Proposal: No New Federal Funds to Louisiana
We have a federal system in this country, so Louisianans are welcome, I guess, to run their state any way they please. However, in light of recent events, I propose that the US Government stop sending any of our federal tax money to the state. Maybe we could send the money instead to a country with a better government that is more likely not to use it corruptly, like maybe Haiti.
All of this is in light of recent events. I guess most will consider the 1991 gubernatorial election between a convicted felon and a Klansman old history (the felon won). More recently I think anyone who isn't just looking to blame every problem in the world on GWB would come to the conclusion that local Louisiana government had more to do with the worst aspects of Katrina (both before, in the corrupt levee districts and after, in the pathetic disaster response) than any other public entity. The final straw comes today as the Congressman who was found with $90,000 in bribe money in Tupperware in his freezer (and god knows whatever he carried off with the aid of the National Guard during Katrina) was apparently reelected.
Maybe we can find a better investment than sending our money to Louisiana. Anyone have any Enron stock for sale?
Damon Gentry:
My mother, who lives in Alabama, told me an interesting story recently. At a gathering at a friend's house, she met a guy who works in commercial construction and he mentioned that he had been busy with post-Katrina construction work all throughout southern Mississippi and Alabama. She asked if he had done much in Louisiana. He told her that he would never work in Louisiana because when he first went to get a 'permit' to do construction work in that state, they told him that his permit fees consisted of two parts: a) a fixed fee to obtain his initial permit, and 2) a (variable) renewal fee that amounted to 7% of his contracts for each quarter. In other words, you can only get a construction permit in LA if you engage in kickbacks to the state for the work you are doing.
December 10, 2006, 9:19 amRay G:
There are no doubt too many different possiblities for this to be answered here, but I've often wondered how entire states or countries got off the wrong path like that.
Where in their history did they take that wrong turn? Kind of like the bright kid in school, good ball player, decent grades, all the potential in the world. And he winds up ship wrecked.
What is it about LA culture, or their cultural history to be more precise, that has made their name, Louisiana, a byword for corruption and graft?
December 12, 2006, 5:50 pm