"Mr. Jindal’s first term began in 2008 with a heady surplus of around $1 billion, high oil prices and a stream of federal disaster recovery money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. He threw his support behind the largest tax cut in the state’s history and, for a time, had reason to boast about an economy that outperformed the nation’s. But oil prices are fickle, and the recovery money dried up and the recession arrived, if late and in a milder strain than in other states. Since 2010, here as elsewhere, middling has been the new normal.
“The underlying economy has been weaker or more sluggishly growing than we might want to believe,” said Greg Albrecht, the chief economist for the Louisiana Legislature, ticking off a list of metrics that are not picking up steam, including total payroll employment growth and personal income tax receipts.
But a slower-than-ideal recovery is not unique to Louisiana. How the state has dealt with it is the root of the problem, said Mr. Jindal’s policy critics. That group includes some of his own party members running to replace Mr. Jindal, who is barred by term limits from seeking a third term as governor.
“In many ways the economy’s doing pretty good, but there’s a disconnect because of this broken fiscal policy,” said United States Senator David Vitter, a Republican and the current favorite in the governor’s race."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/us/governors-tactics-at-center-of-louisiana-budget-vortex.html?ref=politics
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