Over his 60 years in his home state, Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister says he’s found that people here usually change only when they have to—and that’s usually when there’s a crisis or when they finally realize they have done the same thing over and over for decades and it’s simply not working anymore.
“The defense for the insanity is often, ‘Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it before’—even if they are not sure why,” writes McCollister in his latest column. “Maybe it’s because 80% of Louisiana residents are natives like me and we all grew up seeing things done a certain way by our parents and grandparents. In the past, many grew up in the days of the Long family or Gov. Edwin Edwards, when populism reigned and everyone was promised a chicken for their pot. The state was the ‘sugar daddy’ and gave away lots of free stuff to all.”
With the state once again facing a budget crisis, McCollister wonders if this is a moment when Louisiana is forced to change.
“Will everything be on the table, including dedications, exemptions, and needless, archaic programs and jobs? What about educational institutions that fail to produce graduates and are just a few miles from the next institution?,” he writes. “There will be some tough choices, and everyone will make their case to be spared. But the position of ‘Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it before’ is not a defense. That ‘way’—which usually entailed just raising more taxes and leaving the jobs and status quo alone—was a ‘political way’ in the last century and is primarily the reason we are in this fix.”
The governor and Legislature will have hard decisions and will have to choose priorities, McCollister says.
“Will they be populists or pragmatists? Dedications dating back decades (even to 1921) will have to end, and users will have to pay fees, and local governments and towns will have to cover their own costs—not the state,” he writes. “Louisiana, we are being forced to change again and barbecue the sacred cows—and we should have fired up the grill a long time ago.”
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