Louisiana Educator: Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals

Louisiana Educator: Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals:

Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals

I was one of the targets of a very aggressive telephone "push poll" Saturday afternoon. A push poll is really a fake public opinion poll where a political group hires a fake polling company to influence voters to support their point of view on one or more issues. This so called poll was designed to turn public support against any attempts by Governor John Bel Edwards to raise tax revenues to balance the Louisiana state budget. Certain (mostly big business) groups have made a decision to sabotage all efforts by the new governor to tackle the huge deficit in the budget by reducing tax exemptions for various businesses and individuals. For example, during the Jindal administration, income taxes that were part of the previously negotiated and approved Stelly Plan were reduced and many big businesses received tax exemptions setting the stage for a huge shortfall in state revenues and resulting draconian cuts to funding for our state colleges.

I really get tired of hearing politicians claim that there is plenty of fat that could be cut from state government without curtailing valuable state services and school funding. So why was it that as revenues fell over the last few years of the Jindal administration, with conservatives in full control of all branches of state government, the biggest cuts were to our state colleges, pushing the opportunity for a college education out of reach for many Louisiana students? Where was the "fat cutting" as we watched our roads and bridges fall apart and medical services curtailed to the point that children and disabled people lost basic medical care? So now that the budget hole has deepened to the size of the Grand Canyon, the greedy corporations are financing "push polls" to once again convince voters that we don't need to pay taxes for government to function. So now we are supposed to help kill any attempt to fill the budget gap. Now that Jindal has sold off public property, crippled higher education (while preaching the need to prepare our kids for high tech careers) and privatized medical care and K-12 schools, the same politicians who crippled our Louisiana Educator: Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals: