Idiocracy, Bobby Jindal Style

YeeHaw, shitkickers, tax cuts for everybody. Then, more tax cuts.

That's pretty much the formula used by Bobby Jindal during his 8-years as governor of the poorest, most screwed up state in America - Louisiana. It was already pretty messed up when Jindal moved into the governor's mansion and he wasted no time finishing the job. As a state today it's as derelict as a crack house.

Jindal, like certain dumb ass Conservative politicians north of the 49th, imagined he could bank on oil revenues. The Washington Post offers a cautionary tale of neoliberalism run amok:

Already, the state of Louisiana had gutted university spending and depleted its rainy-day funds. It had cut 30,000 employees and furloughed others. It had slashed the number of child services staffers, including those devoted to foster family recruitment, and young abuse victims for the first time were spending nights at government offices.

And then, the state’s new governor, John Bel Edwards (D), came on TV and said the worst was yet to come.

Edwards, in a prime-time address on Feb. 11, said he’d learned of “devastating facts” about the extent of the state’s budget shortfall and said that Louisiana was plunging into a “historic fiscal crisis.” Despite all the cuts of the previous years, the nation’s second-poorest state still needed nearly $3 billion — almost $650 per person — just to maintain its regular services over the next 16 months. Edwards gave the state’s lawmakers three weeks to figure out a solution, a period that expires March 9 with no clear answer in reach.

Louisiana stands at the brink of economic disaster. Without sharp and painful tax increases in the coming weeks, the government will cease to offer many of its vital services, including education opportunities and certain programs for the needy. A few universities will shut down and declare bankruptcy. Graduations will be canceled. Students will lose scholarships. Select hospitals will close. Patients will lose funding for treatment of disabilities. Some reports of child abuse will go uninvestigated.

An example of Jindal's sleight of hand were tax cuts he implemented using federal monies intended for the relief of Hurricane Katrina.

But as that money ran dry, Jindal said he would veto any bills that would push taxes back to where they had been. Instead, to plug budget gaps, Jindal relied not just on cuts but also on controversial, one-off fundraising methods. The state sold off assets, including parking lots and farmland. It cleaned out money from hundreds of trust funds — among them, one intended to build reefs for marine wildlife. It pieced together money from legal settlements.

Jindal was like a vampire when it came to the state budget. He bled an already poor state dry. Then, just as his term was ending came the collapse of oil prices. The Ponzi scheme ground to a halt.