Supply Side Nightmare As Bobby Jindal Pushes Louisiana Into The Fiscal Abyss

Bobby Jindal's Louisiana is facing a 1.6 billion dollar budget shortfall next year, and comparable deficits for the years to come.…

The country is full of examples illustrating the failure of repugican economic policies. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin and Sam Brownback’s Kansas have become poster children for the job killing, budget busting, folly of pursuing supply side economics. Were it not for the damage that wingnut policies inflict upon working families, the Laffer curve would be simply laughable.

Yet, Grover Norquist’s army of tax-hating governors continues to run roughshod over red state budgets promising a fiscal utopia. The fact that the utopia never materializes apparently doesn’t matter. Red state voters re-elect them anyway. The words “tax cut”, like an elixir, cures their fears, even if the people whose taxes are being cut are not the ordinary voters, but rather the ultra wealthy.

Joining Brownback and Walker on the list of governor’s facing serious budget problems, is Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. On Friday, The New York Times reported that Louisiana is anticipating a 1.6 billion dollar budget shortfall for next year, and that the deficit will remain in that range for years to come. When Jindal took office in 2008, the state had a 900 million dollar surplus, and the unemployment rate was just 3.8 percent. Now, in addition to having a gaping budget shortfall, Louisiana’s unemployment rate is at 6.7 percent, above the national average.

Despite the state’s budget woes, Jindal has continued to resist any tax increases. He has depleted the state’s reserve funds to fill budget holes and is still coming up short on the needed revenue. Louisiana has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation, and as a consequence, the state ranks near dead last in quality of education and health care. Nevertheless, the supply side dogmatism of governor Jindal virtually guarantees that the state will continue on its current path to economic perdition.

Jindal is often mentioned as a possible repugican candidate for pretender. However, Jindal’s fiscal mismanagement has made him deeply unpopular even in his own state. A November 2014 Public Policy Polling survey found that only a third of Louisiana voters approved of the governor’s job performance while 56 percent disapproved. Supply side economics has been a nightmare to the residents of Louisiana.

The nation should not be subjected to the same failed policies that have tanked Louisiana’s economy. However, given that so many repugican politicians have embraced the mythology of supply side economics, the repugican cabal will probably nominate a candidate who imitates Jindal’s tax policy, even if they don’t choose Jindal himself. The repugican commitment to tax cuts for high income earners, regardless of the costs, is more a religious delusion than sound fiscal policy. Jindal’s Louisiana demonstrates the folly of supply side economics, but repugicans aren’t paying attention. They are true believers, and let the facts be damned.