Inside Report: Report Shows Why State Struggling
by LANNY KELLER - Advocate (excerpt)

The price of oil is crashing, bringing the state budget down with it. A governor and Legislature face a huge backlog of highways, bridges and other projects, many of them left over from the previous Democratic administration. A state government used to spending freely has to be reined in after years of “an embarrassment of riches” in revenue.

The last phrase gives away the trick here: The above situation is not only that of Gov. Bobby Jindal and today’s Legislature. It was the situation of Gov. David C. Treen 25 years ago. The “embarrassment of riches” was a vivid and much-quoted description from House Appropriations Committee Chairman Kevin Reilly Sr., of Baton Rouge. That oil boom, though, was followed by a recession that hurt state revenue during Treen’s administration.

Experts predicted “This dramatic revenue growth will level off as America curtails its consumption of natural resources. Therefore, the state could be burdened with a bureaucracy it can’t continue to support.” The last quotation was in the opening paragraph of the Governor’s Cost Control Commission’s report. Empaneled by Treen in 1981 and led by retired Ethyl Corp. executive Wallace F. Armstrong, the commission of experts and business leaders urged 471 actions to either cut expenditures or promote efficiencies.