EDITORIAL: Lawmakers' Dereliction Of Duty Built Louisiana's Budget
The Town Talk (excerpt)

With the passage of a state budget that defies simple arithmetic, there is really only one question that needs to be asked: Why do Louisiana taxpayers have such a high tolerance for lowdown leadership? There is no other way to frame the discussion about a state spending plan that does none of the things needed to respond to fiscal reality and all of the things that do more fiscal damage.

A decent budget proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal -- still too high at $24.2 billion, but at least a step in the right direction -- ended up at $26 billion for reasons that are called political compromise but are better described as dereliction of duty. The budget now on the governor's desk does the following: It uses one-time money to pay for recurring expenses. It disregards the state's own estimates that revenue will be even lower than had been projected when the legislative session started in March. It pretends that there is no oil spill, no drilling moratorium, no contaminated Gulf of Mexico, no fishermen or oil workers sidelined by the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history and, therefore, no financial impact to be acknowledged. And, just for kicks, it includes $30 million in handouts for lawmakers to spread around on special projects back home -- projects that may be important to locals but have no business being funded by the state budget.

This is beyond dysfunctional. It defies what the governor and every legislator said a year ago had to be done when they empaneled two commissions to cut spending, improve results and put Louisiana on fiscally sound footing. The taxpayers have been lied to again, and that won't change by itself. Louisiana must top tolerating this abuse.