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- <text id=89TT1286>
- <title>
- May 15, 1989: American Notes:Louisiana
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- May 15, 1989 Waiting For Washington
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 39
- American Notes
- LOUISIANA
- Reform Deformed
- </hdr><body>
- <p> When bouncy Buddy Roemer, 45, took over as Governor of
- Louisiana last year, he struck the pose of a reformer
- determined to energize a state with the nation's highest
- unemployment and one of its worst educational systems. Now he
- is staggering, jolted by the defeat of his key reform: a tax
- plan that would have shifted some of the burden from business
- to the middle class.
- </p>
- <p> Saying he was "disappointed" that 55% of the voters had
- rejected his plan, Roemer last week proposed laying off
- thousands of state employees and closing vocational schools and
- hospitals. That would shrink up to $720 million from a budget
- already shriveled by a decline in tax revenues from oil
- companies. It would still leave the legislature with an unhappy
- choice: extend the 3% sales tax that Roemer's new measures would
- have replaced or accept severe cutbacks in vital government
- services.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-