Louisianians are less confident the state is headed in the right direction now than they were in 2010, according to a study conducted by the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Public Policy Research Lab.
Kirby Goidel, a mass communication and political science professor and the lab’s director, unveiled the study’s findings Monday at the Baton Rouge Press Club.
The Louisiana survey, which the lab has conducted annually since 2007, indicates 41.1 percent of Louisianians believe the state is headed in the right direction.
That’s down about seven percentage points from 2010’s 47.5 percent, and down almost 10 points from the survey’s high-water mark in 2008.
Goidel said the decline was likely a result of the economy.
The study indicates the decline mostly occurred among white respondents, whose confidence dropped from 51 percent in 2010 to 42 percent this year. 
The study also looked at public perceptions of the state’s $1.6 billion budget crisis. Forty-six percent of Louisiana residents favor filling the state’s budget gap through some combination of spending cuts and tax increases, down five points from 51 percent in 2010; 44 percent prefer addressing the gap only with spending cuts, up three points from 41 percent in 2011.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget, released last week, relies on spending cuts to fix the deficit. Jindal has vowed to veto any tax increases that come across his desk.
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Goidel said the general theory of cutting government is popular, but those numbers drop when it comes to cuts of specific programs.
“People are pro-cutting, but they don’t want to cut anything,” he said.
Many voters are also willing to see increased taxes to fix the budget deficit. Fifty-nine percent of respondents, for example, said they would support a temporary reinstatement of the Stelly Tax Plan. Jindal and the Legislature repealed the tax proposal in 2008, leading to reduced tax revenue.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said it was a bad idea to repeal the plan because it cost state tax revenue and contributed to the budget shortfall.
The report indicates many Louisianians are concerned that continued budget cuts to higher education will hurt the state in the long run, and many are willing to pay to stop the damage.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said they would like to see higher education spared further budget cuts. Sixty-one percent also said they would support income tax increases if all of that revenue went to higher education.
Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed said they would support allowing colleges to raise tuition to offset cuts, and 41 percent said they would not support such raises.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]