The Advocate reported Friday Louisiana currently has the worst unemployment rate in the South and the fifth worst in the country.
Why? Because between meandering around the streets of Baton Rouge on his Harley-Davidson and striking down the law that required him to wear a helmet, Gov. Foster has found no time for the people of Louisiana.
What has he done? Nothing. Another eight years wasted. Louisiana is still on the bottom of every good list and the top of every bad one.
We’re the worst in education, cancer rates, obesity, and now unemployment. The list goes on and on.
Louisiana has a plethora of resources. Surely, Foster could have found a way to utilize them. Instead, he went to law school. Louisiana already has more lawyers per capita than any other state in the country. Certainly Foster’s new found legal knowledge wasn’t the answer to Louisiana’s problems.
Eight years ago he put on a welder’s hat and promised he would stand up for the interests of the working people of this state. That was a sham of Edwin Edwards proportions. The grandson of a former governor and a lifelong millionaire, Foster has never been a blue-collar worker, and judging his involvement in recruiting industry to Louisiana, or lack thereof, he has never cared about the people of this state.
Louisiana needs jobs desperately. Outward migration is at an all time high. For many college graduates, there are simply no jobs in their field to be had here, much less lower-paying ones. Our state is quickly becoming an intellectual wasteland.
If the situation doesn’t change soon, we’ll lose another congressional seat.
It’s time for a change. When going into the voting booth next week, please think about Louisiana’s economic problems. We desperately need a governor that will change the economic malignance here.
Education needs to improve drastically. If an educated workforce doesn’t exist here, solid companies won’t come. At the same time, we can’t expect our students to obtain knowledge through testing. Rather testing should simply be an indicator of our improvement, not a pseudo-eureka answer to illiteracy. With improvements in education our state will surely see economic improvement.
Millions of barrels of oil come through Louisiana each year. Though processing this oil has detrimental effects on the health of Louisiana’s residents and the balance of Louisiana’s ecosystem, Louisiana only receives indirect monetary compensation for these adverse effects. Let’s tax the hell out of foreign oil and finally be directly compensated for all the harm it causes.
Homestead exemption is a sacred cow in Louisiana, but changes are necessary. To obtain more tax dollars to improve education here, assessments on properties should be more fairly rendered. To be reelected many assessors must keep assessments at false levels. A universal system of assessments is needed to keep property taxes fair across the state.
The Health and Education departments shouldn’t always be the first departments hit by a deficit. Cutting grandma or cutting lil’ Johnny shouldn’t be a decision lawmakers have to make year after year.
Louisiana has the highest insurance rates in the country. Runaway juries, insurance fraud, and corporate greed are all issues that need to be addressed by our next governor and insurance commissioner.
These are just a few of my opinions. Regardless, please keep these issues in mind when voting on the fourth. Please vote for the candidate, whomever you think it to be, who will resurrect the economy of Louisiana.