LSU Students received another foreboding e-mail last Friday from the chancellor’s office concerning the budget cuts. A quote from that e-mail:”While we have yet to receive specifics, it is clear that the anticipated budget adjustment will, absent other funding sources, have dramatically negative impacts on our students, faculty, staff, campus, and all others we serve.”We’re not used to hearing that kind of stark language in our broadcast e-mails.The e-mail says the LSU System is preparing to deal with cuts of up to a staggering 31.6 percent in state funding.That is, to put it lightly, absurd.Why is the state cutting so much of the System’s funding?Granted, the economy is slowing, and Louisiana has to deal with massively shrinking oil revenues. But surely the government isn’t cutting such a huge percentage of budgets across the board.By all estimates, Louisiana’s higher education and health care programs will take the brunt of budget cuts now that the surplus Jindal inherited — and promptly used to issue tax cuts, I might add — has turned into a deficit of about $341 million. The outrageous part of the whole operation isn’t the huge amount that needs to be cut. Times are hard, so cuts are inevitable. The outrageous part is the target of the cuts.Out of $341 million in cuts, higher education officials must “trim” $109 million. Health care officials have to “trim” $160 million. You have to do that kind of trimming with a chainsaw.For those of you keeping score at home, health care and higher education alone account for $269 million of the cuts, leaving a mere $72 million dollars left to cut — among the entire rest of the budget.It’s hard to explain just how wrong this is without using some very choice expletives.To be fair to Jindal and the Legislature, they didn’t exactly design it this way. Health care and higher education are always hardest hit from budget cuts because the state constitution is rigged that way.In the past, legislators have carefully placed restrictions on how to cut the state budget. Certain programs have protections placed on them — usually constitutionally mandated — that prevent the governor or the Legislature from significantly lowering the amount of funds being pumped into them. Also, in the arcane, labyrinthine language of the law, certain programs draw funds from dedicated revenue sources, instead of the general budget. For example, certain taxes are devoted to specific programs. The end result is when the state falls on hard times, it’s difficult or impossible to limit the funds being sent to those programs.In theory, this is to protect “important” programs from being tampered with. But over the years, so many programs have been deemed “important” that only — you guessed it — higher education and health care are deemed “unimportant.”That’s right, college students, your education is one of two things the state government deals with that is “unimportant.” The other is making sure our state’s citizens have access to modern medicine.This is patently ridiculous.It’s in our interest as Louisianians, and especially as students, that these discrepancies be rectified. Short-changing us — the state’s future citizens and leaders — is as short-sighted as it is unfair. Jindal should call a special emergency session, where he and the Legislature remove these unfair protections, so the pain of downsizing is spread out evenly — and fairly.—- Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]