While a large number of the state’s “elected officials, staffers, lobbyists, donors, consultants, department heads and practically everyone else in the inner orbit of Louisiana politics” are headed for the annual Mardi Gras soirée this weekend in Washington, D.C., columnist Jeremy Alford notes there are also two massive prayer rallies happening at home.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s “The Response” will take place Saturday on LSU’s campus. It’s competing not only with the with D.C. Mardi Gras event this year, Alford says, but with another prayer rally organized by Democratic-aligned groups on Southern University’s campus that has been dubbed the “Prayer Rally for the Soul of Louisiana.”
“They represent the purest of Louisiana political choices,” Alford writes. “You can stay home and get some church or head north to the belly of American politics for what amounts to a nonstop party. Either way, you’re sure to find an avenue to lift your spirits before all hell breaks loose across the political and government landscape here. Come the morning of Monday, Jan. 26, things are going to get serious. Very, very serious.”
Alford says this is the last week we can all claim ignorance on the approaching widening of the state’s budget deficits, one for the current fiscal year and another for the next. The Revenue Estimating Conference, which is charged with determining how much money the state has—or, in this case, doesn’t have—to spend meets on the Monday politicos will be returning from D.C., he notes.
“No amount of praying at LSU and Southern will help us avoid more midyear budget cuts, possibly as much as $100 million. Meanwhile, the 2015-2016 budget hole, already $1.4 billion, will grow as well,” Alford writes. “Who can blame legislators for wanting to drink and/or pray? In addition to the budget chaos, voters are clamoring for something definitive on Common Core, an issue that will pack committee rooms and hallways with teachers and parents ready to scream at lawmakers, if last year is any guide. Additionally, the $12 billion backlog for transportation projects has reached critical mass, with no consensus solution in sight, and the capital outlay budget for construction projects around the state is set to be overloaded once again.”
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
