Student Government President J Hudson and Vice President Dani Borel picked the brains of two state representatives about Gov. Jindal and budget cuts to higher education at a Monday meeting.
Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, and Rep. Patricia Haynes Smith, D-Baton Rouge, joined the student leaders in the Acadian Room of the Student Union for a far-reaching discussion including constitutional amendments, changes to TOPS, capital outlay funding and the state budget.
Both representatives sit on the House Education Committee.
Jindal came up often in the conversation, almost always in a negative context.
“Right now we have a governor who is not proposing solutions,” Edwards said.
Edwards praised Hudson for the letters he sent to newspapers where Jindal has traveled imploring the governor to return to Louisiana and fix the higher education budget crisis.
“From what I can gather, you’re having trouble talking with Gov. Jindal,” Edwards said wryly. “We don’t really get a lot of information out of him either.”
Edwards said Jindal’s recent comments saying higher education officials aren’t providing students the value they deserve are a “sleight of hand” meant to distract from the drastic budget cuts.
Hudson and Borel questioned the two on a series of possible fixes to the higher education budget problems, especially constitutional ones.
“It seems the only way to protect higher ed except a Band-Aid is a constitutional change,” Hudson said.
The Louisiana budget currently includes many constitutionally protected programs. Because those programs can’t be cut, higher education and health care bear a disproportionate brunt of the cuts.
Edwards and Smith said it would be difficult to convene a constitutional convention necessary to make such changes because of protest by those working under protected programs.
“It’s difficult because a lot of these programs have built-in constituencies,” Edwards said.
Both legislators said a better solution was to remove statutory dedications on programs, which can be removed more easily during the next session.
Edwards said Jindal had the opportunity to make cuts across the board once the general fund was cut by 0.7 percent.
“Half of the cuts we made last week could have come from elsewhere,” he said. “The governor chose to allow the cuts to fall disproportionately on higher education.
Smith criticized Jindal for his blanket refusal to raise taxes.
“If the citizens of the state make a statement, that might change his mind,” she said. “His stance now will mean the demise of so much.”
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]