Why Louisiana Stays Poor

[Iterate]

Interesting work here.

From the "About Us" section of the Together Louisiana website: "Together Louisiana is a statewide network of more than 250 religious congregations and civic organizations across Louisiana, representing more than 200,000 people. It is one of the largest grassroots organizations in the history of Louisiana."

[randr]

1. Predominant industry-extraction of natural resources

Across the nation the poorest counties can make the same claim. Where the extraction industries go, poverty and crime follow.

[kstewart33]

2. A great post.

Iterate, thank you so much. Every Louisiana citizen should see this video.

[Wounded Bear]

3. This happens, to a lesser degree, all over the country...

Witness the bullshit over the Amazon HQ2 bids. Hundreds of cities all over the country falling all over themselves to offer huge tax breaks to them to move to their area.

Kudos to Louisiana for moving on this.

[usaf-vet]

4. Excellent presentation. I have no connection to LA, but this is a telling presentation........

for the entire country IMO. We are subsidizing corporations with money that should go to communities.

Money for schools, infrastructure, police and fire protection, healthcare, living wages for families.

In Wisconsin out REPUBLICAN governor and legislature just gave a 4.3 BILLION dollar subsidity to a foreign company while shorting every community in the state with fund for schools, infrastructure, police and fire protection, healthcare, living wages for families.

This is not by accident this is IMO an national republican plan to capture all the wealth in the country for the rich and corporations. Breaking the bank so the republicans can deny funding for schools, infrastructure, police and fire protection, healthcare, living wages for families BECAUSE THE STATE IS BROKE!

[Roy Rolling]

5. Like White Blood Cells

The good people of Louisiana are a solid fabric of moral and just citizens. It takes a while, but we will, one-on-one, defeat the infection of Republican dictatorial control.

We elected a Democratic governor. The fever of GOP politics has broken in Louisiana. The only people listening to loudmouth GOP Louisiana politicians is the Washington media and the GOP faithful at home.

[Dustlawyer]

6. I live in Texas close to the Louisiana border.

It is like going to another country. Cameron Parish, with 2 multi-billion dollar industries is so poor their property deed records are not computerized. It is the dark ages there with extreme poverty.

Another example of campaign finance keeping the citizens poor and the corporations wealthy. Corruption is rampant!

[Roadside Attraction]

7. Another reason

I'm a Mississippi native with family in Louisiana.

Another reason both states -- indeed, much of the old Confederacy -- remains stuck at the bottom is simple. Since the end of the Civil War, except for a brief period during Reconstruction, state legislatures have focused on keeping the n#####s under control through various legal schemes.

You can focus on (1) keeping other people down, or, (2) lifting everyone up. When you focus on keeping half or more of your population under your thumb, no one benefits except for a few at the very top -- everyone suffers.

A vignette from the life of George Wallace says a lot (WARNING: Language may offend some):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace

In 1958, Wallace ran in the Democratic primary for governor. Since the 1901 constitution's effective disfranchisement of the state's blacks, and most poor whites as well, the Democratic Party had been virtually the only party in Alabama. For all intents and purposes, the Democratic primary was the real contest at the state level. This was a political crossroads for Wallace. State Representative George C. Hawkins of Gadsden ran, but Wallace's main opponent was state attorney general John Malcolm Patterson, who ran with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Wallace had spoken against. Wallace was endorsed by the NAACP. Wallace lost the nomination by over 34,400 votes.[18]

After the election, aide Seymore Trammell recalled Wallace saying, "Seymore, you know why I lost that governor's race? ... I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again."[note 1]

In the wake of his defeat, Wallace adopted a hard-line segregationist stance and used this stand to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election in 1962. When a supporter asked why he started using racist messages, Wallace replied, "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."[21]

Nothing much has changed.

[shadowmayor]

10. So many Americans simply don't know our history

Wallace was a calculated racist (no forgiveness here) who figured out how to win by taking the low road. I've told this story to dozens of people, and most don't seem to believe it. Toss in a heapin' load of Nixon's southern strategy following LBJ's Civil Rights Act, and you have a confederacy filled with republican representatives in Congress and the Senate. What a colossal mess. Thanks for posting this!

[Kind of Blue]

15. +1000

Yes, I don't doubt that this is the underlying reason that makes it easy for elected officials to keep everyone down and poor.

Thanks for the insight.

[3Hotdogs]

8. On the other hand. I grew up in Millburn, N.J. I live in Maplewood, N.J.

We got some pretty expensive homes in Maplewood. Millburn includes Short Hills, one of the richest communities in the U.S. Essex Fells, N.J. is pretty high up in income also. They have one thing in common: they have no industries

I have visited Greenwich, Ct. It also is pretty high cost. It has one industry, a bakery. The bakery is moving out of town.

They do have hedge fund managers.

[Delmette2.0]

9. Now, on top of all the local tax breaks,

Our Federal Government has given these big corporations a reduction of their corporate income tax.

[PeeJ52]

11. I wonder how rich

the members of that commission are?

[bitterross]

12. Add to this the stupidity of sports teams

Cities and states do the same stupid giveaways for privately owned sports teams too.

[Submariner]

13. Bobby Jindal should be shamed in public for letting his state

continue down that rabbit hole that he must have known about when in office. What a sick system.

[Kind of Blue]

14. This is a fantastic presentation.

Thank you very much for posting, Iterate.

[smirkymonkey]

16. K&R

Excellent presentation!