The Lively Pelican
The Lively Pelican spent more than 30 years inside the Capitol Bubble and, while The Pelican can't speak insanity, he is able to interpret it and to discern between perception and reality in that rarified world.
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Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Is anyone paying attention? Not many.
Is anyone paying attention?
Not many.
That’s why Bobby Jindal is able to run his mouth off so much without getting called on it.
For example, he has gone around the country touting his ethics law reforms as being the strongest possible. Of course, he omits the fact that in enacting more rules, his crowd also gutted enforcement, taking it away from the fixed-term members of the State Ethics Board that have heretofore been relatively independent and free to call elected officials on their transgressions, and given enforcement to administrative hearing officers appointed by the governor. As a Washington editorial page editor said, it’s the same old Louisiana way.
Then, he abdicated his duties to make budget cuts and appointed a special blue-ribbon panel to recommend budget cuts. That’s as Old School Louisiana politics as they come. It offers the appearance of doing something when you actually aren’t doing anything. This is from the same crowd that made fun of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco for constantly forming special panels to study an issue. If it wasn’t good then, it’s not good now.
So, in come the governor’s panel recommendations that include an across-the-board budget cuts in all state agencies, which the governor rejected the day before officially receiving the report. It was also just two weeks after ordering across the board cuts in the discretionary part of the state budget (mostly higher education and health care) to cover a $248 million shortfall in state revenue.
Now, the CPA’s in the state, reviewing new state tax laws in preparation, have been marveling over the past few months over the very generous tax cuts for the affluent in this state: both the income tax reductions for the one-fifth of the state’s taxpayers who itemize and the generous private school tuition grants.
All this at a time when Louisiana government is cutting back on higher education (we can’t have too many smart people or this sort of thing couldn’t continue) and on health care programs for those who depend on the state.
And, after begging Sen. Mary Landrieu to do something about fixing the unfair Medicaid cuts to the state, once she did it and got called “a prostitute” by the Republican right, the Jindalis sat silent, not making one bit of effort to defend her for doing exactly what they asked her to do.
It’s Louisiana politics, just like it always has been; nothing more, nothing less.
--
An interesting situation is developing that will test the so-called Bi-Partisan spirit of cooperation that Baton Rouge claims.
Not many.
That’s why Bobby Jindal is able to run his mouth off so much without getting called on it.
For example, he has gone around the country touting his ethics law reforms as being the strongest possible. Of course, he omits the fact that in enacting more rules, his crowd also gutted enforcement, taking it away from the fixed-term members of the State Ethics Board that have heretofore been relatively independent and free to call elected officials on their transgressions, and given enforcement to administrative hearing officers appointed by the governor. As a Washington editorial page editor said, it’s the same old Louisiana way.
Then, he abdicated his duties to make budget cuts and appointed a special blue-ribbon panel to recommend budget cuts. That’s as Old School Louisiana politics as they come. It offers the appearance of doing something when you actually aren’t doing anything. This is from the same crowd that made fun of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco for constantly forming special panels to study an issue. If it wasn’t good then, it’s not good now.
So, in come the governor’s panel recommendations that include an across-the-board budget cuts in all state agencies, which the governor rejected the day before officially receiving the report. It was also just two weeks after ordering across the board cuts in the discretionary part of the state budget (mostly higher education and health care) to cover a $248 million shortfall in state revenue.
Now, the CPA’s in the state, reviewing new state tax laws in preparation, have been marveling over the past few months over the very generous tax cuts for the affluent in this state: both the income tax reductions for the one-fifth of the state’s taxpayers who itemize and the generous private school tuition grants.
All this at a time when Louisiana government is cutting back on higher education (we can’t have too many smart people or this sort of thing couldn’t continue) and on health care programs for those who depend on the state.
And, after begging Sen. Mary Landrieu to do something about fixing the unfair Medicaid cuts to the state, once she did it and got called “a prostitute” by the Republican right, the Jindalis sat silent, not making one bit of effort to defend her for doing exactly what they asked her to do.
It’s Louisiana politics, just like it always has been; nothing more, nothing less.
--
An interesting situation is developing that will test the so-called Bi-Partisan spirit of cooperation that Baton Rouge claims.
