As I walked around the grand halls of the Louisiana State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, I walked among Senate and House members conversing in the halls, preparing for the upcoming afternoon session. While this was an enthralling behind-the-scenes look at state political operations and conduct, walking past an advocacy booth hosted by The Concerned Women of America - a group advocating for the repeal of state abortion rights - sobered me up, allowing me to comprehend the reality of the situation. The House and Senate members I was walking among are primarily Republican politicians that make up one of the most conservative state legislatures in the country. In May, with the striking down of Roe V. Wade by the US Supreme Court, these Lousianian politicians passed legislation banning abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with very slim exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or “medically futile” pregnancies. Additionally, The Louisiana legislature - taking inspiration from their fellow Gulf Coast Republicans in the Florida Legislature - has recently passed a whole host of “Don’t Say Gay” bills banning grades 1-12 educators from teaching or talking to their students about homosexuality. While a dower realization, thinking about the politics of Louisiana led me to dive deeper into the bookpacking novel our cohort was reading at the time, Ernest J. Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying”. For those not familiar with the book, “A Lesson Before Dying” is the story of a Lousianian African American man named Jefferson who is wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Before his death, however, his grandmother employs the Jefferson's old public school teacher, Grant Higgins, to instill a sense of humanity in the Jefferson, who went through a humiliating and dehumanizing criminal trial process. Exiting the Capitol building, I started contemplating why it was that, according to the public school superintendent in the novel, Dr. Morgan, public schools across Louisiana were at the time suffering from state funding shortages, a problem that persists in Louisiana public education to this day. While a lack of funding could certainly be partially explained away by the behavior of the Republican legislator in Louisiana that I spoke of earlier - specifically how Republicans are less likely to raise taxes to invest into public education - I suspect the issue of a lack of public school funding in the state has much deeper roots. I believe this issue stems from longstanding issues found in Louisiana’s economy, problems that prevent the state from increasing taxes and state government spending to better support public schools. However, to prove this theory, I have to dive into a complicated yet important topic: the economics of Louisiana.

Before jumping into the investigation of Louisiana's economy, it is important to note that though the story of Ernest Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying” took place in the late 1940s, the economy of Lousiana hasn’t changed all that much since the 1940s, as the state still depends on many of the same flawed industries to prop up its economy. So, by investigating Louisiana’s present-day economy, we can also come to understand the economic forces of 1940s Louisiana that forced Grant Higgin’s school, as well as other Louisiana public schools, to grapple with a lack of state funding.

During our stay in Grand Isle, when running along the beach at night, I could look out upon the ocean and see very clearly the lights of offshore oil rigs in the distance. Driving along the Mississippi River, oil refineries - which require vast amounts of water to drive the refining process - are a common sight. And just recently, driving into Lafayette I saw out the window the building occupied by The Petroleum Club of Louisiana. The presence of the oil and petroleum industry is inescapable in The Bayou State. Petroleum refining alone made $95 billion in revenue in Louisiana in 2022, making it the largest industry by revenue in the state. Coming in second place is Louisiana’s oil and gas drilling and extracting sector, pulling in a whopping revenue of $36.9 billion in 2022. And in third place is the Gasoline and Petroleum Bulk Station industry - a sector that stores, sells, and distributes bulk quantities of gas and petroleum to sell to large corporations, state and national governments, and global militaries - which brought in $30.5 billion in revenue. So, the top three industries by revenue in Louisiana are all connected to oil and petroleum extraction, storage, and distribution.

While this reliance on the oil and petroleum sector may not seem all that bad - as the revenue these industries pull in is real money that is capable of sustaining a massive state tax stream - this is in actuality a deadly serious issue. The number one rule of investing that investors aren’t quick to forget is to diversify your assets so that if one investment fails, you have the others still standing to support your portfolio, and this rule applies to states as well. If the petroleum and gas sector in Louisiana were ever to fail - which is certainly always a possibility considering oil and petroleum are finite natural resources that can swiftly vanish as deposits are drained - the state would find itself in economic freefall, losing the large corporate tax revenue stream that it so relies on. The government would be forced to severely curtail government spending, slash state programs, and operate on a highly restricted budget. The Louisiana State Government is likely fully aware of this fact - since they have been relying on the oil and petroleum industry to prop up their economy for decades - and are likely reluctant to increase government spending - which includes public education funding - so that in case the oil and petroleum industry does one day fall they will have to make only small, inconsequential budget cuts rather than massive, crippling cuts. In other words, The State of Louisiana is constantly hedging their bets due to their damaging reliance on the gas and petroleum industry, and average Louisiana citizens are the ones feeling the pain from these precautionary measures.

Along with helping create a political environment of avoidance of increasing state spending, Louisiana’s heavy reliance on the petroleum and oil industry also forces the state to keep corporate tax rates low to avoid backlash from big oil and petroleum companies operating in the state. There are three oil and petroleum companies that hold a near triopoly over the domestic oil and petroleum sector: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Marathon Petroleum. This dominance of the oil and petroleum industry by a few large corporations is a serious problem for the gas industry-dependent Louisiana. If legislators ever propose to increase taxes on corporations operating within the state, these three behemoths of oil companies can simply threaten to discontinue operating in Louisiana, a move that would tank Louisiana’s oil-dependent economy and force the state to operate on a dangerously tight tax budget. While if Louisiana were dependent on a more robust, competitive industry - think tech, media, or agriculture - the discontinuing of one or a few companies’ operations in the state wouldn’t be such a problem as there would be other organizations from the same sector present to fill in the gaps left by the departing companies. However, by relying on such a consolidated industry, Louisiana has put itself in a truly horrible position. In Louisiana’s current situation, if one of the three large oil and petroleum companies ever decides to shutter operations in the state in protest of increased corporate tax rates, there would be no other large oil corporation to fill in the gap, and Louisiana’s economy would be fully and completely devastated. In Louisiana, big oil holds all the cards, and legislators are left in constant fear of corporate backlash if they ever step out of line, attempting to raise taxes and better fund state programs such as the public school system.

While oil and petroleum production is by far the largest source of tax revenue for the state of Louisiana, there are other smaller industries worth mentioning that help support both Louisiana’s economy and the government’s tax stream. However, these economic sectors hold faults that just like with the oil and petroleum industry make them poor pillars to base a state economy on. The Louisiana tourism industry, which pulls in an annual revenue of $6.1 billion, is a sector that has rapidly expanded in Louisiana over the past decades as the state - and the city of New Orleans specifically - has fashioned itself as a prime domestic tourist destination. However, profits from tourism dramatically ebb and flow with both national and global developments. In periods of economic downturn and recession, tourism profits take a massive hit as consumers look to cut unnecessary spending, with travel generally being one of the first expenditures to be slashed. Additionally, global events that may restrict or completely shut down travel - such as the COVID-19 pandemic - can tank the tourism industry. In short, tourism is an unpredictable sector, and states such as Louisiana simply cannot rely on this industry to bring in consistent, sustaining tax revenue.

Another smaller sector in Louisiana’s economy worth briefly mentioning is the car sales industry, which in 2022 in Louisiana made $15 billion in revenue. However, this industry falls prey to the same faults as the tourism industry, as when consumers need to get tight with money - as happens during depressions, recessions, and periods of economic downturn - they are less likely to buy a new car. Instead, consumers often opt to stick with the cars they have and simply repair them if they’re having car troubles or rely more heavily on public transportation to get around, two actions that siphon money away from the car sales sector.

Louisiana has never been known as one of the more economically strong and robust states in the Union, and by examining its economy more closely it is easy to see why. The issues present in the state’s economy are in part why Louisiana spends so little on educating its students, with the state spending an average of $12,359 on each student’s K-12 education compared to New York’s $26,605 per-student expenditures. And while one can hope the state will eventually have the funds to solve this issue, the problem will likely only grow worse as currently the state's economy is actually decreasing in size. This year, Louisiana's GDP - which stands for Gross State Product and is a common indicator used to track the health of a state’s economy - actually decreased by –0.5%, putting Louisiana in 47th place nationwide for state GDP growth. After our visit to the Capitol, I returned early the next day to take a stroll around and contemplate the findings of my research, trotting up the grand stairway entrance and into the warmly lit, storied building. Now looking at the politicians strolling in for a morning legislative session, I consider them differently than I at first did, seeing them as individuals stuck between a rock and a hard place fiscally rather than inherently malicious Republicans refusing to invest in public education without any practical justification. Unfortunately, the problem of a lack of public school funding that Grant Higgins and his congregate of students faced in “A Lesson Before Dying” is an issue that Louisiana public school students are and will continue to face in the future, thanks in large part to a state economy that holds nearly insurmountable issues.