Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards is asking the state’s business community to work with him to address Louisiana’s budget problems and help find additional funding for higher education, which he said is the No. 1 reason he ran for governor.
Speaking at the Council for a Better Louisiana’s annual meeting and luncheon, Edwards asked the crowd of mostly business people to find “common ground” with his administration and communicate openly with him about problems and solutions.
“I am challenging everybody in this room, and if I propose something you don’t like, come with a different approach,” he said. “We can’t all go to our corner and start lobbing grenades at each other because then nothing will get fixed. The stakes are too high.”
The governor-elect said he is optimistic about the state’s future, but acknowledged that many challenges lie ahead. Fixing them won’t be easy, but Edwards said he plans to start at a February special session that will focus on the budget deficit.
“The sooner one takes medicine, the sooner it kicks in and you start to feel better,” Edwards said.
Edwards discussed few specifics and stopped short of calling for new or higher taxes. When asked later if soliciting the business community’s help was a way of asking for their support of new taxes, he replied, “Have I proposed higher taxes?”
In a speech that was peppered with quips and earned the governor-elect a standing ovation, Edwards, a Democrat, addressed concerns that he will govern from the left and undo some of the programs and education reforms championed by the business community during the Jindal administration.
“Some of you are fearful I’m going to govern from the far left,” he said. “I don’t believe I live in the far left, but where you are on the spectrum is a matter of perspective. … I believe the real solutions to our problems and the ones people will accept happen to be in the center.”
That said, Edward reiterated his support for increasing the minimum wage in the state and expanding Medicaid coverage.
“It is not reasonable to send our tax dollars to Washington so the working poor in other states get health care coverage while ours do not,” he said.
Edwards also said he will push, early on in his administration, to repeal the SAVE fund created by the Jindal administration during the legislative session to help balance the budget.
“We have to work together and that is about the fifth time I have said it so you know I am serious,” he said. “I want your help. We’ve got to get this right.”
—Stephanie Riegel
