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Louisiana Workers Have No Candidate In Governor’s Race

We Must Build a Workers Party

By Malcolm Suber

The multi-national Louisiana working class finds itself in well-worn and familiar territory as we approach the October gubernatorial election. We are being asked to choose between three rich, conservative, anti-choice white men who are squabbling among their class to see who best represents the interests of the oil and gas millionaires who are the real puppet-masters that run this state.

Neither Ralph Abraham, Jon Bel Edwards or Eddie Rispone have a program that will serve to improve the living conditions of Louisiana workers. All three are pursuing the right-wing goals of more intense exploitation of the workers while promising even more tax cuts for the rich. Rispone and Abraham promise to be the most loyal suck-ups to white supremacist President Donald Trump. Their program boiled down and addressed to the white workers and the white middle class is “if you like Donald Trump, you will love me”.

Meanwhile, the gist of Jon Bel Edwards’ program which is addressed to the white Republican majority is “I have successfully maintained your priorities for four years, why not extend my stay.”

Nowhere are there any promises to move Louisiana from the bottom of the list of places to live and raise your family. New Census Bureau data released in September showed that nearly 1 in 5 Louisiana residents lives below the poverty line. We now have the third highest poverty rate in the U.S. after Mississippi and New Mexico. Nowhere is there a promise to move Louisiana off the list as the most incarcerated state where thousands of working people are held in gulags for minor infractions of the law. Nowhere are there promises to improve the education of our children. Nowhere is there a program to end air pollution from the oil and chemical companies. And nowhere is there a program to lessen the regressive tax burden on the working class, replacing it with progressive taxes on the property of the rich.

Louisiana workers will never get off the bottom until we begin to organize and fight for our class interests, rejecting the program of the capitalist rulers to divide us along race, gender, sexual preference and immigration status. What that requires is for us to realize that the two political parties—the Republicans and the Democrats—are parties controlled by the rich to protect the interests of the rich. We should be working to develop a mass workers party that promotes the interest of the working class in opposition to the program of the capitalists who are hellbent on keeping us from redistributing the wealth created by our labor, which they currently hoard for themselves.

We must engage our fellow workers in discussions about the deceptive role of the Democrats and Republicans whose campaigns lie, lie, lie, proclaiming they represent all classes. We as wage-slaves do not share the same problems as the bosses and rich capitalists. They want to maintain this system of privilege for the rich and forced misery for the working class. We must get clear that we are at war against the rich billionaires and their government. Workers must fight to put political power in the hands of the workers’ political representatives who have no interest in exploiting working people.

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Who Controls the Louisiana Government?

FAT CAT LA LEGISLATORS THREATEN TO EVICT 37,000 SENIORS, DISABLED FROM NURSING HOMES WHILE BIG CORPORATIONS WITHHELD  $15 BILLION IN TAXES SINCE 2011!

Pay Them $7.25 an hour, Cancel Sales Tax

Take Away Legislators’ Health Care, Pensions

4,760 Corporate Lobbyists,  Right Wing Groups in Louisiana Bankrolling Candidates & Writing Legislation.

A People’s Budget Commission Should Investigate Campaign “donations” (bribes) from these corporations

All we hear is that there is a whopping budget deficit and the only thing that can be done is to take away medical care, education, housing. In truth, it is only the working class and poor people paying all the taxes. According to a state study, the budget is being defrauded of $2 billion a year due to corporate exemptions, loopholes, and rebates. See this on who’s not paying taxes and which right wing billionaires are funding state legislators.

The majority of state legislators belong to:

ALEC: American Legislative Council.

This is made up of the biggest oil  companies, banks, military industries, and pharmaceutical companies. They give ALEC millions. They host lavish meetings with state legislators to tell them what laws to propose and how to vote. They write the legislation and word for word their puppets introduce it. Louisiana legislators are hosting the national ALEC Conference in New Orleans in August.

If you have $30,000, you can have dinner with them. Koch brothers: ultra-right wingers, major players in ALEC and other right-wing organizations. Made billions from oil and gas.

State Policy Network – similar to ALEC

What is their legislative agenda: To oppose equality for women, raising the minimum wage, environmental laws, and workers’ rights. They are anti-immigrant, homophobic, defend police killings and are rabidly pro-war. They are against Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps and Housing Assistance. They are for mass incarceration in for profit jails. They believe only the very rich count.

GOVERNOR’S OFFICE REVEALS 7,000 CORPORATE TAX EXEMPTIONS COSTING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS YEARLY

A few companies that get tax breaks are:

Exxon Mobil: $263 million
Valero Oil: $315 million
Cleco Oil: $180 million
Fracking companies: $1.2 billion
Walmart: $700,000 to build stores in prosperous neighborhoods fraudulently obtained money slated for poor neighborhoods
Cheniere Energy: $117 million

Property Tax Refund to Corporations: $427 million

The state paid out, in one year, $210 million more in tax credits and rebates than it has collected from corporate taxes. Former Secretary of Revenue,
Barfield, admitted that of 87 largest companies, only l/4 paid any taxes
while 96% were profitable.

Sources: The Advocate, Office of the Governor, Good Jobs First This does not include the millions in tax abatements given locally in New Orleans, especially to hotels, casinos, private medical facilities and more

UNITY IS NEEDED TO FIGHT BACK TOGETHER FOR ALL THE NEEDS OF LOUISIANA’S HARD-WORKING PEOPLE.

The legislature is supposed to protect the well being of the people of Louisiana. However, they are only looking out for their own bank accounts and the corporations who fund their campaigns. In exchange for campaign money (while “legal”, Workers Voice calls it bribes) they make sure the super wealthy and big corporations are piling up profit at the expense of the people. These greedy politicians are creating misery, suffering and death, while enjoying their mansions. There is not a shred of democracy in this. Just like the U.S. Congress, another millionaires club, they have declared war on the working-class people of this state by cutting the wealthy’s taxes and taking away money from food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, housing assistance and more.