Bobby Jindal’s Anti-Tax Fervor May Have Destroyed Louisiana [View all]

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Bobby Jindal’s Anti-Tax Fervor May Have Destroyed Louisiana

by Alan Pyke at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/03/07/3757416/jindal-louisiana-budget-crisis/

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Louisiana’s new leaders made headlines last month for mentioning that a budget crisis may jeopardize the elite Louisiana State University football program. But the flood of red ink that former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) left behind is so all-consuming that Louisiana may soon cease to function as a state in far more fundamental ways.

The basic services a government provides — watchdogs to guard abused and abandoned children, emergency rooms and hospitals, scholarships and safety-net stipends to lift families out of poverty — will barely be able to keep the lights on unless politicians can find $3 billion in new revenue in the coming days.

Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) called the legislature into a special session to resolve the $940 million shortfall for the current fiscal year and projected $2 billion gap in the next. But that session is scheduled to close at 6:00 Wednesday evening.

If lawmakers can’t resolve the crisis, many Louisiana state agencies will see budget cuts of 60 percent — “Doomsday,” as the state’s head of Children and Family Services (DCFS) Marketa Garner Walters put it to the Washington Post — atop years of significant resource cuts already imposed under Jindal.

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