POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

This is the opening of an article on Louisiana’s continuing budget crisis, written by Heath Allen for WDSU News:

“Louisiana’s state colleges and universities face another $18 million in budget cuts as part of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ plan to fill a looming $312 million budget shortfall.

“But during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee this week in Baton Rouge, the administration agreed to postpone the cuts for a month as lawmakers try and find the dollars needed to avoid cuts to higher education.

“The cuts, though, are likely inevitable. The immediate $312 million budget hole will be followed by one of similar size just after the first of the year.

“’Another hundred million, they say anywhere from $100 to $500 million dollars for next fiscal year, that we are going to be off on the revenues. I mean, it’s just staggering numbers,’ said Sen. Jack Donahue, (R) Mandeville.

“’There’s going to have to be some reduction in higher ed. There’s no question that it’s going to happen when you put these two cuts together. Everybody is going to have to be a part of what the solution is,’ said Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne.

“While lawmakers agree they can probably identify the $18 million to protect higher education for now, it means another area of state government will take the hit.”

In the recent Senate election in Ohio, Senator Portman successfully tarred Ted Strickland, then governor of the state, with everything that occurred as the result of the Great Recession that occurred under George W. Bush.

If the same thing should occur in a few years in Louisiana, then the voters of the state can be fairly described as willfully uninformed. For the budget issues in Louisiana are as much the result of Bobby Jindal’s reckless tax cutting and budget manipulation as the similar problems in Kansas are attributable to Sam Brownback’s reckless imposition of an ideological experiment that is not delivering much of anything that has been promised to the public at large.

Allen’s complete article is available at: http://www.wdsu.com/article/proposed-cuts-to-higher-education-postponed-until-next-month/8341321.