Bulldozing LSU

I was too dismayed by the foul give away going on in D.C. to write about this Tuesday story in the TiPsy. Mary Landrieu's support of Bernie Sanders 8 1/2 speech this past Friday baffled me because she said she would have a hard time deciding which way to vote, because, you know, a family making $500,000 can be very middle class. I have many well-off friends but I don't know anyone making that much money. Billy Goldring, maybe.
I made my calls and sent my emails and had no impact on my elected officials, so I can move on.

I was dismayed by the Tuesday article because it only presents the pro side of the plan to give LSU autonomy. Jan Moller is a good reporter, so I assume his piece was heavily edited to sell us the idea.
But let me point out a few details of the downside of this odious plan. The plan would eliminate 115 administrative jobs. Does this sound like a good idea with our unemployment already so high? This plan, despite their rosy prediction of saving $85 million over the next 5 years, will likely raise tuition $750 a semester.
The interesting thing about the Louisiana Flagship Coalition (LFC) is that it presents itself as a group working to preserve and improve LSU, but they are really Jindal supporters moving his anti public school agenda through the back door.
This plan would have a domino effect on jobs in Louisiana far exceeding the puny dreams of its creators. Taking LSU out of the State University system and raising tuition would effective limit the options of our high school grads. at this time, any LA High School grad can attend a state university if they can afford it. If LSU opts out of the system, that won't be the case.
The LFC believes that one of LSU's problem is its low graduate percentage, but I firmly assert that a kid getting 1 or 2 or 3 years of university is better off than a kid with only a HS diploma. The LFC would end that by raising admittance standards. That would have a rippling effect though out the LA university system because all the grads denied admittance to LSU would have to go to other schools in the system, placing huge pressure on those schools.
I envision Louisiana sliding downwards into the maelstrom of higher unemployment and lower business investment, both due to the poorly educated youth.
And, education is only one part of the equation of destruction. Jindal wants to kill public health,too. Did you read this? Free clinics in poor neighborhoods do not have a place in Bobby's heart.
Oh, Jindal is going on a fund-raising tour of Texas today--and you thought he was back to rule judiciously.

War on Louisiana: Jindal's Agenda, Part 2

I heard this, La. Drops Use Of Christmas Trees To Save Coast, on TV yesterday, but combined with the news about LSU, it was too much bad stuff to write about.

Now I can.

The meager program costs $175,000 and has the added benefit of recycling Xmas trees and so reduces garbage costs. It started in 1991 and has helped to rebuild and slow the loss of vital wetlands. Jindal tossed this cheap program, thereby putting more pressure on local budgets, yet he thought redesigning the State flag was a priority.
The story about LSU ran on the front page of the T-P yesterday. The upshot is that LA Flagship Coalition, a non-profit formed by Sean Reilly of Lamar Advertising and Lane Grigsby of Cajun Contractors to take LSU out of the University system, would free LSU to run its own affairs and opt out of Civil Service rules. It would hire non-union workers to reduce costs. LSU was ranked as one of the best universities in the US the last 2 years, based on 2007 and 08, and before the draconian budget cuts by Lil Bobby in 08. Reilly speculates that the LSU System would benefit by sharing the money that LSU would have gotten from the state. But Jindal is certain to cut the budget by that amount so he can continue to toot his horn about his "fiscal responsibility".