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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Louisiana Spotlight.

I'm Karen LeBlanc, anchor and reporter here at LPI.

People across Louisiana have already begun casting their votes for the individual they believe should lead our state as governor for the next four years.

This election comes at one of the most pivotal moments in Louisiana's long history.

The challenges facing our state today are immense.

We're grappling with a dwindling population.

Natural disasters caused by climate change.

Skyrocketing insurance rates and growing concerns about public safety.

So who is the best candidate to navigate these issues and lead our state forward?

Tonight, we will delve deeper into these challenges and focus on the candidates charged with addressing them.

I'll be speaking with experts and local residents to explore their vision for the way forward.

But before we do that, let's hear from some young Louisiana voters on what this election means to them and what they hope to see from the next governor.

Every student in this room is a leader.

They've gathered as the counsel of student body presidents and Monroe to discuss issues important to the students and campuses they serve, including issues of mental health and wellness.

You deserve a tell all from the world.

The absolute best version of yourself.

Many in this room are preparing to graduate and start a career with concerns about the quality of life in Louisiana.

A lot of times students go to school Louisiana, but their next goal is to leave Louisiana.

And I feel as though in order to improve, the quality here is important to find employment opportunities that students are looking for in order to stay here, and also show that as a living wage, this will also keep the students here.

In order for Louisiana to make an economic comeback.

Young voters say the state needs to diversify with more high tech jobs and renewable energy industries.

I really worry about our economic development and how most of our state, it seems, is tailored towards like oil and gas.

And there's really not a ton more opportunity outside of that field.

If Louisiana can capitalize on solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric energy, specifically in the Gulf, you know, that's going to be massive employment opportunities for everyone in the state.

It's going to it's going to make our energy more efficient.

It's going to fight some of the climate change that we're seeing.

And it's going to make Louisiana a more desirable place to live, in my opinion.

Others worry about the cost of living, especially the state's skyrocketing home and auto insurance rates among the highest in the nation.

Insurance prices right now are just going through the roof, and it's becoming increasingly more intimidating to buy a home or get a new car or be it just a young professional right out of college.

In the state of Louisiana, it's it's scary.

And so we really need a governor who's going to stand up and kind of lead the charge to say, hey, let's actually see what we can do about making it more affordable to live here.

I also spent time with high school students at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts in Natchitoches, the public boarding school for exceptional students seeking challenging curriculums.

Turns out graduates competitively positioned to attend the university of their choice anywhere.

They say Louisiana's leadership has a role to play in convincing them to stay in the state.

Strengthening connections with those from different walks of life, both like with people of color, people from different religions and kind of diverse area, making sure you have a strong idea of what they want and what they need can improve everything for everybody.

Many of these high school students left their hometowns to live here and take university level classes seeking academic and extracurricular opportunities not offered where they live.

They are the exceptions to Louisiana's dismal literacy statistics.

Less than one third of students in grades three through high school are proficient in core academic subjects.

It comes down to education and resources, important issues.

These students believe will move the state forward.

I would love to see a little bit more of number one, focus on education, focus on safety, figuring out how to make school not just schools, but also cities in general safer, whether high school or higher education.

Most students agree that Louisiana needs to invest more in education, including teacher pay raises, workforce training and tuition assistance.

So we really just need to prioritize higher education funding and how we can relieve the burden of cost off of students backs.

So as you can see, there are a lot of issues that are critically important to our young people as they consider the future of our state.

Now, joining me to help us get a better understanding of these issues and the potential solutions are our distinguished panelist.

Dr. Albert Samuels is a chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Southern University.

Dr. Samuels also serves as an elections analyst in our state elections.

Welcome.

Dr. Steven Procopio is the president of the Public Affairs Research Council, which coauthored several recommendations and initiatives for many of the issues Louisiana is facing with the recent Louisiana Election Issues Initiative.

Welcome.

And Barry Irwin is the CEO and president of Council for a Better Louisiana, who, along with Dr. Procopio and coauthor of The Reset, Louisiana Election Issues Initiative.

So again, thank you, gentlemen, for joining me, Dr. Procopio and Mr. Irwin, before we kind of dive into the details, I want to hear more about Reset Louisiana, the initiative that both of your organizations coauthored, and explain why it's important that voters are aware of this.

We have a major election coming up, and this is a serious chance to discuss the issues.

Are we going to do things that are going to give the state forward or are we going to get distracted?

And so this was sort of our attempt to try and educate both voters and legislators and legislative candidates to say this is what our organizations things are, I think are important.

And some of the things you've already brought up in terms of education, how competitive we are, how do we keep people in the state, how to attract people from outside the state.

And this is sort of our best effort to say, hey, these are the key things to focus on.

Yeah, And I think a lot of times in elections in particular, you have candidates driving a lot of the conversation.

And a lot of times that's not really about the issues that are most important to the state.

So we tried to get together with our organizations.

It was us PAS and also the Committee of 100 for Economic Development, where we're like minded, nonpartisan organizations to say, look, we have some expertise in some of these issues.

If we address these issues, we're going to move the needle for the state and so it's really also a way of trying to get the attention of the voters, but certainly also the candidates back on these issues that really will make a difference for our state.

All right.

So we all just heard from young voters about their concerns for the future of Louisiana.

And it's clear there are issues that all feel strongly about an employment opportunities, living wages, public safety, global warming.

These are all important issues that are on their on their minds.

Do you find that there are common threads with your findings and recommendations and the concerns that we're hearing from these young voters?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think the thread that really runs through everything is these students are really focused in a large part on the future and a lot of the recommendations and certainly the issues and the way we're trying to frame the discussion is also about the future to.

So you take a look at some of those things.

Yeah.

They're worried about some of the immediate things.

One of the immediate ones that came up was getting a job when they graduate from college.

That's a short term issue, but it's really a long term issue, too, about the economic diversity in our state, the job opportunities for professional jobs, for jobs that are beyond, you know, just in the oil and gas industry or in the manufacturing industry.

So I think that thread of trying to focus on the future is kind of where we were coming from to a large degree.

And that's certainly what they are really concerned about.

So, Dr. Samuels, what are you hearing in the classroom?

You are there in the halls of higher education.

Well, first of all, thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of this discussion.

You know, we hear this discussion every day.

You know, obviously, one of the reasons that people go to college is they want a better life for themselves.

And so obviously they're thinking about what kind of job opportunities available, what kind of quality of life can I have.

And many of our students are looking forward to places outside of Louisiana.

I also keep in touch with a lot of our former graduates.

You know, I you know, I follow a lot of them on Facebook and where they're posting from where I'm living in Houston, I'm in Dallas.

I'm in lanta.

One of my students is in California and in D.C.

So many of our students of you know, they love Louisiana, They love the culture of Louisiana, but they're not willing to take a vow of poverty to stay here.

So that's interesting.

You know, clearly, we know job opportunities are a big draw.

What we've been calling brain drain.

But I was also hearing that inclusivity was a factor, that some students were not really happy with the direction of our social policies and some social engineering.

That's kind of happening.

Are you hearing that as well?

Absolutely.

You know that you know, this generation has very different views about some of these social issues.

You know, they don't see what the big deal is about, you know, LGBTQ rights and some of other things.

So and, you know, for them, climate change isn't to them, that's an existential crisis.

So while those may be culture issues in, you know, to the older generations, the young people see these issues very differently than, you know, some of the people of my set.

So let's move on to the dynamics of this gubernatorial election.

We have a candidate, a front runner, Jeff Landry, who has been noticeably absent at most of the public forums and televised debates.

And I'd love to hear your thoughts on how the race has unfolded.

Do you think that this will have any ramifications in future gubernatorial elections?

Well, you know, I don't know.

It seems to be a trend that you're seeing not just here, but you're seeing it around the country.

You're seeing at the national level, but you're also seeing it in some individual states.

And I think that's partially because of social media, just the way people consume their information.

Certainly candidates, I think, have a different attitude about engaging with the public than they used to.

I mean, I've been around for a long time.

It used to be when you had debates like we had the other day, you know, sometimes there was a political price to pay for not participating.

Now, it doesn't seem that voters have, you know, put a price tag on that for not participating.

I think possibly it helps hurt, contribute, I guess, to more to some of the voter cynicism that we see out there with low turnout, lower participation.

And for organizations like ours who have really spent the last year trying to put together information, not just the recent information, but a variety of other things and a couple of debates and everything else.

I think it's kind of frustrating that, you know, the environment has changed in that way because consumers need information to make decisions.

And if people are going to not have that readily available or avoid, you know, confronting the public with that, I just think it hurts the process.

It's an interesting point because is there concern that it sort of undermines the core of campaigning?

I mean, when you think about it, a candidate is on the campaign trail to meet and greet and talk to the public and public forums, explain their policies.

Do is this a thread kind of to the foundation of what a campaign is all about?

Well, it well, it depends on what we're talking about.

If you know, avoiding public interaction for public forums with other candidates.

Well, for some candidates, the purpose of the campaign is to win.

And so if I can if I can win and have the fewest number of public forums as possible as one candidate is trying to do and do, I will do that if is in if I am one of the candidates who is trailing and I need those public forums to raise my name I.D.

that's a that's a different question.

So it depends on what we're talking about, because we have candidates who are being told by their political consultants, you know, that you know that, you know, you really shouldn't you should limit the number of forums if you're the front runner.

That's a classic front runner strategy.

But I think they can they can again, they can happen in a forum is that you could be worse off.

You can make a mistake.

You can have people see you on the same level as these other people.

And so if I can I can do that and get away with it and get away with it, other people will try it.

And I want to follow up on on both things.

You know, it seems like it's successful so far to the social media.

There's other ways to communicate with people.

So tactically.

I don't know that I can blame Jeff Landry for what he's doing.

It doesn't seem to have any cost right now, but I do think there's at least the risk of a long term cost if you get elected.

And then you have to do things and you haven't really put out a clear agenda and you've got to do of a legislature that said, well, that's not what we want to do.

Or the people said, wait, that's that's what you meant when you when we voted for you.

There's a chance that you could quickly evaporate a lot of goodwill by not setting that out ahead of time.

So there is a potential governing costs.

Now, it might be everyone sort of like, Well, yeah, that's what we kind of thought.

Anyway.

Maybe he just didn't say it out loud.

And so that may not be an issue, but it's at least a risk.

Well, this certainly is a big conversation.

We'll have to move on, but it's definitely very thought provoking and especially the message that it might or might not send to voters.

Social issues and bills have become more prevalent in the legislature the past few years and have created a polarization that some say have hampered the legislature.

Now, here is Attorney General Jeff Landry.

In a recent interview, he agreed to discussing some of the social issues that will most likely come up in the next session.

And I want to talk to you about some of the social issues that really took a lot of focus of this last legislative session, especially the ones around the LGBTQ community in the state.

My understanding is that you were in support of overturning the governor's veto of the ban on gender affirming care for minors.

Is that correct?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, absolutely.

I mean, in all the states around us, as I said earlier, $100 billion of individual wealth has left blue states and gone to red states.

And every one of the states I'm pretty sure had already been protecting minors.

Sure.

And I'll ask you about a bill that I know will be coming back next session because Jody Horton has said she wants to bring it back.

It would prohibit the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom.

Would you support that bill?

Well, look, I'm certainly open for discussion on that.

I'm concerned about that as well.

I mean, look, listen, it's hard to have a discussion and reach a consensus when we can't have a firm when we can't come to an agreement on things that are factual.

You were born a woman.

That's an absolute fact.

I was born a man that I mean, there's no change in that.

Okay.

And so, you know, this whole discussion to me is problematic.

And I don't know how you you can reach a consensus on things that are that because you're trying to make a truth, an untruth.

I mean, it's a fact.

You were a woman.

I was born a man.

It's I mean, that's it.

You know, I mean, there are some people, but it doesn't matter.

I mean, I you know, I'd like to be six five and play an NBA, but no matter how much I want to identify as a65 basketball player, I don't think I'm making the NBA anytime soon.

This year, the legislature, you're considered several bills affecting Louisiana's LGBTQ plus citizens.

They passed the so-called don't Say gay bill and another bill limiting students use of preferred pronouns, though both bills were vetoed by the governor.

This legislation is likely to come up again next year, and some say laws like these send unwelcoming messages to gay people and other young people At a time when Louisiana is experiencing a net outmigration of citizens and very little in-migration from other states.

So what impact do you think this type of legislation has on the perception of Louisiana, especially our next generation of citizens?

We sort of you sort of touched on this, but I'd like to have an expanded conversation about this because this is very polarizing and very much a hot button issue with our younger voters.

Yes, it is.

And and let's just say a Governor Landrieu or a would probably have signed those bills into law.

They would probably already be the law or the law.

And so so a number of these issues that have been brought up for the last two sessions, most of which have been vetoed by Governor Edwards, they're going to become law.

They might actually become law in the next session.

So that yeah, that is going to probably resonate poorly, especially with some of the young people who know who I teach and interact with.

But I think the issue may also be, well, what does this say to the business community as well?

Because there's also been the economic impact in some of these places.

The government, you know, attorney general entities that is not talking and, you know, not talking about some of the negative impacts that Governor DeSantis has had from his war on this thing.

And in some of that bill, there's been a lot of tourism and other conventions that are pulled out of Florida because of some of those things.

So, you know, there could be a negative backlash in terms of how some businesses and conventions view Louisiana.

And we are a convention tourist state.

Yes.

And I'd like to hear your thoughts about the in-migration.

I mean, does that negatively impact it?

We're all we're not We're trying to keep our young people from leaving, but we're also trying to bring professional people and business and industry in here.

Is this counterproductive to our economic development efforts?

Well, I think it is a weird kind of dichotomy in some ways, because, you know, honestly, I think the attorney general is right in a way.

If you look at the map where all these laws are really proliferating, it's the red states and it's also in the south.

And so, you know, honestly, Louisiana's going against the tide a little bit over the last few years on passing some of this because of the governor's veto and some other little political things were happening that is very likely to change.

I do think when it comes to individuals, students themselves or these young people, these are not even issues to them.

Now, the fact that they're having this discussion is an issue, but I mean, the issues that are underlying it, they're not issues in their lives.

When you talk to them, they do talk about inclusivity.

They want to be a part of a diverse, you know, state.

They are live and work or study on diverse campuses that are much more diverse than they were.

But the real things they're worried about really are these things about the future in the bigger picture.

And I think they look at a lot of these things as distractions, which I think hopefully they feel like that the politicians will get over at some point.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Erwin and I recently moderated the final governors debate here at LPI and the focus of the debate centered around the state's lagging population growth.

Between 2020 and 2022, 80,000 more people moved out of Louisiana than moved in.

This is the fifth highest outmigration in the country.

My colleague Harrison Chair spoke with U. L l economic professor Gary Wagner about this troubling trend.

How many people are we losing?

Louisiana is not doing very well these days when it comes to college educated people.

If you go back to 2000, which is the longest period in time that we have data in the last 21 years, we've lost about 110,000 college educated people on net.

So we've had some move in, but we've lost 110,000 more than we gained, which is about 5000 a year.

How does that compare to other states?

So we're doing worse compared to most other states, and we're doing much worse in the last five years.

You can really see the decline from 2017 to 2021.

Wagner says Louisiana is now eighth for population retention.

When we were 34th, just ten years ago in 2012.

So in the last five years, a lot of the metrics have really moved in a negative direction for us.

There are a few reasons for this.

People move to be closer to family members.

Job opportunities are limited in Louisiana.

And shockingly, housing affordability is also a reason.

But in Louisiana, our housing market, it's supposed to be more affordable to live here.

Yeah, I think that's a little bit of a misnomer these days.

When you look at the the ratio of median home prices to income.

Louisiana's competitiveness has really fallen in the last ten years.

So this is looking at outmigration of college educated individuals in Louisiana for the last 21 years.

That's the full amount of time that we have data.

And you can see all the states that are blue hour states where we're losing people.

The darker the blue, the more losses you could see.

Text Texas is a huge star magnet.

Exactly.

You can also see we're losing a lot of people to other states in the South.

And then you'll notice those locations in green.

So those are states where over the last 20 years, Louisiana has been a net recipient of college educated people.

So, for example, if you look at Ohio and Pennsylvania, so we've had on average, more people, college educated, moving to Louisiana than are, say, moving from from Louisiana to Ohio.

But those numbers aren't enough to replace what we've lost.

Louisiana is losing thousands of people to Houston and Dallas in particular.

Florida, Georgia, Colorado and Tennessee are also showing net gains.

Even Mississippi is cashing in.

But what can we do to prevent this?

What does Louisiana have to do to prevent people from leaving?

From an economic perspective, one factor that really has more of a local flavor is housing affordability.

So local communities can get involved and look at multifamily housing units.

So zoning is a big issue that affects housing costs.

And so rezoning areas from single family to multifamily can lower housing costs and make things more affordable.

So that's more of a local piece, I think, on a statewide piece.

You know, one of the things that I've observed over the last five or six years of living here is that Louisiana's tax system is really not that competitive compared to our neighbors.

So it would be something that in my mind, I'd like to see the state take into consideration fundamental tax reform to put us on a position where we can be more competitive.

So before you go to the voting booth, make sure you think about these things.

Who you pick might just save Louisiana thousands.

Affordability.

It's not just housing.

We also heard from students.

It's cost of living in general, and that rolls into housing insurance and quite frankly, taxes, personal income tax, sales tax.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on tax structure, the work that could be done tax wise to make the state more attractive for keeping our best and brightest and for attracting more.

Yeah, I mean, we have a horrible tax structure.

If you were trying to punish us, you would design something that we have it in.

Now, it's not really about burden.

We're not particularly overtaxed compared to you on a per capita basis or on a per income basis.

We're about middle of the pack in terms of the states.

But we have a system that is anti-competitive and also regressive in some ways.

You know, we have a decentralized sales tax system that makes it incredibly difficult on businesses to track.

That's not really a burden issue.

That's just a having to deal with something and getting audited all the time.

We have a slew of exemptions and credits and deductions, both for businesses but also for individuals.

It's sort of a thing you can go to legislature and get fairly easily, and some of them are pretty small, but they all add up to this really just difficult to navigate complicated political structure instead of just a system that's supposed to collect taxes in the most efficient way that affects the economy the least.

And what about personal income tax?

Has that been a big conversation in your findings?

You know, well, there's been some discussion about it, certainly at the legislature this year.

And to some degree, it's been in the campaign for governor.

I mean, the conversation there has been can we get rid of the income tax?

Because you looked at those maps, you have Texas and Florida who are gaining these people and people are saying, well, they don't have income taxes, state income taxes, and they're saying that's the solution problem.

There is it's much more complicated than what they have.

We've got, you know, probably a third of our state general fund budget is funded just by the income tax, and that's education.

That's health care.

That's just a lot of things that are just essentials.

We would have to do a lot to try and replace that income tax at $4 billion with something else.

And the thing that they talk about the most is something like with property tax or moving some responsibilities to local government.

Well, guess what?

The local governments really don't want those responsibilities and they don't want to be out there raising property taxes on people.

So it's a very complicated problem.

I think the best we can do is, like Steve was saying, is recognize that we've got some structural problems, some inefficiencies that make our structure ineffective and let's smooth that out and simplify.

It is the best we can.

And then if there's an opportunity to lower taxes, well, then you know, I'm sure the legislature will take a shot at that.

I had the opportunity to ask candidates, Wilson and Waguespack about their strategies for retaining residents in Louisiana.

Let's hear what they had to say.

This is why I'm running for governor.

The brain drain has been killing us for years.

We have lost one family after another for decades in Louisiana, and we've showed our shoulders like there's nothing we can do about it.

That is a lie.

The truth is, we need new leadership in the capital who are focused on creating an environment that has jobs for every single person in this state.

Not everyone has to go to a four year school.

We have to revamp our high schools.

And if you want to go to a four year or straight to the workforce or anywhere in between, create pathways for each of those kids, we've got a high poverty population that we have to put into this workforce.

It starts with workforce training and I will focus on that.

The last thing is young people leave not just for jobs but also entrepreneurial activity, bike trails on fun things to do, no litter on the highways.

We have to focus on that quality of life piece along with a strong job market that is fueled by a workforce to build a program that works.

All of that works hand in glove.

I'm going to get that done when I'm as governor and I'm going to stop the brain drain once and for all.

I'm a product of public schools.

Public schools are going to be the way out if we fully invest in our universities, invest in elementary and secondary education, and then invest in a workforce to bring jobs here.

Clearly, people leave Louisiana not for the food, not for the fun and not for the football.

They leave for better wages.

We should attract those jobs and ensure that our young people can stay here and invest and create business and start their own businesses and grow the businesses that are here by investing in education, investing in workforce training, and then investing in public safety and infrastructure.

Those are the things that are attractive.

When you look at our universities, our buildings are crumbling.

We need to make sure that our teaching and that we're building the institutions physically and academically to attract the talent, not just in Louisiana that would bring people here to take advantage of this culture that we've created.

So quality of life, we we heard that again.

I mean, it is important, but let's talk the candidate.

Wilson emphasized the importance of funding public education, both at the high school level, higher education as an economic driver.

Dr. Samuels, you're the obvious person to address this question.

What role does an investment in education significantly do to move the state forward?

Well, absolutely.

I think I think if you look at what other states are doing, I mean, I mean, in the states, I mean how states have invested far more in in education at all levels and higher education, you know, then we have our neighbor next door, Texas.

You know, we like to talk like a comparison with Texas, you know, with similarly, we have oil or resources, but Texas also uses the use there some of the revenues that they derived from from oil for Higher education.

That's one of the reasons why the University of Texas at Austin is so much larger than LSU, because they because they put the resources in there and that has economic spinoffs.

You know, it's been a house, you know, what Texas Instruments is in Austin.

And so.

So those are the kinds of things that we have not done in Louisiana.

We have said education in Louisiana has typically been the highest priority after everything else.

And so and so a lot of people are saying this had a whole lot hurt when I talked about how are they going to how are they going to actually actually going to fund some of these things.

And we have typically that in our budgets, they can come to higher education hard cases.

One of those areas has been that has not been protected from budget cuts.

You know, and we saw what happened after the Great Recession, you know, that we had year after year of budget cuts out of budget cuts.

At the budget cuts, I was in I was in college in the eighties, we had budget cut at the budget, cut at a budget cut.

The rest of the world did not stand still while Louisiana was cutting higher education.

So where does reset Louisiana stand on education?

And you bring up an important point about actually making this a protected, dedicated revenue source.

But I want to hear what the initiative said in terms of education.

Oh, sure, I'll Sara, and I'll let Barry finish up.

But it's a huge part of research and education broadly.

We talked about the importance of early child education because those, you know, long term investments usually pay the best premium over time, and that's one of the best you can make in terms of trying to really move the needle on a host of things educational outcomes, economic outcomes, people's involvement, the justice system.

It makes a huge difference.

But then you also look at K-12, higher education, and then pathways to jobs.

These are all important.

Honestly, I think the two biggest things we can do is to have a better tax structure and regulatory system that makes us competitive and makes it attractive for businesses coming in and the businesses here.

And then you need a system that's going to bring quality graduates and have a workforce.

You know, we hear about the workforce shortages and and in health care and for teachers and police, but it's everywhere.

Those just don't get talked about.

Everyone's having problems hiring people.

And if they can't find people here in Louisiana, they're not going to come or the ones that are here are going to leave.

But yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of things out there.

I mean, what Steve hit on with early childhood is just kind of foundational.

We have to do that because we know if we can reach those kids, you know, in a good, nurturing, developmental setting, that it's going to pay dividends forever.

But, you know, one of the other things we're talking about a lot in re said is kind of the high school experience.

And actually one of the candidates hit on that a little bit.

And that experience, really it's a variety of things.

But what the big one is to trying to make sure that while you're still in high school, you have some exposure to post-secondary education.

So maybe it's just getting some college credits while you're in high school.

Maybe it's getting a job skill while you're in high school and doing things that bridge the gaps so that we can get our kids out, not just out of high school, but into post-secondary, into the job market, whatever.

I mean, we are an underprepared workforce that all the data shows that.

And no matter what we do and what we aspire to, unless we raise the educational and skill level of our workforce, that's our adults, that's our kids coming out of high school, we are going to be in this kind of spiral forever, and we just need to come to grips with that.

And the education is the way that you deal with it.

Education, workforce training, they go hand in hand, they are one in the same.

And the workforce basically is the people that are in the jobs.

But the people in the jobs need to have the skills and they have to have the education to be able to fill those jobs, particularly the ones we want to attract.

Absolutely.

How the state budgets for early childhood education and higher education is also a major component of the reset initiative.

Now, it's important to emphasize that the budgets allocated by our legislators to various agencies, including education, reflect the state's priorities.

Let's hear from Kara's chair to explore the budget that the incoming governor will inherit and the looming debt that comes with it.

What is a fiscal cliff?

By definition?

A fiscal cliff is a set of financial factors that cause or threaten sudden and severe economic decline.

In our case, a fiscal cliff is a looming financial deficit in a budget, meaning there isn't enough money to cover expenses without it.

State agencies like the police department or the Department of Education wouldn't have enough funding to sustain themselves.

These financial crises are not uncommon.

The government faces them all the time.

Washington said its goodbyes to the 112th Congress after a late night of final suspense on the fiscal cliff legislation.

Now is not the time to increase taxes on those of us who are making critical investments and creating new jobs.

Whatever we come up with is going to be imperfect and some people aren't going to like it.

Some people will like it less.

But that's where we are.

Louisiana's fiscal cliff is nothing new.

We've been here before, most recently in 2012 with Governor Bobby Jindal and 2016 with Governor John Bel Edwards.

The 2012 approaches to the cliff were wide ranging cuts to the state's budget, resulting in a $2 billion deficit by the end of the Jindal administration in 2012.

Approach under Governor Edwards was to raise taxes and grow revenue, which the state did, bringing the $2 billion deficit down to the $400 billion deficit we have today.

We face a daunting fiscal crisis.

We can no longer afford to lurch year to year cobbling together temporary fixes and expecting to realize permanent sustainability.

If we don't fix the structural budget deficit, we can't fix any of our other problems by 2017.

The Edwards administration succeeded in lowering the deficit, most notably with a temporary increase in sales tax.

But by the 2018 session, the state still faced a fiscal cliff, This time a $1 billion deficit.

The time for solutions is now.

The citizens of this state have waited long enough and they deserve results to plug the holes in the budget.

The Edwards administration lowered the sales tax increase 2.4 or 5% and extended the tax for seven years.

And that brings us to the present.

The sales tax increase is set to expire in 2025, which will create a $400 million loss.

On top of that, the state is also losing an additional 300 million from the general fund.

So in total, Louisiana is looking at almost $1,000,000,000 loss.

But is this deficit actually a fiscal cliff?

There are differing opinions.

Well, I'm Jamie TARABAY.

I've been with the Pelican Institute for about a year now.

Well, the Pelican Institute's a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy think tank that's focused on solutions for a really big point of contention in this last legislative session was figuring out exactly how we were going to budget everything.

All of Louisiana's programs.

And afterward, I mean, there were concerns that we were headed toward a fiscal cliff.

Are there any truth to those claims, Yes or no?

On paper, it does look like there may be a fiscal deficit in some future years.

It's important to remember that the revenue forecasts are incredibly because you don't want to wind up in a deficit in the middle of the year.

So we do tend to forecast revenues on the conservative side.

Louisiana's revenue forecasts are predicting $400 million in tax revenue this year, but with an $800 million deficit, that still leaves 400 million unaccounted for.

So if we lose about 400 million, where can we pull that money from?

Well, the idea here is not to necessarily replace that money.

The idea here is you should look for opportunities between now and 20, 25 to grow the economy.

You don't need that $400 million in that sales tax is being created naturally through the taxes that we already have.

The Pelican Institute released a plan for lawmakers that revolves around lowering taxes and limiting government spending.

It shows how state lawmakers can restrain spending by limiting growth to just what the what reflects the economy, the population growth of the state.

And by doing so, we can save money in the future rather than face future deficits.

Here's what they propose.

They want to enact zero based budgets so that the budget begins from zero each year.

They think the state should conduct regular performance audits of all programs.

They want to eliminate the budgetary silos.

They'd like to restructure the state and local relationship and return the decision making to local lawmakers.

They also want to refocus capital outlay to focus on essential state and local government projects and limit borrowing.

And finally, they think the state should strengthen the state spending limit.

But some disagree that lowering taxes and limiting spending is enough to avoid a financial cliff.

Even with the budget that we have, we know we're not paying enough to recruit teachers to fill all the classrooms in Louisiana.

We can't recruit bus drivers.

The Department of Children and Family Services can't find child caseworkers for abused and neglected children because the salaries are too low.

So even right now, in a pretty good budget year, we don't have enough revenue coming into the state to provide basic services for people who need them.

John Mueller is the executive director of the Louisiana Budget Project.

He says the fiscal cliff can only be avoided by replacing the tax revenue with other sources of income.

Without it, he says, the community will suffer under budget cuts.

And we have politicians and people running for office saying, well, we don't need to raise any more revenue.

In fact, we're going to do make do the same thing with $800 million less.

The math just doesn't add up.

And and if people don't believe us now, then they're going to have to believe us two years from now if they decide not to avoid this fiscal cliff.

Given Louisiana's history and where we're at right now, where do you see us going in 2025?

Well, we have an election coming up.

We're going to have a new governor.

We're going to have a lot of new legislators.

And and it's it's impossible to say.

You know, my hope is that when they get in and they look at the budget, they're going to realize that they don't want to go back to the way things were under the previous governor, where for eight years Bobby Jindal tried to cut our way to prosperity.

So obviously, there is a difference of opinion as to whether or not Louisiana's headed toward a fiscal cliff.

You know, how much money is enough money to run state government opinions?

Very, very.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on how we such drastic, differing opinions about our financial stability.

We can't seem to get a handle on our budget.

What's happening?

Well, Steve's the expert on this, but I'll just say really quickly, that is kind of the natural case.

I mean, you've got the folks who are always kind of on the shrink that are trying to kind of cut government.

It's kind of a philosophy among many to try and do that.

And then others who say, look, we are not investing enough.

We've got all these needs that are pretty clear.

And it's the balancing act we go through all the time.

But the truth is, we do have some budget issues that we need to be cognizant of, and Steve can really talk to those.

And Steve, is this political rhetoric, is fiscal cliff kind of a do they weaponize this for for politics?

I mean, is it a real thing?

Yeah, it's a real thing.

It does.

And I like both John and Jamie.

But to be really clear, these are forecasts, so we really won't know for two years what the truth is.

But it's the official forecast of the state and it exists because there is a 0.45 cent sales tax rolling off plus for shifting some money into transportation.

So that is very real.

Now, maybe enough other taxes in the economy will grow enough to overcome that.

That's completely possible.

But we ought to at least act like it's real.

And that means one of two things.

You can have to replace the revenue or you have to make cuts.

And if there's one thing that you know, politicians hate worse than taxes, it's cuts.

And so, you know, your piece mentioned how much cutting happened under Jindal to deal with his Cliff, but it leaves out all the gimmicks that were done as well.

And what party doesn't want to see is it look, we're kind of neutral.

If you want to replace the revenue, replace the revenue.

If you want to make cuts, you know, just a start sooner rather than later, it's easier to do.

But our fear is that they're going to get in there and they're going to say, wow, I don't have $400 billion and I certainly don't want to raise taxes.

And they're going to use gimmicks.

So I want to see them start working as soon as possible to try and get a solution.

And on clear the thing about the past legislature, they have done a pretty good job of not making the problem worse.

So this could be a lot worse if they took a lot of the temporary money we had and spent it on recurring items.

And so they've been fairly restrained.

So the problem hasn't gotten worse.

And I want to make sure they get credit for that.

All right.

Thank you, Steve.

And I asked candidates Hewitt and Lundy about their thoughts and plans for a fiscal cliff.

And here are their answers.

Well, I do not believe we're heading to a fiscal cliff, first of all, so don't freak out.

You know, we two months ago said that we were anticipating an $800 million shortfall in 25.

Yesterday or last week, a joint budget at the Capitol.

Now they're calling that a $400 million, you know, issue one.

We're not very good at estimating our revenue.

Two years in advance, we're barely good enough at estimating it several months in advance.

So I think that we have to give the market some confidence where businesses want to come and work here.

We have done significant work already in the legislature to lower the tax rates.

The goal is to get to zero state income tax.

That is what everyone measures other states by and I think that we are on a path to do that.

So we'll never have a cliff.

You know, we're we're designed legislatively, unconstitutionally, that we will never have one.

That's always great political rhetoric for people to say that.

But I've said from the beginning that I want to get rid of state income tax for 65 years, and older residents that make less than $250,000 a year will offset that removal of that tax by keeping them to stay here and not move the taxes, not move to Florida.

And we'll well, will we be compensating through property insurance?

Now, as far as the tax structure, I'm for renewing the point four or five sales tax.

We need to renew that.

And the reason why is we need to pay our teachers, our police and our firemen and then what's left over we need to fix our roads with and that fixing the roads is going to reduce our insurance cost.

So that's my plan.

With respect to the 4.4 or five sales tax.

So, Dr. Samuels, you mentioned earlier that education seems to be the place they go to cut with the cries of an impending fiscal cliff.

Are you concerned about that?

And I want to hear your thoughts on what the state needs to do to stabilize so that education isn't affected.

Well, I'm starting to have flashbacks, actually, to the 2000 82,015, you know, and we got when we got cut at the cut at the curve, and we saw now, not only did we see people people forget, we didn't just see our state support reduce, but also a lot of people not tech and focus on all our unfunded mandates.

So even even we still have not completely recovered from that because even though even when we get our our state appropriation for the university and about 90% of that is unfunded mandates.

So, so many of our institutions now or really more public assisted, not public supported institutions that are really driven more by tuition and other and fees.

That's what's driving the institutions.

And we also shifted a lot of costs of going to school to our students and to their parents.

And so everyone in the last eight years or so, we haven't completely undone a lot of damage.

And so many of us are afraid that we could go back backwards.

So when you have when you hear people say things like, well, we could somehow solve this problem with, you know, you know, without renewing the sales tax, or we can move away from the income tax in a way that's sounds like good politics.

That sounds know nice to the voters.

But for a lot of us, it doesn't seem to be very realistic.

And then at the end of the day, unless we make some structural reforms in how the budget is, because right now, higher education, health and hospital or the two biggest ticket items that are unprotected from budget cuts and we know they can always be an economic downturn.

And so oftentimes politicians go where it's easiest and we're going to get cut.

If education is really the priority that we say it is, then we reflect it in the things we do and how we restructure our budget, restructure our finances and our priorities.

Until then, you know, it sounds like good politics to me.

So, Stephen, we did touch on tax reform and its importance in providing more funds and maybe stabilizing the states, the economy.

Did you want to expand on your thoughts based on what he said?

Oh, sure.

Look, there's a lot of things long term we can do to stabilize our budget and a lot of it we want to grow the economy, which we talked about before.

I think it comes down to having a good tax system that makes us competitive and also having a good workforce.

And sometimes those things are in opposition because you want to have competitive you want to lower taxes, but you got to pay for the workforce if you want it and pay for education.

But we also need to realize in terms of a fiscal cliff and stability, you could double the amount of money we're spending on education.

We're not going to grow the economy that fast in two years.

You could cut taxes by $4 billion.

You're not going to grow the economy that fast in two years.

Those are long term solutions to try and attract people, which you really have to have if you're a business that wants to move in here.

Does the state have a long term track record of sustainable bility or do they?

We're going to move here because they have good educational programs, but if they don't think it's going to be there two years later, why would you invest and spend a bunch of money here?

We might come in here because they have a great biochemistry program, but if we know that's going to get cut in two years, we're not going to put a whole bunch of money in there.

So we need some stability and getting rid of some of these exemptions and making the tax system better.

And it's almost the same thing with all the dedications.

They're politically identical, a tax exemption or credit and a budget dedication.

It's a small group of people that really want it and a bunch of people that don't really care that much one way or another.

And that's how they, you know, they build up like barnacles on on a ship.

Thank you.

When I sat down with State Treasurer John Schroeder, he had an interesting answer for what he believed to be one of the biggest issues, holding Louisiana back from attracting more people and businesses.

Now, here's what he had to say.

I think one of the biggest problems that we face in the state is the cronyism and corruption and the pay to play politics that destroyed the reputation of the state.

You got to have a zero tolerance for it, because if you can't keep people here, how are you going to get people to come?

So you first have to work on what we have.

Same thing when we want to build this economy.

You can't build it on the backs of companies and people who move here.

When you're losing businesses and you're losing people here in our own state.

Cronyism, corruption.

That is an age old criticism of Louisiana politics.

Mary, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you're hearing in terms of the perception of Louisiana.

Have we kind of cleaned up our act to the outside world and the way we do business politically?

I mean, I think we have I mean, obviously that has been a big issue in our history and we've lived through that and have dealt with it.

I mean, honestly, I think the good news is, is that we've had a pretty stretch here of period of time.

I'm talking about at the state level now in the state government, where that has not been a really big issue.

And I don't see that it's one that we hear back from other people that companies are complaining about or whatever.

What they are complaining about is our tax structure, that it's hard to understand that we don't have the workforce that they have to pay to put their kids in private schools if they're going to come bring their employees into the state.

I mean, those are the overriding things.

Look, is there cronyism out there?

There probably is in some way.

Is it in other states?

I'm sure that it is.

It just doesn't seem to me right now that is the overarching problem that we need to deal with at this moment, not that we should tolerate it, but that we really need to focus on some of these other things as well.

Well taken.

One of the biggest existential threats to life in Louisiana is global warming.

During our debated LP, we asked the candidates what needed to be done to combat this growing threat.

Here's what they had to say.

We have these big, gorgeous, grand plans to build a better coast and to protect our families, but we have not made a firm commitment to fund them.

The second thing we need to do is focus on the new jobs that are going to be created, whether they are renewables or whether they are manufacturing types of jobs.

The truth is, we're living off of the BP settlement money for right now.

That goes away in a couple of years.

The best way to improve those dollars is to one, monetize the offshore development in wind and other renewables and to have more energy exports so we can grab some of those investments and reinvest it in our energy protection programs.

We absolutely have to work to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but we have to be careful in setting goals where carbon is the most important thing because we have to also have a reliable and affordable energy grid.

And you only have to look at the Coastal Master plan to see the thousands of open canals in Louisiana.

We're not closed by the oil and gas community.

That's why you have these coastal enforcement suits.

That's where the saltwater is.

That's why we have this huge obligation today.

I want industry to drop this whole subject, not government, because quite frankly, it might be a good goal.

I don't think it's reachable.

I don't trust the research.

There's too much money involved in it.

Global warming, we've got to wildfires, record heat and humidity, saltwater intrusion up the Mississippi River, threatening drinking water.

Is climate change one of the top issues in this gubernatorial election?

Based on your findings and what you're hearing?

Well, I think for a lot of young people, you know, climate change in general is they see this as an existential crisis.

As you know, this is going to be the this is the problem.

The generation that may not be a top of line issue to many voters.

The problem is that it should be because no state in the union is being more directly impacted by sea level rise in Louisiana.

And there are lots of reasons for this.

We got thousands of miles of canals and pipelines down in Sound in south Louisiana.

A lot of this is manmade.

And so this is an existential crisis, and especially for the communities.

This is this is really life and death with BP, with the whole way of life is literally falling into the Gulf of Mexico.

All right.

Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here and to share your insight and your expertise and and also with our viewers to help them sort out, you know, what's important.

And when they're ready to go to the polls, they go more informed.

Based on your work with the young people and your expertise and of course, reset Louisiana.

So thank you.

If you'd like to learn more about the candidates and the issues, you can find our full interviews as well as the full debate at LP B Dawg programs The Way Forward.

Election 2023.

I want to thank Dr. Samuels, Dr. Procopio and Mr. Irwin for sharing their knowledge on these very important issues.

So what do you, our viewers, think?

We encourage you to comment on tonight's show by visiting LP Dawgs slash Louisiana Spotlight and clicking on the quote.

Join the conversation link.

We'd love to hear from you and thank you all for watching.

Good night for a copy of this program.

Call one 800 9737246 or go online to WW w dot lp b dawg.