Jun 22 2008
Three words: Line. Item. Veto.
The budget is going to Governor Jindal’s desk, and if I could convey anything to him, it would be just three words.
Line. Item. Veto.
Governor Jindal made it clear that the legislature is coercing him into letting these pay raises go through. Now is the time to play hardball, and there are $20 million opportunities for him to administer a much needed attitude adjustment to the legislature.
The budget came in about $50 million below the cap, leaving legislators room to make mid-year adjustments without a two-thirds vote.
House Speaker Pro-Tem Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, said the Legislature should be applauded for restraining spending as tax revenues bulge.
“When you have so much money to spend in government, it’s real easy to spend it all,” Peterson said.
When it left the House last month, the budget bill contained about $122 million less in general fund spending than proposed by Jindal, owing to cuts in health care and higher education programs. Senators, however, restored most of the cuts and earmarked at least $20 million more for local projects.
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I support your position. Thank you. The gap between….them and us….widens with each arrogant and self-serving word they speak and gesture (duplessis’s fist) they show.
It will take a solidarity movement like the one shown by the citizens of Pennslyvania to bring home to Louisiana legislators that have not represented their constituents as evidenced by passing a pay raise for themselves….totally oblivious to the present economic status of Louisianians….
IT’S THE ECONOMY….STUPID! They do not get it! But they might GET THEIR RAISE…IF WE DO NOT STAND UP FOR WHAT WE BELIEVE IN…..
VETO. VETO. VETO. VETO. VETO. VETO. VETO. VETO.
I’ve been thinking about how my representative, Rep. Page Cortez voted “No” on the pay raise but took the money. In today’s Daily Advertiser newspaper, he claims that he is donating the money to charity. I emailed him and asked if he was using his name as the donor or are the taxpayer’s names being used? Isn’t it our money! I asked him if he was getting a tax-break or a tax-deduction for these donations? I asked him how will the taxpayers know for sure if he is giving his raise to this charity. I and many others would like proof besides just claiming to do so and having it printed in the paper since all trust is gone. If I would have been asked, I would have told him to donate his own money to whatever charity he wished out of his own pocket. I have my own choices (of course, they are ALL great) of organizations to donate to like AnySoldier.com; AnyMarine.com; AnySailor.com and AnyAirman.com (websites where you can get addresses for FREE and write to our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq) and others that I give to. If he thought the pay raise was wrong and voted against it then he shouldn’t have taken it. Monday, he should submit a bill to resend it if he is against it.
If I get answers to my questions from Rep. Page Cortez, I’ll post his reply.
Love those suggestions about donating to our young men and women in the armed forces. Who works harder, and sacrifices more than these soldiers? What they do pales in comparison to the part-time work of our greedy legislators!
Cindy - that’s great, keep after him!
How do we find out if our senators/representatives if they voted no but kept the pay?
Watch “Recall Bobby Jindal on YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lv0HNQRIqsA
I sent this follow-up email to Rep. Cortez:
Rep.Cortez,
As per your recent phone conversation with my husband, you stated that you are donating your pay raise to charity. If we understood you correctly, you are not using your name as the donor, you will not receive any tax break and you will not use this amount as a tax deduction. Personally, we would have preferred you to decline the pay raise. Mr. C. B. Forgotston, a recent guest on the Moon Griffon Show, brought up the fact that any legislator could, at anytime, sign an affidavit and change their intentions from donating their pay raise to charity and revert it back to their income and his or her constituents would never know it. We, along with many of our friends that are in your district, would really appreciate you making it public, throughout your term, that you will not change or re-route your pay raise from a donation back to your salary. What the legislators did as a whole, by passing this pay raise and not listening to the voice of the people, has cast doubt on all of our elected officials Here are some comments we hear from our friends, “It was all planned, it was a “fix”. “They were all in it together”. It’s evident when you see the words “Recall Them All”, “Throw Them All Out of Office” in the articles and blogs that you read on the internet, that trust in our elected officials has dwindled to nothing . There are no words to describe the disappointment we have in our Legislature as a whole and in Gov. Bobby Jindal.
On 6 o’clock news, Jindal says some words to the effect: if he vetos SB672, then he will be a popular governor…but he still does not intend to veto the bill….HELLO…vetoing the pay raise will prove that HE HAS AN ETHICAL BACKBONE….HE TALKS 0UT OF BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH. HIS MISCALCULATION: NO VETO….PUBLIC WILL FORGET AND HE WILL BE RE-ELECTED…
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK (FAMOUS SHAKESPEARE WORDS)….HE AND LEGISLATURE ARE IN COHOOTS AND HE FEELS NO REMORSE TO BETRAY THE CITIZENS WHO VOTED FOR HIM.
[...] and you shall receive. I wished that Governor Jindal would break out his veto pen, and he finally did: He thusly axed 258 items to [...]