the House members into accepting the new state fiscal budget the way Jindal wanted it. I guess ALL the state college and university leaders are celebrating because their groveling paid off resulting in no additional funding cuts. 

However, before they put on their party hats they best look at the new budget and note all the “phantom money” it is packed with.  “Phantom money” is funding that one hopes will materialize based upon fiscal projections-sale tax revenues, sale of state owned property, tax amnesty programs, oil and gas severance tax revenues, etc. 

If past history is any indication, these funds will fall short once again as they have in all but one of the previous SEVEN budgets passed by our legislators.  Basically, with Bobby Jindal’s approval, his staff has repeatedly intentionally overestimated these revenue sources in order to produce a balanced budget, on paper, as required by law.

It doesn’t require higher education to realize that the present budget will most likely, once again, run short of funds mid-year resulting in cuts to higher ed and health care to stem the shortage.  Let’s remember that the present year’s budget was short over $400 million, necessitating two state-wide cuts during the year. 

However, the good news for our legislators is that this short fall will occur AFTER elections have taken place and they are ALL fully aware of this fact.  Therefore, they can all brag during their reelection campaigns that they protected higher ed from further funding cuts in the latest state budget, ignoring the fact that during their previous seven years of service they voted to cut higher ed over $800 million coupled with draconian cuts to health care services.

And sadly, the voters of this state will fall for this P.R. and re-elect them, as they have done repeatedly with legislators like Senate President,  Alario who has served at the Capital for 43 years.

Most of our 144 legislators are up for reelection in six months.  I urge all voters to become informed and look at the voting record of your representative at the state capital.  You just might be shocked!

Legislators have not earned gushing thanks

The groveling behavior of our state’s college and university presidents and chancellors, thanking our legislators for not cutting their funding in next year’s state budget, was indeed quite pitiful.  With the exception of the chancellor of LSU, all resembled a homeless person who was suddenly given some loose change to buy a meal by the very individual responsible for his present condition.

These legislators, that our illustrious educational leaders saw fit to shower with gleeful thank yous, voted repeatedly over the past 7 years to cut higher education funding over $800 million to a level not seen in this state since the 1950’s.  In fact, under the guidance of these same legislators, Louisiana has reduced per-student funding, on an inflation adjusted basis, more than any other state in the nation since 2008.

Yet, the leaders of our state educational institutions saw fit to provide local media outlets with public thanks to our legislators.

A more realistic response would have been NO response at all, or perhaps the simple one liner, ”It’s heartening to see that our legislators finally understand that education institutions in our state can no longer endure more financial funding  reductions.”

The really sad part about this entire undeserved outpouring of thanks is that, in the end, all these leaders will most likely see additional cuts to higher ed and look even more foolish.  The reason being that the present proposed budget doesn’t fully fund Jindal’s privatization of the hospital system in our state.

The major corporations operating these hospitals have clearly stated that, unless they receive their funding requests, they will simply invoke the “opt out” option which was afforded them in their contracts, and cease operation of the regional hospitals.   These hospitals would then resort back to being state run and the national embarrassment for Jindal would be disastrous.

 Jindal is considered by many of the Republican power lords as a “health care wizard”, and this plan is the center piece of Jindal’s legacy.  Its failure would doom any hope of not only a presidential nod, but also any possible vice president, or more realistically, cabinet positon consideration.

It’s all about the politics, for it’s reelection time for most of our state legislators.  Something you’d assume the educational leaders in this state would understand.

My message to all the university and college leaders is, “Keep your mouths shut and start planning for additional funding cuts.”