Louisiana, Baton Rouge governments apparently have more than enough money

The next time some state legislator or Metro Council member starts whining about the angst associated with funding cuts or the need for more taxpayer money, please do me a favor and tell that official to sit down and shut up.

Seriously, if fiscal times are so tough for the state and local governments that call Baton Rouge home, then why are both willingly and knowingly leaving gobs of green sitting on the table?

Most of us in Louisiana have been brainwashed into believing our state government is going through something of a fiscal crisis, which is why, we're told, the budget regularly gets rejiggered, important programs get cut, roads don't get built and higher education gets gutted. No doubt, what with all the tax breaks, corporate welfare programs and declining revenues -- despite repeatedly being told the Louisiana economy is really doing well (until it's convenient for the narrative to be that we're coming out of a great recession) -- fiscal times are tough in the land of the Louisiana miracle.

But how messy can the state's financial house truly be when government officials show pretty much zero interest in collecting more than $2 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties? That's $2 billion -- with a "b" -- owed to state coffers. We're having a conniption over a little more than $2 million doled out to noncompliant NGOs, yet we don't care about $2 billion in delinquent IOUs unless those chits can be used as part of some accounting gimmick to balance the state's out-of-whack budget? Really?

Local government officials in Baton Rouge, perhaps in honor of our alleged French heritage, have adopted an equally laissez-faire philosophy toward the concept of debt collection. It seems city-parish leaders, according to a news media report, have no interest in collecting between $6.9 million and $9 million in unpaid red-light tickets. Given that the city-parish gets to keep more than half of whatever it collects from the red-light program, we can only conclude that Mayor Kip Holden and the Metro Council have no use for some $4 million dollars. And with Baton Rouge officials essentially declaring they could not care less about these dollars, look for the figure to skyrocket. Knowing this tidbit, only an idiot will now pay the $117 fine, or the $35 late fee, when the ducat arrives in the mail.

More at http://www.nola.com/opinions/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2013/09/louisiana_baton_rouge_governme.html#incart_river_default .

[font color=green]Starve the beast--Repuklican mantra for the 21st century.[/font]