Butchering Our Future

BusinessReport.com

Butchering our future

By JR Ball

Monday, February 9, 2009

Bobby Jindal repeatedly has told us the major priorities of this state—as well as his 1-year-old administration—are, in no particular order, 1] improving the quality and funding of higher education, including university-affiliated research facilities like Pennington Biomedical, 2] building the foundation for and growing a knowledge-based economy, and 3] stemming the 20-plus year mass exodus of our most educated and most talented young people.

The three are inescapably linked, and there’s no debate that all must happen [along with improving our failing K-12 public education system) if Louisiana is to have any hope of being competitive in a fast-changing global economy.

How big a role this state can realistically play on the world’s economic stage is a matter of debate. What’s certain, however, is our failure to reverse decades of neglect, denial and ambivalence toward higher education, a knowledge-based economy and retaining and attracting highly educated young people will lead to an escalation in already alarming poverty numbers and almost complete economic irrelevance. In short, Louisiana becomes even more of a welfare state than it is today.

Jindal, the wunderkind governor who many believe is destined to become president, knows this; heck, he’s even said it, albeit in a kinder, gentler, politically correct way.

So why doesn’t Jindal appear more concerned about the academic Armageddon that will play out if the state’s colleges and universities are forced to take a $212 million to $382 million budget hit?

Maybe he is as nervous as an LSU fan on National Signing Day, but his cool, and an ample supply of Dry Idea deodorant, never lets us see him sweat.

Nevertheless, anyone and everyone who sucks the polluted air in this state ought to be screaming in budgetary outrage.

How does the Jindal administration expect LSU to retain its nascent Tier 1 status if the system has to absorb a $175 million cut, $60.2 million coming at LSU’s Baton Rouge campus?

Granted, those are worst-case numbers and with the state facing a $2 billion shortfall every institution has to accept some cuts, but why are LSU and higher education getting butchered?

If the answer is, “There’s no choice, almost everything else in the budget is Constitutionally protected,” then what’s being done to start “un-protecting” some things? If Jindal won’t call a Constitutional convention, who, other than Rep. Franklin Foil and his gang of legislative allies, is actually working on something to right this decades-long wrong?

Who knows, maybe Jindal is counting on a plan he doesn’t support—President Barack Obama’s spending-spree-disguised-as-a-stimulus-plan—to solve the state’s looming fiscal crisis? Louisiana and its local governments, after all, are in line for as much as $3.1 billion.

Jindal says improving higher education, building a knowledge-based economy, and retaining and attracting smart young people is a top priority. OK, well what’s the plan? Where’s the strategic vision? Jindal is a McKinsey alum and lover of bullet-point plans, so where’s the one addressing this state’s long-term economic life?

On the same day LSU President John Lombardi was releasing an ominous 100-page worst-case scenario [detailing 2,000 layoffs, losses of program accreditation and the gutting of almost everything that doesn’t serve the system’s core academic mission], Jindal was in North Carolina bemoaning the woes of the national Republican Party and talking about family values. The next day there was still no plan, but the governor was in Lafayette and Monroe detailing his plans to crack down on sex offenders in the upcoming legislative session.

Who’s not for cracking down on sex offenders—other than sex offenders—but I’m thinking the governor ought to give some attention to a little something I like to call our economic future.

Without question, the flagship university’s dire budget reduction plan assumes every worst-case scenario and is one-part reality, one-part public relations and two-parts a shot across the administration’s bow. Still, very real cuts are coming and the damage to this state’s long-term economic growth could be devastating.

Jindal is a smart guy, so maybe he knows something the rest of us non-Ivy League educated folks don’t? If so, I’m saying it’s time for Jindal to give the rest of us a sneak peak at his brilliance.

Our future depends on it.