Recently Governor Bobby Jindal was brought to task by J. Hudson, president of the LSU student body. Governor Jindal was in New Hampshire keynoting a fund raiser for yet another Republican fund raiser. Hudson was told repeatedly by Jindal’s staff that he had a busy schedule. Too busy in fact to meet and discuss the massive educational cuts likely to occur in higher education with the student body president of the largest university in Louisiana.

As it turns out, Hudson wasn’t so easily dissuaded. His approach was through a letter to the New Hampshire Keene Sentinel telling its readers “Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is spending more time in your state than the one he was elected to represent. I read almost daily about his trips to other states, which makes me believe that he is more interested in running for president than running the state of Louisiana.”

On Monday Jindal, through his mouth piece, Kyle Plotkin,explained “The Governor has spent over 90 percent of the days since taking office in Louisiana, traveling to every parish multiple times. It’s good for Louisiana for the Governor to share with business and other leaders across the country our success in outperforming the national economy.”

Well let’s see humble voters, do we all feel like we are out performing the national economy? Does this mean the national economy sucks, so Louisiana sucks less? Plotkin, the mouth piece explains it as follows: “The reality though is that higher education officials are not delivering the value our students deserve. That’s why we’ve encouraged higher education administrative officials to prioritize reductions so that they come mainly from administrative overhead, not teaching and research.”

Wow, Louisiana higher education not delivering value! Why was it when just a little over two years while throwing around the surplus funds from former Governor Blanco Jindal gave higher education massive increases in funding? Perhaps the mouth piece, or when Jindal comes back in town this Monday from yet another out of state Republican fund raiser they can explain this rapid deterioration of higher education in Louisiana. Worthy of massive raises two years ago, now worth of $62 million in cuts, poor education or poor leadership? Maybe if our governor stayed around long enough for meaningful discourse these issues could be addressed!

Let’s get real here. Jindal’s chance for being the Republican nominee is about as great as Peewee Herman coming back on a children’s daytime fun show. In his national debut he embarrassed the Republican Party, the voters of Louisiana, and himself. If the truth be told, remember this is politics, Republicans at the national level have no confidence whatsoever in Jindal. He had his chance, he blew it, time to move on. Jindal’s pathetic attempt to curry favor with the national Republican party is an embarrassment to Jindal and to all of us in Louisiana.

Wake-up Governor Jindal, take your medicine, lick your wounds and come back home and show us and the nation you can make a difference. You want a challenge? You don’t have to go to Washington to find challenges. Look in your own backyard. If you don’t start taking care of the details, you won’t be around next term for a second chance. Political graveyards are full of politicians with potential and broken promises. While you’re out of town raising funds for others, there’s lots of people working on your headstone here in Louisiana.

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Thankfully Mitch Landrieu didn’t pick up any bad habits from Bobby Jindal while in Baton Rouge. Mitch, unlike Bobby understands the days of ’smoke & mirrors’ to solve our financial woes in the city and state are long gone. Bobby in his first year as governor inherited a surplus of almost a billion dollars. Fiscal conservative that he is, in his first year Bobby added 3,200 employees to the state payroll, increased the wages of state employees by over $278 million, and tried to sign off on huge legislative salary increases until we the voters got involved. Drunken sailors don’t throw around money like Bobby did in his first year in office.

Fast forward to 2010 and the ‘mirror’ is broken! All the shenanigans used to balance the 2010/11 state budget are coming home to rest. The Budget process was fairly simple – over estimate revenues, under estimate expenses, the Budget is balanced and politicians can get through the November elections. Back to the broken mirror – we’ve got to look at the Budget and ‘fess up’ for the first of the year. Now the facts: in all likelihood $200 million will have to be paid back to the Rainy Day fund; there’s a $108 million short fall from the 2009/10  Budget, and $180 million healthcare overages for the first six months of this Budget year will have to be addressed That’s before any other short falls in revenue or unexpected expenses. 

Hello! This means the state will have 6 months to cover an approximate $488 million deficit. Remember Bobby can’t raise fees or taxes – if he did, what would that do to his aspirations for a house on the Potomac? Rumor has it his plans were pretty simple: 1. Get Jay Dardenne elected as Lt. Governor, 2. Resign, let Dardenne become governor (another ‘good ole La boy trick), 3. Bobby takes over as Chairman of the Republican Party (they’ve been trying to can Michael Steele for awhile)’ and 4. Bobby avoids blame for the Louisiana fiscal nightmare that’s coming next Spring and for the 2011/12 Budget. Remember Bobby gave the job to Dardenne, so Jay can’t bite the hand that fed him! Dardenne would become the proverbial ’scape goat’ accepting responsibility for the state’s problems. Bobby gets a free pass, heads to Washington to rebuild has ‘Peewee Herman’ image and gets ready for the next presidential election.

But the best laid plans of ‘mice & men’ don’t always work out! A Democratic new comer, Caroline Fayard has put a fly in the ointment. Let’s suppose the voters of Louisiana are really fed up with incumbents. What would happen if Ms. Fayard actually won the Lt. Governor’s race? Bobby couldn’t quit and turn the office over to a Democrat, that would be suicide for him with the Republican Party. He would actually have to stay home, quit chasing around the country doing fund raiders for himself and others, and finally face up to the harsh fiscal realities facing the state.

I’m a fiscally conservative Independent. I’m not advocating raising fees or taxes. But I am for addressing our problems head on, making the hard decisions that will allow us to move forward. When Mike Foster first hired Bobby he used many superlatives to describe him including ‘whiz kid, Rhodes Scholar, genius, etc.’ We the voters of Louisiana used these same descriptions when we elected him. His potential was unbelievable. But in the words of our ex-Saints coach Jim Mora when asked why he wasn’t playing the rookies with all their potential, Mora literally spat at the reporter and responded ‘Potential…Potential, do you even know what that means? Potential means you ain’t never done it! 

Well for the voters of Louisiana that elected Bobby based on his ‘Potential,’ it’s time for him to stay home and Just Do It! Our state, our families and future generations deserve it. 

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Rocked by Hurricane Katrina, corruption, and “good ole boy” politics, Louisiana elected Governor-elect Bobby Jindal in 2007. He promised change in the way Louisiana politics had historically been run. Governor Jindal’s platform promised ethics, accountability, fairness, and an open government truly transparent to the voters of Louisiana.  The voters of Louisiana overwhelmingly voted for and elected him based on these promises. As voters we were excited about the changes our new governor would produce. We would finally have an ambassador of the people in Baton Rouge. Our new governor would be focused on our needs rather than those of big government and big business.

It’s now Spring 2009 and time for the Louisiana legislature to meet. Our dreams for change have somehow turned to reality. It’s the reality that campaign promises are just that, promises. Promises that lost their way once exposed to the realities of government in Louisiana. Realities, if not addressed will crush our dreams of a new Louisiana.

As the 2009 Louisiana legislative session opens, rather than setting a tone for a new Louisiana, it looks like the same old broken down contraption. The session will be nothing more than a crisis driven fire-drill. Louisiana is facing an almost $2 billion 2009 budget shortfall. To solve the deficit problem our legislators do what they’ve always done: Cut costs, cut employees, reduce funding for healthcare and education. Our legislators assure us with these changes Louisiana will be a better place to live. From 2000 – 2008, Louisiana had a net loss of 325,395 residents. It is obvious those residents that left the state didn’t share this same level confidence.

Now is a time when our state desperately needs leadership. The type of leadership we thought we elected last term. We all know Governor Jindal has the ability to lead the charge to a better Louisiana. This is a time for him to step forward and become the “Boy Wonder” we elected. As voters, we’re tired of being seen as the “half-empty” state, when in reality we have unlimited potential. Recovery in the State of Louisiana is not all about deficits, layoffs and cuts to vital areas such as healthcare and education. It’s all about economic recovery. Governor Jindal if you don’t step forward now, we’ll just fall into the same old politics of Louisiana.

Congress understands, businesses understand, and most importantly the citizens of Louisiana understand – we are in an economic crisis and immediate help is desperately essential. President Obama’s final economic stimulus package probably wasn’t what he envisioned. Even his pundits agree that when implemented it will provide desperately needed money to kick-start our economy. Spreading out money that will be spent is what economists call increasing the “volatility of the dollar.” In other words the dollar has to keep changing hands. When its changing hands, jobs are created, taxes are generated, and good things begin to happen. Everyone benefits.

We need Governor Bobby Jindal to share this same sense of urgency for economic recovery. As Louisiana’s legislative session begins, Governor Jindal wants to talk through the use of his renowned “bulleted list” of things he hopes to accomplish. The governor’s bulleted items include: reducing the size and improve the efficiency of government, creating another “new commission” to provide leadership in restructuring state institutions and programs, balancing the budget, and doing all of this with a new refreshingly open transparency. Where’s the talk about jobs, training, help to our state’s businesses. Where are the plans for economic recovery?

Hello Governor! The ship is sinking and you are busy planning the next cruise! You’re attempting to fix an old broken down boat. Making this junk more efficient and effective is a waste of time.  Pardon our naiveté, but exactly how does this stimulate the economy in the short-term? How does it provide a sense of security and optimism for the average citizen of Louisiana? Exactly which part of this gives us the “warm & fuzzy” feeling of economic security we yearn for? Does this give us the sense of relief that our jobs are secure? We don’t have the luxury of thinking long-term right now.  We’re worried about today and tomorrow. We need immediate help.

Senator Mary Landrieu recently announced the closure of the Weyerhaeuser Co. plants in Simsboro and Dodson. She indicated another 200 people in northern Louisiana could be without jobs in the near future. By Senator Landrieu’s estimation as many as 3,000 jobs had the potential to be lost in the north and central parts of the state. So Governor Jindal, as you head to Boston for your next presidential gig, please find a little time on the plane ride to sketch out an economic recovery plan for Louisiana. This economic plan should not just include New Orleans and Baton Rouge but in all parts of the state. Everyone in the state needs help.

Governor Jindal it’s time to stop the rhetoric and get to work on economy in Louisiana. If you want national front-page grapping attention then it’s time to do the things in Louisiana that will get their attention. Let them talk about our cranes in the sky and our shovels in the dirt. Let them envy economic development activities. Show them how you can drive collaboration with the legislature and local officials to achieve unbelievable accomplishments. Understand that if you don’t have a success story in Louisiana, then you don’t have a presidential launching pad in 2012!

Governor Jindal, we want you to have national fame and fortune. We want you to be the Boy Wonder that changed Louisiana for the better. We want the whole world talking about. That’s why we elected you. We believed that you could do the things to turn our beloved state around. We all ask you delay your national agenda, focus on our needs and show the citizens of Louisiana that you are indeed the governor we elected. Show the leadership the state so desperately needs. Take care of this economic crisis and your higher aspirations will all take care of themselves. We’ve got millions of dollars left-over from Katrina, HUD in New Orleans, and the surplus from last year’s budget. Combine those funds with President Obama’s stimulus package and together let’s get Louisiana moving. The jobs, families, and future of Louisiana are in your hands. Please don’t disappoint us.

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As a college professor, I teach primarily graduating seniors and graduate students. In my first class each semester I have students introduce themselves, tell the class where they are from, their major, and finally since graduation is just around the corner, “What will they do when they grow up?” While there are a few nervous chuckles, the underlying fact is rather frightening for everyone concerned, they really don’t know!

It is amazing how few have a plan for their future. But what they all have in common is anger and fear! They’re “angry” that they have spent four years (often more)of their lives, gone to class, studied, and done the right things to get their degrees. Now that it’s finally done, there aren’t any opportunities available in Louisiana that will reward them for their hard work. They “fear” that they will graduate and have to answer well-meaning family and friends when asked the invariable question, “Congratulations on your graduation, now what are your plans.”

This is my 8^th year a ULL and I spent over 5 years at UNO. For my 13 years at Louisiana universities (I spent 5 years out of state) I’ve heard this same story over and over! Actually twice a year, once from the Fall graduates and again from the Spring graduates. Most of you probably have sons, daughters, family or friends who have a loved one graduating from college either this semester or somewhere in the future. Whether or not these graduates and soon to be graduates tell you, they all have this same fear. From their perspectives they have two choices: take a job in Louisiana that pays considerably less or move to Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, or even Mississippi. Once they leave the state and establish new friends, start families at their new homes, and become secure in their jobs, the facts are clear, they won’t ever come back.

We as parents also feel a sense of failure. We promised them that if they would go to school, do the work, get the degree, a wonderful future would be there for their taking. We’ve made the sacrifices, they’ve made the sacrifices, and we are all faced with the fact – the great American dream for the educated in Louisiana has failed! The alternatives aren’t very good for either the parents or the kids. We don’t want them to move back home and they don’t want to move back home, but the move becomes a reality. Without a job they can’t afford health insurance or the payment on their student loans. So the financial tension increases for the entire family. Finally, out of frustration, they take a job far beneath their “presumed” qualifications. The jobs they are “forced to take” offers little future, little satisfaction, and a great deal of frustration.

So where did “We” go wrong? Why aren’t there jobs here? Who do we blame? Quite frankly, there is a direct correlation between opportunities and the reputation of our state. How many of us, based on the state’s reputation would move to Louisiana if we weren’t already here? How many of your friends from out of state have called and asked “What in the world is going on down there?” Our reputation for crime, corruption, and “good ole boy” politics has finally caught up with us. When companies stop coming and others begin to leave they take their jobs and ultimately our children with them.

My next three articles will be an expose titled “Saving Our Kids.” One will discuss Education, the second will discuss Economic Development and the third and final will discuss Government. I will describe in detail the steps that can be taken in each of these three areas to drive the changes necessary to keep our kids home and bring back those who have left.

ron g. cheek is a college professor and syndicated columnist. You comments are welcome at rongcheek.com

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