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Louisiana sucks. There's no getting around it. I don't mean it in a derogatory, "I hate living here" way. For the most part, I love living in Louisiana. Louisiana has great food, interesting people and fun locations. When I say Louisiana sucks, I mean Louisiana sucks in a "quantitative" way. And by those measures, Louisiana, well, sucks bad. No, the word "bad" doesn't convey the sheer magnitude of how much Louisiana lags behind the rest of the country. If rankings were a NASCAR race, Louisiana would be Ricky Bobby: naked, ?ailing, screaming and invoking Tom Cruise. Not a pretty sight. Recently, a rash of reports have come out naming Louisiana as either the worst or one of the worst states in their respective categories. This week, a Harvard study reported Louisiana as the state with the second lowest life expectancy, after Mississippi. The week before, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education released its National Report Card on Higher Education, giving Louisiana an astounding two "C minuses," one "D plus" and two "F's." A month ago, Forbes ranked Louisiana as the worst state to do business in or, as the list dictates, "the 50th best state to do business in." And these studies were all released within the past month. In 2004 and 2005, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that Louisiana had the lowest per capita income in the United States. So now that it's obvious that Louisiana does suck, why does it suck so bad? One could make the argument that Hurricane Katrina is the cause, or at least has exacerbated Louisiana's low performance. Surprisingly (or maybe not), Katrina actually helped increase 2005's end of year per capita income by reducing the population of our poorer citizens. Although this argument generally has some merit, it fails to take into consideration the fact that even before Katrina, Louisiana has been in the lowest quintile in such studies. A Louisiana blogging Web site, www.forgotston.com, complied a list of such rankings in a "LA misery index." These rankings extend well before Katrina. Another argument one could make is that Louisiana citizens simply don't have the money to compete with the rest of the country. Of course, you shouldn't believe this for a second. Not only does Louisiana have the 11th highest tax burden in the United States, it receives substantial royalties from petroleum, has a wealth of natural resources not found in other states and is home to one of the largest ports in the United States. And let's not forget tourism, casinos and hunting. So, if it's not Katrina or lack of money, what's holding Louisiana back? I have my own little theory which revolves around a theory published in 1993 by Richard Auty called "the resource curse." Basically, the theory states that an abundance of natural resources is detrimental to a country's economy. Of course, this is not because natural resources are themselves bad, but government mismanagement has hopelessly screwed its people over in reliance on these resources. Some symptoms and factors include reliance on petroleum, corruption, government complacency and underdeveloped education. You don't have to be an international economist to see the similarities between the study and Louisiana's predicament. So then, now that I have of?cially identi?ed Louisiana politicians as the source of our misery (I'm sure everyone had an inkling that they were screwing things up), what do we do with them? For one, stop re-electing them. I honestly could not believe that Ray Nagin was re-elected after the horrendous job he did preparing New Orleans for the storm. I was even more ?abbergasted by the fact that Nagin had the utter lack of political sense to call New Orleans a "chocolate city" while trying to garner ?nancial and political support. When he had called the site of the Twin Towers "a hole in the ground" (of course, failing to realize that New Orleans is also a hole in the ground), I was amused and saddened to learn that he would travel to New York to try to attract businesses to New Orleans. Unsurprisingly, it was an exercise in futility. The second thing we can do is speak our voice. On the heels of a recall petition for Student Government President Chris Odinet, I come to re-emphasize the importance of making yourself heard. While you might not care about the workings of SG, which admittedly constitutes a very small portion of your life, the state elections being held Sept. 30 and Nov. 7 will constitute the future direction of Louisiana. At such a critical time in reconstruction, hold your representatives accountable. In a representative government, the failures of the politicians are ultimately a re?ection of the failures of the people. I'm tired of Louisiana being "50th best" in the nation. Aren't you?
----- Contact Jonathan Lo at jlo@lsureveille.com
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