Closing the gap: Louisiana lags behind the rest of the nation
How does Louisiana rank?
49th: in private investment in research and development
38th: in average annual pay
7th: in the percentage of “working poor” — those who earn less than 1 1/2 times the poverty level
2nd: in overall poverty rate and rate of children in poverty
1st: in homicide rate per 100,000 habitants
1st: in prisoner incarceration rate
8th: in violent crime
1st: in births to unmarried mothers
1st: in infant mortality rate
2nd: in low birthweight births
6th: in births to teenage women
25th: in percent of children without health insurance
45th: in percent of population without health insurance
11th: in toxic releases in millions of pounds
Source: Council for a Better Louisiana’s “Louisiana Fact Book for the 2007 Election”
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It’s the perpetual punch line to a very old joke:
When state rankings come out on education or the economy or almost anything else that truly matters, Louisiana is first among the worst and last among the best.
But there’s a growing sentiment that the time for such self-mockery has long since passed. A feeling that Louisiana — with its pockmarked roads, trailing schools, burgeoning poverty, dubious politics and mass exodus of its college-educated youth — has reached a do-or-die point. That this year just might be the time to do something about how far the state has fallen behind the rest of the nation.
This fall, voters will elect a new governor and, thanks to term limits, a markedly different Legislature. That new leadership must oversee a massive rebuilding effort, the spending of recovery money and redistricting after the 2010 Census — all of which could help the state reverse decades of neglect or shove it further down the road to ruin.
Whether exhausted from driving congested roads and working second jobs to pay private-school tuition or jolted awake by the hurricanes, some who still call Louisiana home may be ready for real change.
An LSU Public Policy Research Lab spring survey asked a broad question: “Would you say things are generally going in the right direction, or do you think things are going in the wrong direction here in Louisiana?”
Half of the 870 participants in the survey, conducted from mid-March to mid-April, replied that they felt the state is going nowhere. More than 60 percent lacked confidence in state government to effectively address problems.
“This election cycle is Louisiana’s chance to turn things around,” said Elliott Stonecipher, a Shreveport political analyst and demographer. “There will not be another election as important in at least a generation.”
Should Louisiana fail to elect a true reform governor and Legislature that move quickly to address the gap, Stonecipher predicts, then “Louisiana spins quickly down into an irrecoverable cycle of decline. Louisiana is out of time.”
Over the next six weeks, The Advocate, WBRZ Channel 2 and Louisiana Public will give voters a broad outline of the problems faced by the state and describe some of the potential solutions and roadblocks to improving the economy, education, health care and roads.
The state we’re in
Can it really be all that bad?
After all, builders can’t seem to spit out new houses fast enough, shops are popping up along Interstate 12 faster than it takes to drive home on it during rush hour. The Legislature got to play with how to spend about $2 billion in extra cash. Recently the U.S. Census estimated Livingston and Ascension parishes are two of the fastest growing counties in the nation.
Economist Loren Scott reminds people that in the not-too-distant past, voters were forced to choose between Edwin Edwards and David Duke for governor and the state’s checking account was flat empty.
