Louisiana Governor Threatens to cut College Football

[stodgdog]

Having Dan Reneau leading the UL system can't hurt. (Woof--do you need a translation?)

I hope you are right. I thought Dr Reneau's appointment was a transitional post. Hopefully, it is more permanent than I thought.

[TYLERTECHSAS]

Having Dan Reneau leading the UL system can't hurt. (Woof--do you need a translation?)

I hope you are right. I thought Dr Reneau's appointment was a transitional post. Hopefully, it is more permanent than I thought.

DR could be a Godsend right now. Who would have thought?

[maverick]

I hope you are right. I thought Dr Reneau's appointment was a transitional post. Hopefully, it is more permanent than I thought.

It's an interim position, but I expect they want some stability and I doubt anybody has time to conduct a search with the budget circus in town.

[dj95]

Our budget was increased with the revenue we received plus some revenue we no longer receive. Now the budget can't be sustained. We must cut the things that increased during that eight year time period. Instead, our governor intends to cut things that have already been being cut for the past eight years AND raise taxes.

Louisiana voters saw this coming and elected a governor who promised he would fix things without further cuts to higher ed. Most who voted for him didn't care about higher taxes.

The problem is they can't make cuts to other areas because they are protected by constitutional statutes that only allow for cuts to be made to higher education and charity hospitals. We need a new state constitution with real separation of powers instead of the one written by Edwin Edwards to make sure he and his cronies would stay in power. Jindal's biggest problems was he was always running for an office he would never get, instead of addressing problems at home. Although, remember that he did try to consolidate UNO/Southern NO and LA Tech and LSUS in order to offset some of the budget problems but the legislature stopped him. We need about to cut about 5 or 6 "universities". We have too many that are too top heavy with salaries for a state our size. Tech, ULL, UNO, and LSU are all that we need. Keep some as junior colleges and shutter the rest. But, unfortunately, too many of those schools are the largest are second largest employers in their parishes.

[TechAlum05]

The problem is they can't make cuts to other areas because they are protected by constitutional statutes that only allow for cuts to be made to higher education and charity hospitals. We need a new state constitution with real separation of powers instead of the one written by Edwin Edwards to make sure he and his cronies would stay in power. Jindal's biggest problems was he was always running for an office he would never get, instead of addressing problems at home. Although, remember that he did try to consolidate UNO/Southern NO and LA Tech and LSUS in order to offset some of the budget problems but the legislature stopped him. We need about to cut about 5 or 6 "universities". We have too many that are too top heavy with salaries for a state our size. Tech, ULL, UNO, and LSU are all that we need. Keep some as junior colleges and shutter the rest. But, unfortunately, too many of those schools are the largest are second largest employers in their parishes.

Jindal didn't do crap to consolidate LA Tech and LSUS. He said not one word about the merger.

[TechAlum05]

It's an interim position, but I expect they want some stability and I doubt anybody has time to conduct a search with the budget circus in town.

And also, if a search was done right now, who would want to be the President of the UL System at this moment?

[Dogsince65]

It is shocking anyone could have been that stupid- and yet it happened.

. Most hard core republicans - tea party member and decent folk voted Against Vitter. He was not endorsed by Republican Party because .....
Most folks realize that nothing will happen unless republicans run both houses. Reason number 2 was what a horrible job Jindal did -- almost 1 billion of debt. Yes, I am embarrassed I voted Jindal twice--- this election was like Edward Edwards vs nazi uniform wearing David Duke . Doubt any halfway educated person did not know what to expect or what will happen in BR. Politics will keep us at bottom of states in every important category--- about 37 years ago I had honor of introducing Ronald Reagan at event honoring Police and fire department here in Shreveport ( shreveport Jaycees) - nothing " stupid" for voting against a candidate who went against every principle of Reagan-- " never speak ill of fellow republican" --

[HogDawg]

There should be billions of dollars of extra revenue from a whole decade of record oil prices, where did it all go? Jindal cut state employees and state government, he said that in the debate. Did Jindal blow billions in extra revenue on his cronies with private contracts?

Texas has so much money in it's rainy day fund (12 billion from Oil and Gas Revenue) the legislature has had to increase the cap every biennial.

You know what the difference is. It's the difference between electing conservative Republicans (not RINO's) to office instead of free spending Democrats.

[HogDawg]

We have too many that are too top heavy with salaries for a state our size. Tech, ULL, UNO, and LSU are all that we need. Keep some as junior colleges and shutter the rest. But, unfortunately, too many of those schools are the largest are second largest employers in their parishes.

As Margaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people's money". For the most part, the plethora of colleges and universities in the state of Louisiana goes back to the days of Huey Long and subsequent governors with similar "guvmint employment" thinking. A college in every town was viewed not only as a way to educate young people, but as a means to employ tax payers throughout the state.

Fast forward to today, and Louisiana is a state that has relied far too long on casinos, O&G, government and "academia" to employ its' people. There's no broad business base of employers providing jobs and taxpayers to contribute to Louisiana's bottom line. And the state (as well as many of its towns) appears to have done nothing to cultivate and recruit businesses. Today, many young college graduates --potential taxpayers-- have to leave Louisiana just to find decent paying jobs. The lack of industry in the state is downright startling. There's no high tech, no manufacturing, and very little of anything else. There's simply nobody left to pay the bill.

Yes, the state of Louisiana needs to "cut" government employment quickly to stop the bleeding. But after that, Louisiana desperately needs to grow and diversify its business and taxpayer base. It needs to recruit businesses from out of state and offer them attractive relocation packages to move to Louisiana. The state also needs to offer incentives (including capital) for people to start, build and grow companies in Louisiana.

[Cal&Ken]

. Most hard core republicans - tea party member and decent folk voted Against Vitter. He was not endorsed by Republican Party because .....
Most folks realize that nothing will happen unless republicans run both houses. Reason number 2 was what a horrible job Jindal did -- almost 1 billion of debt. Yes, I am embarrassed I voted Jindal twice--- this election was like Edward Edwards vs nazi uniform wearing David Duke . Doubt any halfway educated person did not know what to expect or what will happen in BR. Politics will keep us at bottom of states in every important category--- about 37 years ago I had honor of introducing Ronald Reagan at event honoring Police and fire department here in Shreveport ( shreveport Jaycees) - nothing " stupid" for voting against a candidate who went against every principle of Reagan-- " never speak ill of fellow republican" --

Are you serious? Of course it was stupid- like Vitter or not, he voted correctly. Jindal hated Vitter and after the mess Jindal left us in, that should have been a positive thing. It was stupid for people not to check out the tax and spend liberal's voting record and see what he really was vs what he told people to get votes. And I disagree that "most hard core...." that is bull. There were a lot of people that took the time to do their homework and make an informed decision- whether or not you were one of them is on you. I made the mistake and voted for Jindal when he lost and the first time he won. After that, I didn't make that mistake again, but have made others. If there is no record it is difficult to wade through the bull- both Jindal and Edwards had a record to study and decide.

[detltu]

This mess has been building for a long time. Jindal only made it worse. This governor had to face the music and I think he won't get reelected because of it. People still don't want to take their lumps. The state needs to hit rock bottom before it will start taking the necessary measures to fix this problem. Edwards is going to take us to rock bottom.

[stodgdog]

As Margaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people's money". For the most part, the plethora of colleges and universities in the state of Louisiana goes back to the days of Huey Long and subsequent governors with similar "guvmint employment" thinking. A college in every town was viewed not only as a way to educate young people, but as a means to employ tax payers throughout the state.

Fast forward to today, and Louisiana is a state that has relied far too long on casinos, O&G, government and "academia" to employ its' people. There's no broad business base of employers providing jobs and taxpayers to contribute to Louisiana's bottom line. And the state (as well as many of its towns) appears to have done nothing to cultivate and recruit businesses. Today, many young college graduates --potential taxpayers-- have to leave Louisiana just to find decent paying jobs. The lack of industry in the state is downright startling. There's no high tech, no manufacturing, and very little of anything else. There's simply nobody left to pay the bill.

Yes, the state of Louisiana needs to "cut" government employment quickly to stop the bleeding. But after that, Louisiana desperately needs to grow and diversify its business and taxpayer base. It needs to recruit businesses from out of state and offer them attractive relocation packages to move to Louisiana. The state also needs to offer incentives (including capital) for people to start, build and grow companies in Louisiana.

Unfortunately, you are absolutely correct. Another problem is workforce quality. A major reason cited by State Farm when they left Monroe was the lack of a qualified workforce. Naturally, instead of considering their reasoning and attempting to use this revelation as a learning experience, the Monroe leadership perceived it as an unfair and inaccurate criticism. They were insulted, which they probably should have been. But, instead of looking inward they attacked the message and messenger. At about the same time, we were losing the GM plant. Though not for the same reasons exactly, there were similarities. We had excellent plant management. The UAW was tough to deal with, but the workers were very good at their jobs. Losing these two major businesses at roughly the same time was obviously a huge obstacle in NE LA.

[mikedog]

As Margaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people's money". For the most part, the plethora of colleges and universities in the state of Louisiana goes back to the days of Huey Long and subsequent governors with similar "guvmint employment" thinking. A college in every town was viewed not only as a way to educate young people, but as a means to employ tax payers throughout the state.

Fast forward to today, and Louisiana is a state that has relied far too long on casinos, O&G, government and "academia" to employ its' people. There's no broad business base of employers providing jobs and taxpayers to contribute to Louisiana's bottom line. And the state (as well as many of its towns) appears to have done nothing to cultivate and recruit businesses. Today, many young college graduates --potential taxpayers-- have to leave Louisiana just to find decent paying jobs. The lack of industry in the state is downright startling. There's no high tech, no manufacturing, and very little of anything else. There's simply nobody left to pay the bill.

Yes, the state of Louisiana needs to "cut" government employment quickly to stop the bleeding. But after that, Louisiana desperately needs to grow and diversify its business and taxpayer base. It needs to recruit businesses from out of state and offer them attractive relocation packages to move to Louisiana. The state also needs to offer incentives (including capital) for people to start, build and grow companies in Louisiana.

The Jindal administration was quite aggressive in offering incentive packages to out-of-state businesses to relocate to--or stay in--Louisiana. Examples include IBM, Globalstar, CenturyLink (to stay and expand), and the film industry. While I'm not necessarily against offering these incentives, one has to be careful not to unfairly advantage one business versus its existing competition in the state. Yes--Louisiana has to compete with other states who offer these types of incentives. But we have to be wary of turning these incentive programs into an ugly form of crony capitalism.

Where Louisiana really falls behind Texas is infrastructure and public education. The New Orleans airport is on par with what you'd expect in a 3rd world country, and this is after several million dollars worth of renovations took place a few years ago for the Super Bowl. The Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Alex, and Monroe airports are "nice" but small--mostly pond jumpers fly out of these airports and connect you through Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. This is one of the reasons Baton Rouge recently lost the Amedisys executive headquarters to Nashville.

Education wise, our schools are underfunded compared to Texas, particularly when you compare Louisiana school districts to the Frisco's and Southlake's. When you consider that private school tuition costs in the $15K range on average, the lack of public school options in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans metros hurts the ability of local businesses to compete for talent.

[70TECHGRAD]

When J.B. Edwards was running for office....he was promising a chicken in every pot! Now...all we have is the pot and he wants to put a tax on the pot!!

[70TECHGRAD]

Edwards needs to get with the state treasurer, Kennedy, determine where cuts can be made, and make the cuts before even talking about raising taxes!!