Lawmakers define float while budget sinks

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

Rep. Bubba Chaney has filed House Bill 339 which declares the pirogue as the “Official State Vessel.”

However, good government advocate C.B. Forgotston noted to this newspaper, “Webster’s Dictionary defines a ‘pirogue’ as a boat like a canoe and defines a ‘vessel’ as a watercraft bigger than a rowboat. Anyone familiar with pirogues and rowboats knows that pirogues are much smaller. Not only is the passage of such legislation a waste of the taxpayers’ money, but serves to highlight the poor education of our elected officials.”

The tragedy of the distraction, Forgotston emphasized is that, as Melinda Deslatte of the Associated Press reported, per capita STATE debt of each Louisiana citizen has risen for the third consecutive year. “Each of those years have been on Bobby Jindal’s watch. In other words, to make up for the lack of state revenues to keep feeding the beast of government, Jindal’s has simply borrowed money.”

“Unlike the ‘tax and spend’ Democrats,” Forgotston calls Gov. Bobby Jindal a “borrow and spender.

“He is simply ‘kicking the state’s fiscal can down the road’ to our children and grandchildren.”

This article was originally published in the March 5, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper