After years of band-aid budgets, threatened cuts, doomsday scenarios, yo’ mama insults, and massive pouting, the State Legislature and Governor John Bel Edwards today announced Louisiana’s budget woes are over.
“I’m proud to announce that, on my watch as governor, I, Governor John Bel Edwards, have fixed our state’s budget,” said Gov. Edwards at a hastily arranged press conference in Baton Rouge amidst yet another two-week special session that costs about $60,000 a day. This will be the sixth special session since Edwards took office in January 2016 — all addressing budget concerns.
Asked by stunned reporters how such a seemingly impossible feat had been accomplished after such a lengthy stalemate in the Legislature, Edwards stated only, “Right place at the right time. I know in Louisiana we’re used to getting the short-end of the stick for just about everything, but yet again, fortune favored us.”
Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, who stood behind the Governor during the press conference, said the idea for a solution came in an email early last week. The message sent by Prince Neu Indaba, who owns the Nigerian Oil Company Incorporated Limited, was in a bit of crisis and pleaded for the Governor’s aid.
“Prince Indaba reiterated that the Governor was the only one who could help him — Not President Trump. Not Bill Gates. Not Elon Musk. Our governor,” Dardenne said. “Not only will we be able to cover the budget shortfall but we’ll have a massive surplus to play with.”
In the email, Prince Indaba explained he needed to quickly move his family’s $20 billion fortune from a bank in Nigeria to the United States because of “political and financial instability in neighboring Shangri-La” and would pay Louisiana 25%, or $5 billion, if the state simply would accept the money and hold it for safekeeping until the prince could arrive in Baton Rouge to collect it.
“All we had to do was send our Treasury Department account number and wire him a fully refundable $50,000 good faith payment to show we could be trusted with his funds and he then could begin the transfer process,” Dardenne said. “We sent all of that last Friday.”
Prince Indaba assured Gov. Edwards the funds will be in the state’s bank account within the week.
Jerry Taylor, president of the political watchdog group Can You Believe This Guy?, has been following the developments and offered this statement: “If the people of Louisiana are worried about being scammed by Prince Endaba just remember that our cash-strapped state’s leadership previously bought two pieces of junk artwork with $1.1 million of your taxpayer money. Think about that.”