A4 AMERICAN PRESS MONDAY, MAY 31, 2021 PINION BATON ROUGE With a surprising post-pandemic surge in tax collections, Louisiana lawmakers packed the budget with tens of millions of dollars in pet projects decided by legislative leaders in closed- door negotiations. The budget sent to Gov. John Bel Edwards for the financial year that begins July 1 contains at least $49 million in earmarks for local parks, museums, cities and towns, athletic complex- es, nonprofit agencies and parish roadwork. Another $27 million-plus in unspent tax collections from the current budget year also were steered to similar add-ons. were more this year, said Senate Presi- dent Page Cortez, a Lafayette Republican.
were able to put more money into some of the needs and wants that are out For example, Ruston will get $125,000 for a skate park. The city of Youngsville will receive $250,000 for recreational facil- ities. The Winn Parish Police Jury will get $1 million for road repairs. Pointe Coupee Parish will get $2 million for its jail. The Central Athletic Founda- tion will receive $2 million.
The their districts, attend ground- East Baton Rouge Parish parks commission will get $200,000 for upgrades to the local zoo and a nearby park. St. Martin Parish will get $500,000 to buy land. a more than $76 million giveaway to outside groups and local municipalities that have their own tax bases or other financing sources. And the tally include millions of dollars for other pet pork-laden spending plans.
projects that legislators added into a separate construction bill vague explanations when asked that spends a large surplus. The spending decisions came as lawmakers said they scrape together enough money to give teachers slice of the $38 billion operat- the full $1,000 pay raise they discussed earlier in session and crafting of the earmarks list to as they spurned a request to boost state general fund spend- ing on early learning programs. Instead, giving teachers $800, and still searching for ways to fund early child- hood education expansions. But the earmarks give lawmakers the ability to go home after session and point to financial wins they gained for breakings for projects they helped fund and take credit for new police cars, road repairs and recreational equipment. A decade of budget shortfalls eliminated many of the legis- lative add-ons that lawmak- ers regularly slipped into the operating budget.
But after a 2018 tax deal stabilized financ- es and Louisiana started seeing surpluses, lawmakers this term have embraced a return to Legislative leaders offered how they chose which won support. Cortez who noted the local projects are only a small ing budget said he left the Finance Chairman Bodi White. White, a Republican from Central, said senators have in their district. We set a dollar range, and they gave us their House Appropriations Chair- man Jerome Zeringue, a Houma Republican, said: try to be as equitable as possible in trying to identify area of the state which is also represented by the second-ranking Republican Rep. Tanner Magee seems particularly poised to benefit from the add-ons, as are parishes and cities where other legislative leaders live.
In Terrebonne Parish, for example, a local food bank will get $300,000, a sports complex will get $500,000, a local levee board will receive $600,000, the parish will get $1 million to help build a new health unit and economic development projects in downtown Houma will receive $900,000. In one set of budget amend- ments, $12 million in road proj- ects were added for Lafayette, where Cortez lives. Many of the legislative pet projects involve money for roadwork, water and sewer system repairs and local school systems. But other dollars are available to finance such items. School districts are getting billions in federal pandemic aid outside of the state budget, the state has a priority program to steer dollars to road and bridge projects and lawmakers are creating a $300 million pro- gram to finance water system improvements.
Meanwhile, municipalities are receiving their own influx of federal coro- navirus aid they could spend on items lawmakers added into the state budget. Edwards, a Democrat, could strip individual projects with his line-item veto authority. But the majority-Republican Legislature sent Edwards the budget bills early enough that they could try to override any of those veto decisions before the session shuts down June 10 and ensure the dollars flow to their favored projects. a Melinda Deslatte has covered Louisiana politics for The Associated Press since 2000. Follow her at http://twitter.com/ melindadeslatte.
Lawmakers load La. budget with pet projects The Opinion page is a daily forum for opinions on local, state, national and world issues. Columns and letters represent the views of the writers and not necessarily those of this newspaper. Education or indoctrination? the big question at the core of the hullabaloo over race and you have to be a conservative to worry about it. You only have to be a parent.
The concept of critical race theory, or CRT, has been widely roasted by conservative poli- ticians, commentators and ac- tivists as radical, un-American and racially divisive. Because this issue combines three topics that politicians love to ballyhoo or demagogue, about a dozen states have taken steps to bar CRT from schools or govern- ment agencies, even though few people seem to know what it really is. So I was only half-surprised to see a recent Fox News web- site story headlined, land prep school Loyola shames White privilege in student After all, Fox News seems to excel at finding something to frighten or out- rage us daily. I was more surprised that major Chicago media, such as the newspaper where I work, stopping the presses, as we used to say in ancient days, to ballyhoo over this story at Loyola Academy, the elite Jesuit-run prep school in north suburban Wilmette. (A notable exception: The Evanstonian, the mighty stu- dent newspaper at Evanston Township High School, ap- peared to be all over it.) As I suspected, the story turned out to be something of a tempest in a teapot, yet indic- ative of much bigger thunder- storms on sociopolitical horizon about a couple of other volatile words: privi- In an ethics class assign- ment, Loyola juniors were asked to answer such mind-bending questions as: a do you benefit from white privilege, and how have you held onto that benefit (despite knowing the harm it a have you learned about the ways you have spe- cifically wield(ed) this privilege that do harm (whether you intend to or a deep.
No sugar coating and no focusing on the good you have done with your privilege. Remember this about being self-congratulato- ry, about pulling out white Students who were not white also were asked to focus on whatever privileges they might have and reflect on the topic in alternative ways. Unfortunately missing from these thought-provoking ques- tions, in my view, is the pos- sibility that the student does not feel he or she has benefited from or even believes that it exists. Regardless of color, acknowl- edging that you have been privileged by anything race, complexion, ancestry, a wealthy uncle who remembers you generously in his will goes up against the populist American bootstrap ideal. why bestselling books such as Robin con- troversial Fragility: Why So Hard for White People to Talk About from which the class assignment appears to be drawn, became bigger bestsellers after George death last year.
book has the distinction of being criticized from the right as racially di- visive and from center-liberal Black thinkers such as author John McWhorter for to Black folks. The whole debate also proved to be a bit much for the Loyola Academy president, the Rev. Patrick McGrath. In an apologetic letter to parents he declared that the questions were no longer being used in the ethics curriculum. me be he declared, have never and will never ask students to apologize for their Yet, he also assured that structured study of racism has been part of the curriculum for more than two decades and will continue to be the case on some In a telephone interview, he told me that he did not recall any similar backlash like this, which includes a webpage post- ed by disgruntled parents, in the past, but added, are hard conversations.
I get Still, citing church offi- cials as high up as the pope, he insisted that the mission to push back against the of racism will remain unchanged. So will dedication to he said, which he defined in a more recent letter as a climate of investigation and intellectual curiosity that honors genuine inquiry and and ing how to think, not what to the difference be- tween education and indoctri- nation. not Catholic but, regardless of faith, I agree that learning how to think is what education should be all about. Established 1895 OUR VIEW OTHER VIEWS OTHER VIEWS School stirs up unexpected lesson Melinda Deslatte Clarence Page oday, Memorial Day, is one of the most solemn national commemorative holidays of the year. It is the day set aside for special ceremonies remembering those mem- bers of the armed forces who laid down their lives defending our liberty.
It is also a day to recognize our living vet- erans and current members of the armed forces who continue the great history and traditions of patriotism, and self-sacri- ficing service to the nation. For those who want to fly the American flag at home or business today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs gives this advice on how to properly fly the national colors on Me- morial Day. Memorial Day the flag should be flown at half-staff from sunrise until noon only, then raised briskly to the top of the staff until sunset, in honor of the battle With the COVID-19 pandemic reportedly declining, we may also see more public ceremonies honoring our fallen heroes today. Memorial Day began following the War Between the States in which some 620,000 soldier deaths, both Union and Con- federate, were recorded.
There never has been a completely satisfactory accounting of the civilian deaths, both directly and indirectly, because of the war. Many civilians were caught up in the middle of the fighting, such places as Vicksburg, Atlanta; and Rich- mond, Va. Several places claim to be the originator of Memorial Day. Among the claimants is Boalsburg, which reportedly held an observance in October 1864. On May 5, 1868, General John A.
Logan, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued a proclamation of In the South, one of the first observances was April 25, 1866, when a group of women from Columbus, decorat- ed the graves of the Confederate soldiers who died in the Bat- tle of Shiloh, Tenn. Many Southern states, including Louisi- ana, officially observe Confederate Memorial Day to remember their war dead from that war. After World War I was expanded to include American war dead of all wars. Since then, World War II added to the death toll, followed by wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the subsequent ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world is a dangerous place, and we need to continue to honor all who make the ultimate sacrifice, as well as all veterans and those men and women currently serving in the armed forces.
In 1971 Congress enacted a law making Memorial Day the last Monday in May. Congress also created the Moment of which encourages all Americans to pause at 3 p.m. today to remember that they owe their free- doms to those who died in service to the United States. Enjoying the holiday today, but take time to attend a local Memorial Day ceremony and pause at 3 p.m. to pay your re- spects to those who have made it all possible.
Remember fallen heroes today must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for Joseph Campbell.
