Everybody has a solution for Louisiana’s woes, but the problem is finding out which ones will bring about the necessary changes. U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, during a recent Baton Rouge speech said it’s easy to understand why the state can’t fully capitalize on its unique abundance of natural and manmade resources.
As for those resources, Graves said the state is a top energy supplier, is the second biggest petrochemical supplier, has access to natural gas, pipelines that go everywhere and a productive workforce. Louisiana has five of the top 15 river ports in the U.S., he said, 18 percent of all maritime commerce and is one of only two states with six Class 1 railways.
So what’s the problem?
Graves said the bad outweighs the good in most cases, according to a Greater Baton Rouge Business Report story on the Louisiana Associated General Contractors Critical Issues Summit. Graves mentioned the high crime rate, poor quality of some public schools, a tax code in need of reform, and tort (legal) reform to reduce auto insurance rates.
Infrastructure is a major problem, he said, and nothing is getting done at the state or federal level. “We have a transportation crisis — not just in Louisiana, but across the country,” Graves said. “We have underinvested in our infrastructure (roads, bridges, ports and airports).”
State Sen. Rick Ward, R-Port Allen, admitted nothing is going to get done in Louisiana infrastructure without additional revenue and that is unlikely. Ward is chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.
One person who commented on the Business Report story took a different view of state problems.
“Tort reform. Crime. Taxes. The usual Republican/conservative talking points, none of which are any substantive part of Louisiana’s failure to improve on any important issues,” said Skip Peel, an independent landman.
Peel then went on to list “giving away the farm to big business,” pensions that are underfunded, an insufficient rainy day fund, paying down state debt, infrastructure needs, education and health care, all of which he called “the real issues.” He said tort reform, lower taxes and throwing more people in jail won’t get the job done.
What these different views are telling us is there is widespread disagreement on why Louisiana scores so poorly on national rankings. The right answers are in there somewhere, and it’s up to members of the Legislature to find them and start passing laws designed to change the status quo.
