CenLamar | Est. 2006

On Tuesday afternoon, as legislators grappled with how best to solve Louisiana’s current $957 million budget shortfall and next year’s projected $2 billion shortfall, State Treasurer (and U.S. Senate candidate) John Kennedy continued his campaign to convince anyone who will listen that Louisiana “has a spending problem and not a revenue problem,” appearing as a guest on WWL’s Garland Robinette’s radio show. Last week, in his statewide “Republican response” to Gov. Edwards’ televised primetime speech on the budget crisis, Kennedy claimed to have outlined 400 ways to cut spending and solve the shortfalls without increasing taxes. But critically, he didn’t reveal that his 400-point plan…

On Monday morning, the first full day of the Louisiana legislative special session, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne announced more bad news: The current year’s fiscal deficit wasn’t $940 million; it was actually $957 million, due to $17 million in FEMA money from Hurricane Gustav that is still outstanding. A few hours later, the president of the University of Louisiana system said that Nicholls State may have to close temporarily for two weeks during the spring semester, even under a “best case budget scenario.” And at the end of the day, the Plaquemines Parish Public Defenders Office announced it’d be…

On Sunday, in his opening address to the special session of the Louisiana legislature, Gov. John Bel Edwards pulled no punches, urging lawmakers to work with him in order to solve the largest budgetary crisis in state history and answering his critics, particularly State Treasurer John Kennedy, head on. It was, without question, the most impressive and compelling speech of his political career, weaving in real-life stories about the consequences of inaction, like a little boy named Braden who suffers from Leigh Disease and relies on the New Opportunity Waiver program for health care; both he and his mother were in…