A new report by the Louisiana Budget Project reviews and analyzes Governor Bobby Jindal’s proposed Fiscal Year 2012 Executive Budget.
Despite Louisiana’s $1.6 billion shortfall in revenue projected for this year, the governor again refuses to consider increasing revenues, either by increasing taxes or eliminating or suspending any of the 441 tax exemptions costing the state over $7 billion annually. Instead, the governor chooses to cut spending for vital public programs such as human services, health care, higher education, and public safety.
The report highlights the following proposals:
- 2,000 state workers losing jobs
- Cutting funding for charity hospitals
- Charging Louisiana families more for a college education
- Making financially strapped local school districts pay more to run their schools
- Raiding the Millennium Trust Fund (tobacco settlement money) to pay for TOPS, the state’s merit-based college scholarship program that primarily benefits students from families making $75,000 or more
- Charging state employees 37.5% more for their pension plan
- Privatizing several state prisons
For a copy of the full report and more information on LBP, visit www.labudget.org and read Governor Jindal’s Executive Budget: Doing Less with Less — Again.