You get what you vote for

These are some hard economic times, aren’t they? Colleges across the country are slashing professors, classes, services and days of operations.
But my editorial isn’t about those states, this editorial is about the great state of Louisiana and what the government thinks of the health and education of its citizens.
According to the Associated Press, Louisiana’s public colleges and state-funded health care programs will carry the burden of the $341 million needed to balance the state’s budget.
Yes, let’s cut education and health care.
A state full of sick and dumb people is the way to create a vibrant, healthy economy that will entice out-of-state people to move to Louisiana.
In 2007, Piyush Jindal ran for governor on the platform of fiscal conservatism. As a graduate of Brown University and a Rhodes Scholar, I thought Piyush would be the one to reform the Louisiana Constitution and protect education from the economic chopping block.
But he did not.
What does that say about our government when it ceases to take care of its own?
Now, some of you will say “this isn’t a welfare state, you should bare some the of the cost of health care and education.”
But as a tax paying, law-abiding citizen who votes regularly, I pay for these services. No, I don’t expect the state to hand me a band-aid every time I stub my toe, but I do want them to be there for the big things, like assisting me in attending a state university.
Lately, Piyush has been on the radio and television urging “us” to buy retail within in the state, (i.e. don’t buy on-line) yet he is not making it easy to live within it.
Southern is literally running on slave labor, yet he does not see this as a problem. Just tighten our belts and work with what we have.
Who cares if we don’t have professors, classes or books? We’ve got to balance the budget a certain former United States President and Congress messed up on the last eight years.
Is this the fiscal conservatism they promised us?
I’m not saying one political party is better than the other, but I am saying look at what happens to the economy when presidents leave office.
Massive amounts of people were not defaulting on their mortgages. Nor was Wall Street receiving blank checks from Congress. Why don’t we as citizens hold our elected officials more accountable for the choices they make?
Why don’t we as citizens demand that education and health care be their number one priority?
Because when after school programs are closed, where are those children supposed to go? To your neighborhood.
See, this isn’t the 1950s where everyone stayed on “their side” of town. You cannot put crack in Harlem and not expect it to make its way into the Upper West Side.
But you know what, Piyush couldn’t have done this on his own. I blame the voters, who were so selfish that they’d rather see public services shut down just so they won’t have to pay a few more dollars in taxes.