Thursday, April 10, 2008

Louisiana: Stupid is as stupid cuts

If you want to cut a state budget, the logical place for a chop job would be all the places you can least afford it, right?

Only if you're a legislator in Louisiana.


SOME OF THE STUPIDEST members of the Stupid Party -- which, to tell the truth, could be either one in the Gret Stet -- plan to slash higher education and health care budgets to save a lousy $250 million out of a $30-plus billion spending blueprint. This in one of the stupidest and sickest states in the nation.

Which goes a long way toward explaining a lot of things, actually.

The Times-Picayune reports:
Gov. Bobby Jindal's $30.1 billion budget plan is facing friendly fire from his allies in the state House of Representatives, who are proposing to save up to $250 million by cutting planned spending on higher education, health care and other priorities.

House Speaker Jim Tucker said the goal is to reduce the state's reliance on non-recurring money to pay for ongoing programs in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Tucker, R-Algiers, said doing so perpetuates spending policies that Republicans frequently criticized under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco. "It's got a number of members very concerned (because) they didn't get elected to continue the same-old, same-old," Tucker said.
DEAR JIMBO, I know you may not have gotten the memo, but when you get elected on an anti-same-old, same-old platform, that DOES NOT mean people want you to be an even bigger dumbass than "Mee Maw" Blanco was. When a state lags horribly behind the rest of the nation in education and health care, you don't go around crippling education and health care.

At least if you have a problem with the people around you being disproportionately ill-educated and just plain ill.

A spokesman for the Louisiana State University System said it would mean a $36.6 million cut, and that individual campuses are in the process of combing through their various programs to decide where to trim.

"The impact would be dramatic, if enacted," LSU System spokesman Charles Zewe said.
IMPACT. DRAMATIC. That for a university system that isn't even funded to the Southern regional average. I wonder what the state's GOP legislators plan for the health-care system?

Hospitals with no doctors?

Wheelchairs with no wheels?

Now, if cut $250 million they must, there are ways to do it without sacrificing, say, excellence in education or badly-needed facility upkeep.

Trouble is, the Louisiana Legislature isn't even close to dreaming of having the cojones to pare back the ridiculous number of public universities for a state of 4.2 million people and emptying out fast.

The state, of course, needs the LSU system. And it needs LSU-Baton Rouge as its "flagship" university -- the pre-eminent academic and research institution.

Excellence matters. I know Louisiana has little experience with excellence, but trust me on this. Other states "get it" -- even if many Louisianians don't.

BUT DOES LOUISIANA need Nicholls State University an hour's drive from the University of New Orleans? Does it need McNeese State a hour down the interstate from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette?

Couldn't Southeastern Louisiana University be changed into a smallish liberal-arts college? Couldn't LSU-Alexandria and LSU-Eunice be integrated into the state's fledgling community-college system?

Should the all-but-destroyed Southern University-New Orleans have been reopened after Katrina? Should not the historically struggling historically black school now be folded into UNO or closed altogether?

Which brings us to the 800-kiloton nuclear elephant in the room.

CAN LOUISIANA really afford, both financially and sociologically -- for all intents and purposes -- one state-university system for white people and another for African-Americans?

What, in a larger sense, does this really say to a state where not only isn't the past really past, but neither is Jim Crow?

I understand the rationale for historically black colleges. I do. Likewise, I understand their heroic and proud history.

And I don't think that history ought to be ignored or these universities' role completely relegated to the landfill of days gone by.

That said, the sheer duplication of facilities and programs between "white" and "black" institutions -- usually right next door to one another -- is insane, not to mention increasingly unaffordable on any number of levels.

So here's a modest proposal.

Because it just isn't feasible, culturally or politically, to kill off the oldest such school, Southern University, it stays as is. Indeed, it possibly could be enhanced with some of the resources of closed "white" schools.

On the other hand, it doesn't need a law school. Not unless someone could come up with some desperately needed, specialized niche it might fill -- being, as it is, right under the nose of the much larger and much better law school at LSU.

That leaves Grambling State University, another school that has a proud history but has suffered from terrible leadership in recent times. Grambling, just a short drive down the road from Louisiana Tech in Ruston.

How. In. The. World. Do. You. Objectively. Justify. That?

My solution: Merge 'em . . . probably on the present Louisiana Tech campus. But call the combined institution Grambling State University and commemorate the proud role that school played in educating a people once deliberately cut off from the "mainstream" of public life.

That leaves LSU-Shreveport and Northwestern State as the last candidates for major realignment. I don't see how you can justify the existence of both.

So, how about a compromise? LSU-Shreveport could merge with Northwestern State in Natchitoches, where the new school would remain. It would be brought into the LSU System, would be renamed the University of Northwestern Louisiana and would have a satellite campus in Shreveport.

THAT'S HOW you save money without needlessly sacrificing infrastructure or educational excellence. It's not brain surgery.

It does, however, require a few things not usually associated with my home state's governing class -- political will, intestinal fortitude . . . and wisdom.

Good luck, Louisiana. You'll need it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

All of these things are good ideas that will never see the light of day between the Sabine and the Mississippi. The Jindal administration has shown itself as a creature of political expediency, duplicity, and hypocrisy. They are just playing ball with the good ole boys.

I think I'm about done with political blogging. Politics have become purely depressing.

James H said...

As a graduate of LA Tech I can tell you that no on eos going to be hip to changing the name to Grambling state


There has been some thought of putting LSUS with LOuisiana Tech and perhaps even bringing in the medical school under its umbrella.