Analysis: La. governor's sale ideas seem desperate
BATON ROUGE, La.—Gov. Bobby Jindal's considering the equivalent of a state fire sale to drum up cash for Louisiana's budget next year, offering ideas that range from selling state prisons and office buildings to selling future profits from the lottery program.
Jindal calls the proposals that he's weighing "creative" ways to fill budget gaps, but they smack of desperation in a crisis, a sort of "Step right up, everything must go! Will take best offer" because the financial numbers look so dire.
The ideas also fly in the face of the governor's own long-held rhetoric against using one-time money to pay for ongoing expenses -- not that he hasn't repeatedly violated that stance as the state's money problems have worsened.
Jindal first offered the ideas to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in quick cash in a closed-door meeting with top lawmakers, and he stressed he wasn't endorsing the proposals. Instead, he said they "merit further evaluation" as state officials weigh how to close a $1.6 billion budget gap in the 2011-12 fiscal year