My math skills must have dwindled with age … I cannot wrap my head around our elected officials’ reasoning. Reading Thursday’s piece on the Chamber’s event, I find it hard to believe what was said went unchallenged. Had I attended (out of town), I would have questioned the following.

First, State Rep. Taylor Barras promised that all the capital outlay items cut to (finally! Remember the fiscal cliff fiasco?) Balance the budget will be put back on the list in September. (He implies they were only a message sent to him … so all they do is play games in Baton Rouge?) Then State Rep. Blake Miguez is so optimistic about additional revenue from the Supreme Court Legislation (?) regarding taxing internet sales that we can eliminate the tax they did pass (again, to balance the budget!). Ross Perot called this kind of thinking “VooDoo Economics.

Barras did remember that Obamacare only paid the first few years tab with federal dollars. Then it shifts to the state (2021) … There’s a fiscal cliff around the corner that nobody seems to be planning for if they’re proposing cutting taxes and restoring expense items.

On Sunday, the Opinion page included a piece by James Broussard pushing back at the same three legislators for promoting a change to the state retirement system for teachers. It’s his job (president of the Iberia Retired Teachers Association) to fight for his flock, just as, so it appears, the legislators job to say and do things that keeps their flock from wandering off. Let’s just keep playing “kick the can down the road” … that strategy seems to work(?).

 

Richard Phillips    

New Iberia