Out of office, Jindal looms over Louisiana budget crisis

(AP) — Bobby Jindal left the governor's office nearly two months ago, but his legacy permeates a special legislative session aimed at digging Louisiana out of deep financial troubles.

Louisiana's worst budget crisis in nearly 30 years is threatening public colleges with cuts that could shutter campuses mid-semester and putting health care services for the poor and disabled at risk of elimination.

Jindal, burnishing his fiscal conservative credentials for his failed presidential campaign, refused to hike taxes or approve any action that even resembled a tax hike, including trimming expensive business tax credits, even amid an economic downturn.

[...] TV's bearded men of "Duck Dynasty" got millions in film tax credit subsidies, while tuition skyrocketed for college students at campuses struggling with deep state financing cuts.

Criticism of Jindal is bipartisan and widespread, with irritated lawmakers left sifting through the highly-unpopular choices of raising taxes or taking a hatchet to higher education and government services.

[...] before he exited office, Jindal defended his financial management, saying he chose to grow the private sector rather than the government.

Lawmakers went along at the time, rather than buck Jindal in a state with a powerful governor who can retaliate by eliminating local construction projects and strip items from the budget with a line-item veto.

The measure, awaiting Senate approval, would scrap a much-maligned tax credit Jindal pushed ahead of his White House bid to comply with a no-tax pledge he made to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's organization.