Editor: La.'s corporate tax breaks breaking higher education

Regardless of whatever stats, rankings or carefully shaded reports the Jindal administration puts out regarding job creation or the state of the state's economy, Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball says, in truth, Louisiana is on a high-speed-rail collision course with global economic irrelevance. "Make no mistake, it's fabulous that Louisiana, under Gov. Bobby Jindal, has spent hundreds of millions of economic development dollars to sustain chicken farmers, enable the manufacturing of high-end toilet paper, land international industrial companies, leverage cheap natural gas to attract manufacturing facilities, and provide any incentive necessary to develop the movie and nascent digital media industries," Ball writes in his latest column. "It's also wonderful that Louisiana, under Jindal, has moved hundreds of millions of dollars from the state treasury to personal bank accounts and corporate balance sheets thanks to an unprecedented level of tax cuts over the past five years. Even better for the average reader of this publication, nearly every one of these cuts has almost exclusively benefited the wealthiest of this state's residents and business owners." Read the full column here for Ball's take on the "financial carnage that's taken place in higher education under Jindal's watch" as a result of these tax cuts. Send your comments to [email protected].