Dreams really do come true in the United States.

Half a century ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and challenged this country to live up to the promise it made in its founding documents, that the country had been renewed through the Civil War, but which remained unfilled in that summer of 1963. In the speech remembered today primarily because of the vision he laid out for this country, Dr. King also made a stark declaration:

“In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The country, led by a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress took up Dr. King’s challenge to make good on America’s promise with the passage of legislation that wiped away the last vestiges of legal segregation and discrimination in the United States.

Dr. King’s life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet because he would not settle for anything less than full payment on the promise, or for anything less than the full realization of his dream.

Today, when President Barack Obama will take the oath to begin his second term in office, he stands as living testimony to how far the United States has traveled in the fifty years since Dr. King’s “I have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington. As we have seen throughout President Obama’s first term, the dream is not yet fully realized. Hatred is still alive in the country.

But, as then-Senator Barack Obama noted in 2008, continuing the work of making Dr. King’s dream come true falls to each of us:

“Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice….”

Today, when President Obama renews his oath to the country, let every American renew our pledge to each other to be the bearers of Dr. King’s dream. Because, his dream is the American Dream.

In July of this year, the home-based care Angelina Iles had worked to put in place for her brother Anthony Batiste began to unravel. Home care, which the Jindal administration was forced to provide to Anthony and other disabled, came as the result of a court challenge brought by patient advocates and home care advocates against the administration in the face of continuing cuts to the program.

Anthony Batiste, who suffered a major stroke in 2010, began suffering seizures and was hospitalized on July 12. By this time, the Jindal administration had rolled out Bayou Health, essentially a privatization plan that turns Medicaid dollars into funding streams for private insurance companies that then pay for the care of people who enroll with one of the five companies offering services under the program.

Angelina Iles spent the next few months fighting new battles to ensure that her brother received the care he needed in a setting close enough to her home to ensure that the care could be properly monitored. She’d learned from her earlier experience with nursing home care that this level of personal oversight was essential to keeping her brother (or any institutionalized person) alive.

She ultimately decided that caring for Anthony at home was the best option for him, despite the burden it placed on her. So, she set out to get Bayou Health to enable her to reach that goal.

What she discovered in this new system is that there is no help available for patients or their family members who attempt to navigate the system. DHH calls this “a message of empowerment.” What it really means is that if you or your family member is enrolled in Bayou Health, you are on your own.

Angelina worked the phones, pursued every option, explored every avenue, talked to anyone who would listen. She found the new system to be full of problems that had apparently not been thought through by its designers.

At one point, she had to change insurance plans so that Anthony could be eligible for home care. That plan, it turned out, would not provide the anti-seizure medicine Anthony needed to enable him to live at home. Finally, she turned to State Representative Herbert Dixon and others to get the prescription covered.

On November 28 — 140 days after he was hospitalized — Anthony Batiste returned to his sister’s home. His health is extremely fragile. When Angelina was interviewed on December 4, there was no assurance that the necessary medicines would be available beyond early January.

Angelina Iles refused to let her brother be sent away from her because she believed he would have died in a nursing home. That victory now requires her to be his primary care provider, with an allotment of nursing visits to use over the next year.

In August, Anthony will become eligible for Medicare. That federal program will offer him rehabilitative services that Louisiana Medicare does not provide. Angelina’s battle over the next nine months will be to continue caring for her brother while battling Louisiana Medicaid and Bayou Health to ensure her brother has the medicine and care he needs to make it to Medicare.

Angelina Iles is a retired Rapides Parish School System employee, a widow, a mother of four, and a Democrat. But, for the past few years, Angelina has been Anthony Batiste’s big sister who has fought tenaciously to get him the life saving care he has needed.

In the two years since a 2010 stroke paralyzed Anthony’s left side, Angelina has engaged Louisiana Medicaid as her brother’s advocate during the transition to Bayou Health. She has fought to keep him out of nursing homes after a horrific experience with one. She has fought to get him the medicines he needs. She has fought to get the in-home care support she will need in order to continue caring for Anthony.

In this first installment of this story, Angelina talks about her brother and the challenges she’s faced in getting him care. Initially, the problem was that he was uninsured. Then, as his condition declined in part due to restrictions on physical therapy, she discusses learning about the limitations of Medicaid and the personnel matters that result from paying care givers minimum wage-level pay.

Angelina also describes her brother’s experience in a nursing home a couple of years back that gave her a steely resolve not to allow Anthony to be forced into living in a nursing home.

Bruce Blaney ran the State of Louisiana’s Office of Citizens With Developmental Disabilities between 1996 and 2001. That was during the Mike Foster administration. He was at DHH when Foster appointed Bobby Jindal to run the department.

Blaney now works as coordinator of the Louisiana Supported Living Network, a group of home care providers. He says that the problems Angelina Iles has experience in the past two years of fending for Anthony are the direct result of an attack on home care providers by nursing home interests and their allies.

Click to view Bruce Blaney Comments.

An angry Republican base often refers to the repeal of the Bush tax cuts as “class warfare.” They evoke the founding fathers and the constitution, albeit incorrectly, to rally their self-labeled “patriot” base into taking their country back. This vilification of the liberal agenda as being un-American did not work. They lost the White House and the Senate. And now as an older, more experienced President Obama is set to begin his second term, the Right wing continues to challenge the president on tax issues. As Americans, red and blue, we should take this as our cue to reexamine how we view the political divide that has plagues this country and how we define American values. Perhaps in our past we can find evidence of an American spirit that holds the key to solving our most difficult problems.

What we really have to ask ourselves is not whether the founding fathers would have agreed or disagreed with the Bush tax cuts, it is whether these men, who history and nostalgia have given a special place in our imaginations, were themselves in disagreement about the government’s role in the people’s lives. Undoubtedly, they were. It cost, for many years, the friendship of two great allies, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, after the election of 1800. And yet after that election, Jefferson, a man who fought ruthlessly and brilliantly in support small government, famously violated his ideals in order to purchase Louisiana, a decision, according to his own rules for the limitations of presidential powers, he did not have the authority to make. But even he realized that there were times that no political agenda or opinion could trump the betterment of the American people. What we can consider from this brief historical anecdote is that what made these men great was their ability to put their political agendas aside for the good of this nation, as Jefferson was able to do when he made the best land deal in history. This is the difference between a politician and a statesman.

Consider that when Bill O’Reilly and his ilk talk about a simpler time, they are actually talking about a time when the rich were heavily taxed so that the country could have a strong infrastructure. We used the money to build schools, bridges and roads.

Consider that in the 1950′s CEO’s made 10 times the salaries of their employees. Now CEO’s make 300 times the salaries of their employees.

Consider that in the 1950′s the upper tax rate was 84%. Today the upper tax rate is a mere 35%. If the Bush tax cuts expire the upper tax rate will be 39.6%.

Imagine you are an hourly wage worker in the 1950’s. You made enough to comfortably provide for your family and remain securely in the middle class. And you felt your work was valuable, which assured your bosses greater productivity, because it created a positive work environment and loyalty, because they deserved loyalty. You carried that productivity and optimism home. Today, 80% of Wal-Mart employees are on government assistance, and they are not alone. How can these people who don’t make enough to provide for their families or ever be considered part of the middle class feel valuable to the society that allows this to happen? They can’t. That feeling of worthlessness surely must permeate their thoughts every hour they spend on the job, making them less productive. And then they take that hopelessness home with them.

Consider that Jonas Salk made nothing from his vaccine. Now consider that Paul Offit, co-developer of the vaccine for Rotavirus, has made millions from his vaccine while sitting on the board of doctors that decide which vaccines kids need.

The result of the last 60 years is that the perception of patriotism and American values has shifted. Today, the whole country seems to think that the equivalent of a two year old temper tantrum “MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!” is the greatest American value, the one road to achieve the American dream. The only way to prove you are a patriot is to put yourself before your country.

People say that unfettered capitalism embodies the true spirit of America, and keeps us at the front of the pack. In Jonas Salk’s day, we were truly a leader of nations in science and technology. The most successful of these scientists, Salk, had no desire to profit from his discovery. Today, the significantly smaller development of improving a vaccine already in existence guarantees millions for its developers, and so according to the World Health Organization we are famously ranked 37th in healthcare, hardly a leadership role.

Are we really better off having traded in us for me? When the conservative pundits shout that they want America “back” do they realize they are shouting for an America that is in fact in accordance with modern liberal ideals…less capitalism and more doing the right thing?

Today, after being upset about a brain child of mine being passed around work, worried about all of the hard work I had put in that others now did not have to, I complained to a colleague of mine. She reminded me that it was my pride and attachment that had me irritated and that the school and students were really a better place for my sharing it … and wasn’t that the point? Of course, she is right.

Just like Jonas Salk was.

And for all of the shouting the right wing does, we have to decide which America would we want: the America that produced Jonas Salk or the America that produced Paul Offit? If the answer is Salk, then call your Republican representatives and Senators and tell them we want statesmen and not politicians. Remind them that they represent us too. It is time for a return to true American ideals, where every American, even the wealthiest among us, should ask what they can do for their country and not what their country can do for them. It is time for everyone to do all they are able to do, no more, no less, no matter how humbling and painful the task, in order to help make America a great leader of nations again.

Katherine Schexnayder is a Louisiana native and a high school English teacher in Lafayette Parish. She has 10 years of teaching experience in Louisiana schools and plans to finish her Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the summer of 2015. She is the proud mother of a beautiful three year old daughter. If you would like to reply to this blog or contact Katherine, please send your remarks to venese.morgan@gmail.com.
                                                                          

Hello, my name is Venese Morgan, editor of this blog. If you would like to express your opinion and have it published on lademo.org, please send your draft to venese.morgan@gmail.com.

The Louisiana Department of Revenue explains in their Tax Exemption Budget reports that, “Tax exemptions are tax dollars that are not collected and result in a loss of state tax revenues available for appropriation. In this sense, the fiscal effect of tax exemptions is the same as a direct fund expenditure.” That is, dollars given away on tax exemptions and incentives are state tax dollars that can’t be used for other purposes.

Tuition Hikes Replace State Support

Last week we showed you the big fiscal picture of higher education in Louisiana. Governor Jindal has cut more than $600 Million in state funding for higher education and made up part of that with $390 Million in increases in tuition and fees on state campuses across Louisiana.

Some of those cuts in funding have occurred as a result of mid-year shortfalls in state revenues. Using the Department of Revenue’s explanation about the nature of tax exemptions, there is a connection between the exemptions the state gives corporations and the lack of funding available to meet other state government needs.

Using data from the Louisiana Board of Regents for Higher Education, the impact on students and families of Jindal’s five-year record of reducing state support for higher education while increasing corporate tax exemptions becomes clear.

Board of Regents data show that tuition and fees for Louisiana residents for 12 hours per semester of classes at institutions in Louisiana’s three university systems have increased between 44% and 54% during Jindal’s tenure.

This is not an accident; it is a conscious shifting of the burden of higher education costs onto students and their families in the face of state funding cuts linked to exemptions and incentives given to corporations by the Jindal administration. The higher tuition is being used to keep the institutions open, not improve them.

Overcoming Obstacles to Opportunity

We are a poor state. The median household income in Louisiana averaged $44,086 for the five-year period that ended in 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is nearly $9,000 below the national average. 18.4% of our residents live in poverty, compared to 14.3% across the country.  It stands to reason, then, that rapidly rising college tuition would have an impact on students ability to pursue their higher education dreams.

Venese Morgan is a native of California whose father graduated from Southern University before heading west. Venese was able to attend Southern based on Pell Grants and financial aid. ”The last semester of my junior year in 2010 was the first semester I had to apply for a Parent Plus Loan, which was an extended loan on top of the loans I had already applied for,” Venese said. The tuition increase that Venese felt came before passage of the GRAD ACT in 2010, which gave Louisiana university systems and campuses the ability to raise tuition by 10% per year if they met certain milestones and benchmarks on student achievement.

“By the time I was in my final semester, I had $6,000 left in financial aid but my tuition was well over $10,000,” Venese said. “So, my final Parent Plus Loan was for $4,500. It had jumped from $1,500 to $4,500 in a little over a year.”

Bobbi Alvarado is a sophomore Business Major at LSU. She grew up in Texas but decided she wanted to attend LSU and build her own life in Louisiana. She started out paying out-of-state tuition but had heard that after establishing residency here, students were eligible to qualify as a resident student.

Faced with steadily rising tuition and unable to meet the in-state earned income requirement to be declared a Louisiana resident for university purposes, she was forced to skip this fall’s semester. When Jindal took office in 2008, out-of-state tuition on the LSU Baton Rouge campus was $12,958; this academic year, those fees are $22,218 – a 71% increase!

Bobbi is using her time away from LSU to hit those earned income requirements that will enable her to qualify for in-state tuition rates. Her goal is to become a teacher. Governor Jindal’s tax exemptions and rising tuition makes achieving that goal a little tougher each year. Bobbi Alvarado is determined to overcome the obstacles Bobby Jindal is erecting in her path.

Tell us your story about how tuition increases are affecting you and your family. Click here!

No Relief In Sight

Governor Jindal has already announced that revenue neutral tax reform is his top priority heading into 2013. If that comes to pass, it will be more bad news for Louisiana students and their families. “Revenue neutral” tax reform would lock in state revenues at current levels. Fearing additional mid-year budget cuts, four-year colleges and universities want the ability raise tuition without going to the Legislature. Essentially they want the ability to tap students and their families as an alternative to dwindling state support.

With tuition costs already growing faster than incomes in Louisiana, the likelihood is that more people like Bobbi Alvarado will have their higher education aspirations priced beyond their reach. If you think TOPS is enough to help, remember that it is funded through the state General Fund. After five years of rapid growth in corporate income tax exemptions, the ‘help’ that students and families get from TOPS comes increasingly from themselves, through the taxes they pay.

No one disputes the value of a college education, but with Jindal’s pedal to the metal on tuition costs in Louisiana, we might hit an inflection point where the upfront cost of the investment deters people from making it. That would send Louisiana into uncharted waters, leaving residents here with no clear route to the American Dream.

A federal judge and a state court judge each struck down his voucher program, putting his signal legislative achievement on the brink of extinction.

On Tuesday, Federal Judge Ivan Lemelle exempted the Tangipahoa Public School System from Act 2 (the official name of the Jindal voucher program) because the new law strips the Tangipahoa system of the resources needed to comply with a federal desegregation order. Tangipahoa was brought the challenge but more than 30 Louisiana public school districts operate under desegregation orders today.

Judge Lemelle ordered the Jindal administration to stop implementing the taxpayer funded voucher program in Tangipahoa Parish. Presumably other districts in similar circumstances would have to go to a federal court to obtain similar relief.

Ominously for Jindal and his plan, Judge Lemelle also suspended the state’s new teacher hiring, evaluation and promotion practices in Tangipahoa Parish, which also faces a constitutional challenge in state court which will be heard later this month in Baton Rouge.

On Thursday, the state Department of Education sought to stay Lemelle’s ruling so that another round of MFP funding could reach schools that are participating in the voucher program. The money is paid out quarterly. Disbursements to public school systems and voucher schools were due to be made on Monday, December 3.

On Friday, Judge Tim Kelley of Baton Rouge declared Act 2 unconstitutional because it violates the provision in the Louisiana Constitution that reserves minimum foundation formula program (MFP) dollars for support of public education in Louisiana. Unlike the post-Katrina voucher program in New Orleans which was funded through state General Fund appropriations, Act 2 raids the MFP to send state and local education tax dollars into the coffers of private school operators.

The suit was brought by the Louisiana Association of Educators, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, and the Louisiana School Boards Association.

All Vouchers at Risk

Those Orleans Parish schools accepting vouchers are also now in jeopardy. That’s because Jindal  – in the heady, early days of the 2012 Regular session when he was a Governor in full, at the peak of its powers – rolled the funding for the Orleans voucher schools out of the General Fund and into the MFP.

Judge Kelley’s ruling struck down Act 2 because of the use of MFP dollars for private education, but also because, in Jindal’s effort to fund voucher schools, the Governor’s bill authorized the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Education to commandeer local tax dollars that were dedicated to public education.

If Judge Kelley’s ruling stands and Jindal has his heart set on creating a voucher program in Louisiana, he’s going to be forced to do that without de-funding public schools in Louisiana. Judge Kelley wrote: “The public school systems of the State of Louisiana will lose funding they would have received from the Defendants for the operation of their schools and for the benefit of their students. Neither the constitutional nor statutory provisions outlined hereinabove permit such reduction in funding.”

The Court’s Got Talent

The next constitutional challenge against Jindal’s so-called reform package comes in another Baton Rouge state court where the LFT is challenging Act 1 (also known as the TALENT Act), which changed teacher hiring, evaluation and promotion practices. That case is scheduled to be heard on December 17.

The rule of law has been a rude awakening for the Governor who dismissed any and all concerns regarding the constitutionality of the education reforms. It will be interesting to see if these rulings cause Jindal to slow down or speed up his attempt to implement the program that a federal judge and a state court judge have ruled against.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the matter that Jindal, how avows to be a small government conservative for national consumption, executed a massive state power grab of Louisiana public education through Act 1 and Act 2. The laws shift large chunks of control of local school systems from the local level to Baton Rouge, including taking control of local public education tax dollars.

The Rule of Law Vs. Jindal

The rule of law now presents the biggest obstacle to Jindal’s political prospects. He still has control of the Louisiana Senate, while a majority of the House appears to be in open rebellion against the Governor.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has become a thorn in his side with a series of Attorney General’s Opinions that have forced Jindal to at least have to work to obtain his objectives. The Office of Group Benefits (OGB) privatization took two tries and the firing of key Republicans from the House Appropriations Committee to get done. The LSU Board of Supervisors will have to redo their decision to consolidate the positions at the top of that system after Caldwell ruled that the board had violated the open meetings law by voting on a matter that was not listed on the agenda for action.

A group of conservative lawmakers have asked Caldwell to rule on whether  Jindal’s budgets pass constitutional muster with their reliance on one-time money and other smoke and mirror tricks. And Democratic Representative Stephen Ortego has filed a request for an expedited opinion from Caldwell on whether Jindal’s cuts at the LSU Hospitals have exceeded his legal authority to act without legislative approval.

Jindal’s apparent desire to use Louisiana as a staging ground for radical governmental experiments to advance his national political ambitions have begun to encounter its legal, if not the political, limits. The Governor’s and John White’s petulant responses to the Kelley voucher decision show that these are two young men accustomed to getting their way.

The law does not respond well to foot stomping. Welcome to the Republic, gentlemen.

The Calcasieu Democratic Parish Executive Committee celebrated the end of the 2012 campaign season with a ‘thank you’ dinner for volunteers at the local party headquarters.

The November 26 event drew about 75 people, all of whom worked on phone banking and canvassing for the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Third District Congressional Democratic candidate Ron Richard.

Calcasieu DPEC Chairwoman Diana Hamilton led the event and told attendees that they were the unsung heroes of the 2012 Presidential campaign. She talked about the many hours of phone banking done through the Calcasieu DPEC headquarters which was still decorated with campaign paraphernalia and signs from the recently concluded campaign.

Chef Merrick Thomas donated the food for the event.

Plans were discussed for buses to carry local Obama supporters to Washington, D.C., for the President’s inauguration in January.

Ms. Hamilton also discussed plans to keep the Calcasieu DPEC headquarters open throughout 2013, when local elections will be the focus of political attention in the southwestern part of the state.

The Calcasieu DPEC operates the only DPEC storefront campaign office in Louisiana. It is funded through DPEC support and the donations and contributions of volunteers like those who were honored at the November 26th event.

There was fresh evidence over the past week that Jindal has called into question the accreditation of the university through his virtual operation of the entire system through his hand-picked LSU Board of Supervisors.

Squelching Happy Talk

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) has questioned whether LSU is in compliance with its accreditation standards due to the apparent consolidation of the jobs of system head and chancellor of the main campus in the person of William Jenkins.

The letter pointed out that the university system has not provided SACS with the required notifications of the departure of former LSU Main Campus Chancellor Michael Martin, nor of Jenkins’ appointment as his interim replacement. It also said that the proposed merger of the two positions – system president and main campus chancellor – cannot take place without SACS’s approval, or the accreditation of the entire system will be in jeopardy.

Bob Mann, of LSU, says that “happy talk” from the administration and LSU system leaders should be ignored. Mann says that Auburn was nearly stripped of its accreditation about a decade ago and maintains that in some ways LSU is in deeper trouble than Auburn was because Jindal’s micromanaging has been so thorough.

Mann says one reason Auburn got into trouble with SACS was that the university violated Alabama’s open meetings law. He points out that the LSU Board of Supervisors vote to consolidate the positions of president and chancellor were overturned due to an attorney general’s ruling that the original vote appeared to have violated the Louisiana open meetings law.

Similar questions regarding accreditation of LSU’s medical schools have been raised by the organizations that supervise graduate medical training in the country as a result of the deep cuts and drastic changes in the LSU hospitals ordered by Jindal in the wake of Medicaid cuts.

Seeking a Second Opinion on Hospital Cuts

The Advocate Politics Column on Sunday reported that Rep. Stephen Ortego of Carencro has asked Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to rule on whether Jindal has exceeded his legal authority to make cuts affecting LSU’s hospitals without legislative approval. Rep. Ortego maintains that the cuts ordered in the wake of the Medicaid clawback have been much deeper than the 35% governors are allowed to make without legislative approval.

Ortego asked for an expedited review, according to the paper, noting that “the reductions will be implemented immediately” and could harm the ability of hospitals to deliver patient care and train the state’s future physicians.

The Advocate reported today one reason why a speedy ruling from Caldwell is needed: LSU is said to be nearing lease deals involving one or more hospitals in the seven-hospital southern system connected to the LSU Medical School in New Orleans. Meanwhile, for the three hospitals operated by the LSU Medical School at Shreveport, similar negotiations are underway, although they are being handled by a private foundation which removes any potential talks further from public scrutiny.

 60 Minutes with Alan Levine

Perhaps the most damning development in connection with LSU’s hospitals began to emerge late last week, when officials with Florida-based Health Management Associates (HMA) announced on Thursday that they would hold a Friday press call to defend themselves (free registration may be needed to read the article) against allegations they were expecting to emerge from a segment in Sunday’s CBS New Magazine 60 Minutes.

In the piece which aired last night, CBS said that HMA is under U.S. Justice Department investigation for Medicare fraud. The spokesperson selected by the company to respond on camera to the allegations was none other than Jindal’s former DHH Secretary Alan Levine.

It is worth noting that while Jindal, Levine’s successor at DHH Bruce Greenstein, and the LSU Board of Supervisors work to keep legislators out of the hospital cut decision making process, Jindal engaged Levine in the discussions early in the process.

Did Levine’s recommendations to Jindal reflected the ‘best practices’ he’s learned while at HMA since leaving state government? Did those include aggressive (if not illegal) admission practices as a way for possible private partners to wring every last cent out of any deals with LSU?

What A Difference A Year Makes

A year ago, Bobby Jindal was fresh off of a whopping re-election win. He headed into the Regular Session of the Legislature with unquestioned power. He rammed his education reform package through both houses of the Legislature in nine days, but it’s been down hill since.

A district court ruled his voucher plan unconstitutional on Friday. LSU, which was not on his agenda last year, is the central item on it now, and teeters on the brink of going out of control.

The LSU System’s accreditation has been jeopardized by his meddling, but Jindal has not yet gotten what he wants, so that meddling is likely to intensify rather than ease.

Even though the hospital cuts are unpopular, Jindal is pushing full steam ahead in his effort to rid the state of the public hospital system now being run by LSU. The Governor apparently feels that this must be completed before the major provisions of Affordable Care Act kick in by 2014 so that no attempt to revive the hospitals is possible. That speed is what has raised the accreditation issues with the graduate medical education program.

The Governor appears to have reached the point where he feels encumbered by laws and rules. His frustration is evident; his national reputation rides on implementing his radical public policy experiments in Louisiana. A path forward for him that does not severely damage the LSU System and LSU’s medical schools is not so apparent.

“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

Good stuff. Well said. We just wish that he meant it.

A look at corporate tax policy in the Jindal era shows that Bobby Jindal is, in fact, the Big Business Republican Governor of Louisiana.

According to the 2011 Department of Revenue “Tax Exemption Budget” report, Louisiana exemptions on corporate income taxes cost the state $1.215 Billion in revenue during the Fiscal Year that ended on June 30, 2008. That was the final budget of Governor Kathleen Blanco’s administration.

During the next five years under Jindal’s watch, exemptions on corporate income taxes exploded. Here are the numbers listed by the end month of each fiscal year, based on the 2012 Department of Revenue “Tax Exemption Budget”:

• FY      06/09 Corporate Income Tax Exemptions: $1,296,329,738 (up $81,089,948)
• FY      06/10 Corporate Income Tax Exemptions: $1,314,871,880 (up $99,632,090)
• FY      06/11 Corporate Income Tax Exemptions: $1,459,098,421 (up $243,858,631)
• FY      06/12 Corporate Income Tax Exemptions: $1,488,145,000 (up $272,905,210*)
• FY      06/13 Corporate Income Tax Exemptions: $1,517,908,000 (up $302,668,210*)

* The numbers for the fiscal years ending in 2012 and 2013 are estimates made by the Department of Revenue; the increased amount of exemptions for those years are based on those estimated fiscal year numbers. The figures for the increased in the amount of the exempted taxes are based on the final Blanco year of tax exemptions.

Add it all up, and Louisiana corporate income tax exemptions during the five years of the Jindal era have increased by more than $1 Billion dollars (see graphic above). As the Department of Revenue points out in its Tax Exemption Budget reports, tax exemptions are tax expenditures just as surely as is any line-item in the state budget.

With that thought in mind, where is this generous state taxpayer spending on corporations coming from?

Tax Exemptions and Higher Education Cuts

Governor Jindal and his supporting cast are fond of saying that tough times are at the heart of the state’s budget woes. But, can that really be true when, as Department of Revenue and Louisiana Economic Development admit that the state of Louisiana is giving away $6.9 Billion every year in tax exemptions?

While tax exemptions have exploded during the Jindal years, that loss of revenue has led to cuts in the only parts of the state budget not constitutionally protected — primarily health care and higher education. Health care has gotten a lot of attention recently, but the higher education cuts make clear just how much Jindal’s policies here have been precisely the policies that he says Republicans must abandon in order to be successful; that is, his policies have favored big business at the expense of middle and working class families.

At the same time corporate income tax exemptions were exploding, a series of ‘budget shortfalls’ led Jindal and the Legislature to cut $615,291,008 in state support for higher education funding. Some of those cuts were covered by federal stimulus spending which, of course, Jindal would be loathe to admit since it came from a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress.

Paying for Corporate Welfare With Tuition Increases

But, about $390,000,000 of the money that offset the loss in state funding came by way of higher tuition and fees on students and their families.

Ah, but there’s TOPS to help offset those tuition increases, right? Right, but TOPS is funded out of the General Fund. Who is not paying taxes into the General Fund these days? In the Jindal era, corporations are paying a lot less in taxes than they were five years ago and that loss of revenue is — in higher education — being made up out of the pocketbooks of Louisiana middle and working class families.

The Governor is actually making good political sense with some of his comments about what Republicans need to do to become more popular in the rest of the country. It’s too bad for our state that his new rhetoric does not match up with his record over the past five years.

Jindal’s talk is cheap. But, the price middle and working class families are paying for his policies is steep.

“Judge Tim Kelley’s decision to declare Act 2 — Governor Jindal’s voucher plan — an unconstitutional use of Minimum Foundation Formula Program dollars is a victory for all those who believe that public education is an essential pillar of our democracy and of our prosperity,” Chairwoman Peterson said upon learning of the ruling.

“The state Constitution is very clear that MFP dollars are reserved for the funding of public education and Judge Kelley’s ruling has confirmed that fundamental fact,” Chair Peterson said. “Governor Jindal chose to ignore the Constitution and strong-armed this bill through the Legislature without affording time to consider the bill and its implications. But, what makes the United States unique among nations is our long history of the rule of law and that rule was reaffirmed today by Judge Kelly.”

“There are ways to amend the Louisiana Constitution, but Governor Jindal deliberately sought to short-circuit that process and essentially privatize public education by directing MFP dollars into the coffers of private school operators,” LDP First Vice Chair Shane Riddle said. “Our children, our communities and our state deserve better than radical social experimentation the likes of which the Governor offered in his unconstitutional bill.”