Jindal's lack of leadership a major disappointment

Louisiana faces a $1.6 billion budget shortfall. That likely did not need to happen but could only have been avoided with serious leadership from the governor.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's lack of leadership is a major disappointment, particularly for someone like me who voted for him twice. When the windfall of federal funds from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita predictably subsided, the governor consistently used one-time funds for recurring expenses. At some point, those funds had to run out.

Solid, effective leadership would have invited open discussions with state leaders and informed citizens to weigh in on difficult decisions and solutions to the state's unwieldy and inconsistent system of taxes, tax credits, exemptions and economic development bonuses. Jindal should have either proposed restructuring of state government and its finances or proposed cuts in state government other than higher education and healthcare. He did neither.

Instead, he cut higher education by nearly a billion dollars. He has seemed to care only that he stick to a "no new taxes" pledge propounded by an out-of-state group that he obviously believes will be influential in his quixotic presidential campaign.

Read more: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/05/17/jindals-lack-leadership-major-disappointment/27511775/