In his latest column, Business Report publisher Rolfe McCollister says the estimated $1.4 billion budget hole facing the state in the coming year obviously poses a serious challenge—but also an opportunity.
McCollister points to Brian Solis, a futurist and thought leader in the digital world, who says: “If necessity is the mother of invention, then vision is the father of innovation.”
“He also says, ‘Doing something different takes learning something new,’” McCollister writes. “Our answer to the budget conundrum may be in doing something new.”
First, McCollister says, Louisianans shouldn’t panic and shout “the sky is falling” in regards to the budget gap. That only creates fear among those potentially affected, he says.
“The answers won’t come easy, but there are answers,” McCollister writes. “And it is clear to me that we can’t look to maintain the status quo or do things we have always done before. It may require the slaughter of sacred cows.”
We should be open to all ideas, McCollister says, even very bold ones to which many might say: “We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” he writes. “We ended the last state charity hospital system in the nation [created by Gov. Huey Long] and moved to a new model—and it’s working better. Change can happen. Sometimes the clock has run out on the old way and it is no longer sustainable or needed.”
Also in his new column, McCollister comments on a series of articles published last year by The Advocate focusing on the economic incentives and business tax breaks the state provides. While acknowledging our state’s incentive programs need accountability, McCollister wonders if the “Giving Away Louisiana” series missed something.
“While The Advocate went on for days with its series targeting many industries—and then editorialized on the subject in a column, ‘The road to giveaways’—it never seems to mention one particular giveaway or subsidy costing taxpayers millions when alternatives exist,” he writes. “I am referring to legal advertising and public notices in Louisiana’s newspapers. Maybe the daily just overlooked that—or worse, rationalized that newspapers are special and the notices are needed by the people of Louisiana.”
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