One of the more contentious issues of the session was the SAVE Act. It was an odd tax credit bill that to be frank made absolutely no logical sense, especially how Governor Jindal and his supporters explained it.

Here’s a snap of the fiscal note on the legislation that the SAVE Act was ultimately attached to that demonstrates how stupid the Jindal administration’s messaging was on this issue.

The SAVE Act is a statutory dedication for higher ed funding. It’s not a convulted tax credit. If anyone on the Fourth Floor had any clue how to message this would’ve been an easy argument to make. Instead of gutting higher education, the Jindal administration was finally protecting higher education by giving it a dedicated source of revenue.

Of course what happened was the Democrats and the media (one in the same I know) were able to use SAVE to define Jindal as more beholden to Grover Norquist, who became the Democrat Party’s Emmanuel Goldstein this year, than the people of Louisiana. The numbers don’t lie. If we’re being honest with ourselves, Governor Jindal became the first governor to protect higher education funding by law.

A Legislature will have to pass a law to repeal SAVE. Do our Legislators, who worked so hard to make not just LSU but other high quality institutions like SUNO and LSU Alexandria whole, really want to place higher ed at risk for more cuts?

Exit question: If Bobby Jindal couldn’t beat a bunch of morons like the Karen Carter Peterson controlled Louisiana Democrat Party on this issue, how does he expect to take on the Clinton machine?