Louisiana lawmakers caught in fiscal torrent, not even trying to swim
Former Gov. Edwin Edwards, at 90, has many times demonstrated the wisdom of one of his favorite sayings, a Chinese proverb: Wait by the river long enough, you’ll see the bodies of your enemies float by.
Gov. John Bel Edwards is nearly half the old man’s age. Trouble is, the second Edwards is in a torrent, not an LSU lazy river, and he is wrestling with his enemies while both are flowing toward the budgetary equivalent of Niagara Falls.
That is when the June 30 replace-by date comes for more than a billion dollars in taxes, agreed to in the wake of the fiscal collapse left by the administration of former Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Jindal is one body that John Bel Edwards has seen float by. The former is almost finished in politics, not just because of his clumsy campaign for the 2016 presidential nomination, but also because of blame for the state’s catastrophic financial situation.
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