Thursday, June 16th, the House will entertain a measure authored by Rep. Brett Geymann, HCR 22, that will request responsible spending levels voted on by the citizens of Louisiana to limit the growth of government according to the amount of personal income growth. HCR 22 flew out of the House Appropriations Committee yesterday on a 16-0 vote. 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita infused so much money into Louisiana in the past few years stimulating government growth that the state’s budget ballooned to unsustainable proportions. And over the past two years our governor and legislature didn’t make the difficult decisions to bring spending back down to size – instead riding on a bubble of federal stimulus dollars rather than reducing the size and scope of government as was clearly necessary. Now, as we see ourselves within the throes of a year of less tax revenue coming in and more people trying to stay above water, it’s high time for Gov. Jindal and our Legislators to support this measure and rein in out-of-control state spending.

Particularly given that it’s an election year and the voters clearly demand fiscal responsibility.

If this resolution doesn’t pass the government can grow 3 billion dollars without any limits! That is a 22 percent growth in spending!

Personal income is growing only at 3 percent. This measure will direct the commissioner of administration to change the expenditure limit for FY 2011-2012 from $14,912,885,640 to $11,828,996,201.

Provisions of this Resolution shall be construed to affect the expenditure limit for FY 2012-2013 and thereafter.

Again we are talking about the future of Louisiana and whether or not Gov. Jindal will hold true to his words of ” I will veto any new taxes.” Because if state spending isn’t reined in, new taxes will be the only way to balance the budget.