So, Bobby Jindal maintains that in the next legislative session, he will not permit taxes to be raised to close the monstrous Louisiana budget gap, but like all things having to do with terminology, language and narrative, this is untrue.

Sure, he won’t force everyone to pay a higher state income tax, but what about…

 Are bus fares going up around the state?

Are school tuition costs going up?

Social programs, are they being cut?

Once one blasts away all pretense at framing arguments, these three things and many, many others amount to taxes and more importantly to Jindal and his ilk, they amount primarily to taxes on the poor and middle class.

Sure, they aren’t called taxes per se, but when bus fares and tuition go up, it is routinely because the money they are getting from the government (funding, subsidies) is being cut to save the governor from having to cut the subsidies given elsewhere, often to larger business. And when social services are being cut, again to maintain the subsidies given to larger business, it is again the poor who are being affected.

These are government decisions that take money away from a family’s wallet or purse. If it happens on April 15th, it’s called a tax but if it happens on the other 364 days of the year we are supposed to call it fiscal responsibility and hard choices. No new taxes is never true, no matter how it looks in the campaign literature. Just ask those at the poverty line trying to buy groceries or a pair of middle class parents looking at a tuition bill from LSU…

Just a thought.

Have a nice day.