Cuts coming to close the state deficit

[IberiaCajun]

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana's budget picture grew bleaker Thursday, when the state's revenue-forecasting panel dropped income estimates by $129 million, creating a midyear deficit that leaves colleges and health services vulnerable to new rounds of cuts.

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As Yogi would say, it's deja vu all over again!

[basinbear]

Why doesn't Jindal call a constitutional convention to to remove the protections from all these departments so he pain of the cuts can be evenly distributed?

Been screaming this for years.....

[basinbear]

Another 22 million to be cut from higher Ed. Grow some balls and shutter a campus already

And what 800 pound gorilla do you think will get every dime saved by doing this??? Convention Now!!!

[Cajunrunner]

For the current problem, the "fiscal hawks" in the House who were lambasted in the media by the Jindal Administration were 100% correct this past session. The state over-budgeted. They've been over-budgeting the past 5 years because Jindal and the spineless legislators would like to declare at the end of each session they "saved" Higher Education from drastic cuts, then act all surprised mid-year when they have to make those very same cuts they "saved" everyone from.

Here's the thing. These cuts should have been in the budget passed last session. Sure, it would hurt. But spreading $22 million in cuts over 12 months is a hell of alot better for everyone involved then suddenly saying, "Hey, we need to cut $22 million, and now, you have only 6 months to do it"! Lots of legislators in our Acadiana delegation folded (were bought off) for the Administration during the budget debate 6 months ago. They sure got their local projects funded in Capitol Outlay, though!

Going forward: YES, we need to start merging/shutting down 4 year schools. We have too many in the state for our tax base to effectively support. Again, though, spineless politicians in Baton Rouge.

[VObserver]

We need to remove constitutional protection for all programs and cut everywhere, not just higher ed and health care.

[Turbine]

On the things that supposedly can't be touched . . .

I can't imagine the Constitution intended to protect all future whimsically enacted increases and line items that didn't even exist in 1974.

[Boomer]

Can somebody post a quick look at some of the Protected Areas that need to be slashed???

[BeauCajun]

Can somebody post a quick look at some of the Protected Areas that need to be slashed???

Real quick. Everything but higher ed & health care.

[cajun4life]

Can somebody post a quick look at some of the Protected Areas that need to be slashed???

Deleted

[Wing-over]

I go back to thinking that we have too many four year colleges in Louisiana for the population base. There needs to be some beginning discussions on long term planning for higher education in Louisiana as we obviously can't continue on the current track.

Who's up first to go down? Good luck with that. What a ____ poor state we live in.