Does anyone wonder why liberal governors like John Bel Edwards don’t realize that a strong growth economy offers two great advantages. First, obviously it creates prosperity producing jobs for the people. And second it spins off additional revenue to run government so that taxes don’t have to be raised to sustain liberal spending patterns.
But in a state whose legislature has gone along with whatever a governor has demanded, John Bel Edwards can ignore economic vitality because he knows that he can just raise taxes to pay for all his spending.
The Pelican Institute released a report last year on the effect of the governor’s attitude on the people of the state, and the results weren’t pretty. They still aren’t. From a press release that free-market think tank put out yesterday…
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- From July 2018 to July 2019, Louisiana lost 1,000 jobs – the only state to lose jobs over that time period.
- In 2018, Louisiana’s economic growth ranked 41st in the nation.
- Almost 28,000 people moved out of Louisiana – the 4th largest population loss in the country.
John Bel Edwards isn’t bothered by any of this. That’s obvious.
He doesn’t care that raising taxes, instead of reforming government as he promised but then ignored in favor of growing government, compounds an already weak economy. Very simply put, business votes with its feet and would rather be in Texas, Tennessee, or Florida where it is welcomed and taxes are low. And when it goes to Texas and those other states it takes the jobs and state and local revenues with it.
But never fear we are left with John Bel’s legacy; trial lawyers, taxes, government dependency, and poverty. We will go down in history as the state with the worst performance during the greatest economic boom in American history. But with a straight face he smiles as he tells you in his ads that he has done a great job, even though every day more of Louisiana’s best and brightest move away!
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