Talking Points Memo - Republican state lawmakers in Louisiana and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist are in a war of words over the state's terrible budget options, with Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), a 2016 White House contender, stuck in the middle.
The state faces an enormous $1.6 billion budget shortfall, a reality Jindal blames on falling oil revenues. However, he is one of a number of GOP governors, many of them considering presidential runs, who have found themselves with budget crises due to their unwillingness to raise tax revenue. Jindal's anti-tax orthodoxy has limited legislators' options for balancing the state's budget and means the state is facing the prospect of drastic cuts in key areas like higher education.
For months now legislators have accused Jindal of kowtowing to Norquist's "no tax pledge," which stipulates that taxes cannot be raised unless they’re offset by spending cuts elsewhere. And this weekend they'd had enough. A group of self-described "conservative" Republican state representatives took their complaints to Norquist himself, asking him to give them some wiggle room on raising taxes and to shoot down some Jindal-backed legislation that they say would set a "dangerous precedent" in how government could mask revenue hikes.
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