Thinking about leaving the Democratic Party

The problem with term limits is what we see in the Louisiana Legislature. I thought limts were the answer when they first came out because I also didn''t like the power bases set up by 20-year legislators. But I've changed my mind because of what I've seen recently. The two-term politicians have no vested interest in long-term solution or long-term problems. They just want to get something quick for their district so that they can get reelected to that second term. They care little about long-term consequences of their short-term agendas.

Juts look at how they threw LSU under the bus in this years budget. Next year it will be worse.

 

It will happen when a true moderate party emerges. Ron Paul lost the middle when he ran as a republican and the Libertarians have always been a second conservative party, not a moderate party. Whenever a true third candidate arises it always seems to be to the right of the Republicans (Ross Perot) or to the left of the Democrats (Ralph Nader). When a candidate tries to find the middle he often fails to attract the entire moderate range, instead going for a piece of the middle and a piece of left or right (Ron Paul, John Anderson). There is a huge vacuum in the middle that is getting bigger as the dems and GOP become increasingly polarized.

Who is going to fill it and when? You can bet the established parties will do everything they can to prevent a third party from emerging. The worst is the "winner take all" primary system which is designed to prevent small parties from getting any voice at all.

 

Absolutely. It's basic irresponsibility.

It's because we're the only state in the union with State Charity Hospitals and because we have too many 4-year universities and not enough junior colleges. Most of the excess jobs are in these two areas. Universal Health Insurance would eliminate the need for charity hospitals at a huge savings for the state.

States Similar to Louisiana (Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas) have a flagship university doctoral programs and research colleges and three or four other four-year universities with graduate schools. Then they have about 12 junior colleges.

Louisiana has 14 four-year colleges and 2 junior colleges. It's ridiculous. One former junior college LSU-A now has dorms and four year curriculum. State legislature keep bring home bacon by turning junior college into four year schools and smal liberal arts colleges into paper "Universities". Now they are trying to get them all graduate programs and Division I football teams. Not to mention we must maintain four historically black colleges.

It's a total waste for a poor southern state. Consolidation of some schools, elimination of duplicate graduate programs and even reverting some four-year colleges back to 2-year colleges would save a ton of state expense.

Clearly UNO and Southern/New Orleans should merge. Clearly Louisiana Tech and Grambling should merge. Clearly LSU Shreveport and Southern Shreveport should merge. Graduate programs should disappear from all but LSU, LA Tech, Southern, and ULL. LSUA and Nichols can revert to junior colleges. Division I BCS football should be dropped at any school that can't support it with ticket sales, which would leave LSU. Louisiana should have colleges playing competitive football in Division I FCS, Division II, Division III, and Junior College.