Weighing a Run in 2016, Jindal Faces Big Budget Shortfall

BATON ROUGE, La. — In recent weeks, the office of Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has issued news releases about the “mindless naïveté” of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the folly of opening diplomatic relations with Cuba and the threat of radical Islam in Europe, prompting a flurry of commentary about what it all might mean to Republican voters in Iowa and South Carolina should Mr. Jindal decide, as has long been expected, to run for president.

But here in the Louisiana capital, there is mostly one topic on everyone’s mind these days, and it is quite distressingly close to home: the fiscal reckoning the state is facing for next year and perhaps for multiple budgets to come.

“Since I’ve been in Louisiana I’ve never seen a budget cycle as desperate as this one,” said Robert Travis Scott, the president of the Public Affairs Research Council, a nonpartisan group based in Baton Rouge.

Louisiana’s budget shortfall is projected to reach $1.6 billion next year and to remain in that ballpark for a while. The downturn in oil prices has undoubtedly worsened the problem, forcing midyear cuts to the current budget. But economists, policy experts and lawmakers of both parties, pointing out that next year’s projected shortfall was well over a billion dollars even when oil prices were riding high, turn to a different culprit: the fiscal policy pushed by the Jindal administration and backed by the State Legislature.

On Monday, Moody’s Investors Service, the credit ratings agency, noted a number of warning signs about the state’s credit outlook, including the plunge in oil prices, “muted job growth” and “a structural deficit.” John Kennedy, the state treasurer, a Republican, pointed to the report as evidence of how “fiscally irresponsible” the state had been for the last seven years.

But while so much attention is on the governor, Mr. Kennedy focused his blame on the Legislature. He argued that Mr. Jindal was not ultimately in charge of the purse strings and that, in any case, he was preoccupied at the moment.

“Governor Jindal is running for president,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I wish him well. He’s a very talented guy and I hope he’ll multitask as he’s working on his national campaign and come down and help us with this budget problem. But if he doesn’t, the Legislature needs to do the job.”

The New York Times