Noted Muslim hater and a man whose Adam's apple looks like a ferret is trying to escape his neck, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, is an ambitious politician. It's likely he is going to run for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, a position whose reward will be to lose to Hillary Clinton in the general election. Because he is so ambitious, like an enthusiastic bichon frise attempting to fuck a Great Dane, he doesn't want to do anything to piss off Republican primary voters. Unfortunately for his state, that means not actually doing things that might make Louisiana less an exotic shithole only good for oil and the occasional New Orleans convention, like, say, by raising income taxes on the wealthy in order to prevent huge cuts to the state's colleges and universities, as well as its health care.
Yeah, you see, the state that lives by the price of a barrel of oil dies by the price of a barrel of oil. Says the state legislature's chief economist, "For every dollar the price of oil per barrel drops, Louisiana loses about $11 million in state revenue." So while the rest of us are giddy about paying below $2.00 for a gallon of gas and dicking over the climate some more, Louisiana is suffering mightily, with budget shortfall after budget shortfall. That means that higher education, already gutted since 2008 with over $600 million in cuts when the state was flush with oil cash, faces at least another $300 million in cuts in a single year, although it will probably be a great deal more. This will include one of the Jindal's own initiatives, the Workforce and Innovation for a Stronger Economy Fund, which directed funding to schools in areas where there was a demand for workers.
In other words, Louisiana's colleges and universities are fucked. Hard. How hard? Foam finger? Rubber dildo? Try cold and spiky steel, motherfuckers. There's gonna be at least a $1.4 billion hole in the budget. For schools, that means "massive layoffs," according to Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy (wait, really? ok...). The cuts would "gut our universities and community colleges like a fish," he continued, colorfully.
The president of one University of Louisiana campus said, "Some institutions would have a hard time surviving; others would survive, but be greatly diminished." Republican State Senator Conrad Appel, who chairs the Education Committe, said that he is hopeful the cuts won't be that bad, but "It's probably impossible to think we could sustain education as we know it today." Louisiana State University's president said that "many of Louisiana’s colleges would be forced to declare 'financial exigency,' the equivalent of campus bankruptcy." At LSU's main campus, the cuts would mean the school "would have to stop the hiring of more than 100 new faculty members and lay off another 200." And the ripple effects on the economy of Baton Rouge and the state would make that unlubed steel spike seem like a pleasant nooner in comparison to what comes next.
This is not to mention the cuts to the Department of Health and Hospitals: "Health care services had been told they would have to absorb a $250 million hit, which could balloon to more than twice that size because Louisiana would no longer be able to put up the dollars required to attract certain types of federal funding." Yeah, that actually translates to around $700 million, and the people that will be hit hardest will, of course, be people on Medicaid.
Some legislators have proposed rolling back tax breaks for businesses. Of course, Jindal has said that no way, no how will he do anything that even has a whiff of eau de tax hike. Currently, Louisiana has one of the lower tax burdens on income and businesses. It does, however, have one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation, so it's totally cool to bleed the poors, the ones whose health care is about to be cut. But ask anyone else to step up? Oh, fuck that.
What is it with these governors who are breaking their states having such high profiles in the nation? Why would anyone vote for Chris Christie or Bobby Jindal when they have recklessly managed their own homes? If you were hiring someone at Burger King and you knew an applicant had burned down a McDonald's and given all the customers food poisoning, would you just say, "Oh, fuck it. I like his personality"? The only time we should be hearing about Jindal is how he's shut the fuck up about his principles and saved his state.
Fuckin' Jindal, though, is off giving speeches. He's in London, lecturing Muslims on how to act towards other Muslims and fantasizing about "no-go zones" in different cities. He's at a prayer rally, blathering about the need for a "spiritual revival" and how he became Christian because he saw a movie where Jesus was crucified (fuck that fucking book, man). After once saying that the Republicans shouldn't be "the stupid party," Jindal is counting on everyone else being completely dumb. And if they aren't already, he'll do what he can to make sure they are.
