by Jeanie Donovan, MPA, MPH 

A ten year retrospective - Part 1

by Fred Kammer, SJ

A collective sigh of relief emanated from the statehouse at 6:00 pm on June 11, 2015. The Louisiana legislature passed a last-minute budget-bill that appears to avoid fiscal disaster—at least for now. Legislators performed political acrobatics that enable the Governor to claim this budget is revenue neutral when in fact, and by necessity, businesses will pay more taxes.[1]   

by Alí Bustamante, M.A.

Since June 2014, the average price of a barrel of oil has fallen from more than $100 to about $50.[1]  Many states, including those in the Gulf South, are considering budget cuts to higher education, healthcare, and social services in order to deal with oil revenue shortfalls. But is the oil revenue shortfall really the culprit? Contrary to what state budget offices profess, pressure to public services stems from the inadequacy and regressive nature of tax structures and not from oil revenue shortfalls.

Recently, a representative of Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans asked me this question from the archbishop, “How much does it cost to live in New Orleans these days?” It was a question that had haunted me as an employer in the years immediately after Katrina as reports and rumors mixed together about rising prices of food, housing, utilities, and other basics.

by Fred Kammer, S.J. 

The New Orleans Advocate, in an eight-part report[1], has highlighted the burgeoning practice of creating tax-breaks (“tax incentives,” “tax loopholes,” “tax expenditures”) that now cost Louisiana $1.08 billion dollars a year.  Legislatures create these benefits purportedly to induce businesses to locate in a state or expand there.  Two examples from The Advocate illustrate these incentives:

by Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.

“The criminal justice system is out of control,”[1] proclaimed Pope Francis to the International Association of Penal Law on October 23, 2014. 

Francis laments how societies have become overly punitive, thereby losing the capacity to practice the “primacy of life and the dignity of the human person.”  

Sadly, Louisiana is a prime example of a criminal justice system out of control, as the state “locks up more of its people than anywhere in the world.”[2]

by Sue Weishar, Ph.D.

Lessons Learned, Lives Changed

By Sue Weishar, Ph.D.

Time to End the Death Penalty

by Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.

On February 7, 2013 Federal District Judge James Brady indefinitely stayed the execution of Christopher Sepulvado because the state of Louisiana failed to provide details of its new execution protocol.  The protocol concerns who administers it, what drugs are utilized, and how the drugs work.  Whether or not the protocol sustains the prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution stands at issue.