"You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”

You’ve got to admit Louisiana legislators may be some of the luckiest people in the world.  Just as this state is facing one of the most serious financial crisis in its history thanks to our leges’ fiscal mismanagement, along comes some more one-time money, the BP Settlement.

Louisiana’s share, a whopping $6.8 billion is the largest among the 5 coastal states.  Five billion of that is ear-marked for coastal restoration.  Just how much of the money will actually be used for this purpose without some budgetary trickery remains to be seen.

However, since $1 billion can be used to cover the state’s economic losses, it would appear that any newly elected governor and our legislative minions could use these funds in conjunction with some of the restoration money to fund this state for yet another fiscal year with one-time money without enacting any sound fiscal stabilization legislative measures.  To their delight they might even be able to roll back some of the unpopular, pitiful, symbolic revenue generating measures they did manage to pass. 

One would hope that such a timely fiscal reprieve would allow our legislators to enact  fiscally responsible revenue generating policies that would once and for all end reliance on non-reoccurring funding sources.

But since 95% of those up for election this fall will most likely be given yet another chance to serve, by the voters of this state, the chances are slim to none that any real budgetary changes will occur.  They can simply continue ‘to kick the can down the road’ as they have done for the past 8 years and hope that some other one-time monies will materialize in the future.

You simply, “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”