Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

Perhaps oil jobs took priority, in official thinking, because oil brought in more state revenue. But severance taxes—fees paid when oil or gas is taken out of the ground—from oil contributed only 14 percent of the state’s budget revenue, down from 42 percent in 1982. It was the largest single source of revenue, though, and this was the rationale behind Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan to lure more oil and petrochemical business to Louisiana. (Oil companies also gave him a million dollars in campaign money, as my Tea Party interviewees were well aware. Critics also argued that the oil companies would come anyway since the oil, the pipe lines, the petrochemical plants, the port, the whole setup was already there.)