Louisiana and its politicians have long embraced some unhealthy myths: Corruption in our politics isn’t so bad. Teachers are the real problem with our schools. Poor people are lazy. Climate change is a hoax. Oil is crucial to our economy because it employs so many workers and funds our government.

Few myths have damaged us more than the last one. Our blind allegiance to oil and gas has led to lax or poorly enforced environmental laws. The worst actors in the industry have contributed to the disappearance of our wetlands and poisoned our water.

And our eagerness to subsidize this industry has cost us billions in tax revenue. A 2015 report by the Legislative Auditor found that one exemption from one state tax — the severance tax on horizontal drilling — resulted in the loss of $1.1 billion from 2010 to 2014. Last year, the 27 state tax exemptions Louisiana grants to oil and gas interests amounted to $195 million. In 2012, during the height of the oil boom, the state let slip away $527 million in oil revenue; the following year, $462 million.

Since 2013, Louisiana has absolved one natural gas company, Cameron LNG, of more than $3 billion in property taxes. Since 2010, the state has awarded Cheniere Energy and its subsidiaries more than $3 billion in local and state tax subsidies. And in 2016, Louisiana gave Venture Global LNG $1.86 billion in property tax exemptions.

Total permanent jobs promised by those companies in return for the tax exemptions: about 1,400 (an average of $5.5 million in state and local subsidies per job). Industry officials claim without these generous tax breaks, they cannot afford to do business here.

That might be a stronger argument if energy exploration and refining weren’t already among the most profitable enterprises on Earth. Five of the 12 largest corporations in the world (by revenue) are oil companies, despite the slump in oil prices.

But these corporations provide plenty of good jobs for Louisiana workers, right? “The Louisiana oil and gas industry is one of the leading employers in the state,” the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association claims. The most recent employment numbers on its website — 64,000 — are from 2013, when oil was around $90 a barrel. The American Petroleum Institute (API), meanwhile, claims 291,00 Louisiana workers were employed in the industry in 2015.

The August 2017 report on industry employment from the Louisiana Workforce Development Commission, however, pegs the number working in or supporting oil and gas at about 40,000 or 2 percent of Louisiana’s total workforce. It’s likely the API’s 2015 numbers were wildly inflated. Even Louisiana oil industry lobbyists acknowledge a sharp jobs downturn caused by slumping oil prices.

Nationally, the API claims the oil and gas industry employed more than 10.3 million direct and indirect workers in the U.S. in 2015. Meanwhile, the BLS, which does not count indirect jobs, estimates the industry’s current national job number is 178,000.

Counting indirect jobs from a specific industry is an inexact science, so let’s consider only the API’s claim of 2.9 million “direct impact” jobs in 2015. According to the API study, almost a million of those jobs were at gas stations, where employees also sold cigarettes, beer and slushies.

The myth of oil as a once-and-future major employer and massive contributor to the economy is dangerous not only because it absolves the industry from paying its fair share in taxes; the myth also has strengthened the industry’s case as it lobbies to avoid or evade environmental regulations in Washington and the states.

The jobs narrative has led to another harmful myth: We can have oil industry jobs or a clean environment, but we cannot have both. Well, look no further than California, where the nation’s toughest environmental regulations exist in harmony with a vibrant oil and gas industry. (To their credit, Gov. John Bel Edwards and six coastal parish governments are suing to hold oil companies accountable for how they damaged portions of our coast.)

Pitting jobs against a clean environment is also how industry supporters crush regulations to address climate change. That jobs-versus-environment argument ignores that oil and gas companies are automating tasks that once required warm bodies.

The real issue is not jobs so much as how states like Louisiana suffer when the oil and gas industry doesn’t pay its fair share in taxes. As the oil companies automate, their profit margins will increase. And their lobbyists continue persuading legislators in places like Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C., to increase or maintain billions in “drilling incentives.”

For decades, Louisiana has acted like providing corporate welfare to the oil industry is our patriotic duty. We’ve behaved like a feckless colony and allowed oil companies to swoop in, scoop up our oil and gas and pay us little in return. The industry buys the fealty of our politicians who have persuaded us that it’s our salvation.

It’s not. And if Louisiana wishes to enter the 21st Century, it’s time to wake up, smell the crude and quit behaving like a third-world petro state.

Robert Mann, an author and former U.S. Senate and gubernatorial staffer, holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog, Something Like the Truth. Follow him on Twitter @RTMannJr or email him at bob.mann@outlook.com.

Two questions have dogged me lately: If I could go back 18 years, would I raise my children in Louisiana? Would I still view this as a place that would nurture and educate them, offer opportunities for personal and financial growth and help my wife and me imbue in them the values important to us?

When my son and daughter were born, I believed the answer was yes. I had hope. Even three years ago, I still had faith in Louisiana, as I wrote in a column to young people who considered abandoning the state: “Stay here, find like-minded people, organize them, expand your influence, demand change, but don’t give up on this amazing, beautiful place. Its good people — flawed as we might be — are worth your efforts.”

When I wrote that, I believed Louisiana had brighter days. I hoped there was a small flame of desire to recreate something great here. I thought Louisiana’s people wanted to redeem their state.

I was wrong.

Today, I ask only, “Is this as good as it will ever be?” The answer, I believe, is yes. It’s not getting better and could get much worse.

For all its rich and diverse culture and abundant natural resources, Louisiana is the sick man of the United States. We’re an economic basket case and a toxic waste pit of environmental neglect and misconduct.

We are the state most adept at missing opportunities and abusing and wasting our abundant natural resources.

Louisiana is my home in every way and, at 59, I cannot imagine living anywhere else. And yet it’s time to admit this is a place with no visible promise and little hope. To pretend otherwise is to engage in delusional thinking. We must face facts.

I’m not saying everyone should give up and leave. I’m staying and fighting for our future. There is much work to do, and I believe I can make a difference. I suspect most of you feel the same. But if we’re staying, we must be honest about Louisiana’s deplorable condition and bleak future.

Blame our leaders, if you like. But the problem is us. On average, we aspire to mediocrity; we are happy with good enough. We live in a land of plenty but view the world from an attitude of scarcity.

We mask our state’s profound illness and disease with colorful festivals and spicy food.

We tolerate — sometimes celebrate — our corrupt politicians. (Witness the recent outpouring of affection for disgraced former Gov. Edwin Edwards on his 90th birthday.)

Speaking of celebrations, nothing makes us happier than college football, which is our true religion. In the fall, we worship on Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium, the state’s holy shrine. Meanwhile, what transpires across campus — in the classrooms and lecture halls — barely concerns us.

Our elected leaders sell their souls to big oil and the chemical industry. The first has spoiled our land, pillaged our resources and damaged our coast, while the other has poisoned our air and water.

We are 47th in environmental quality. Perhaps it’s no coincidence we have the nation’s highest cancer rate.

Almost a third of our children live in poverty, the third-highest rate in the nation. That’s not changed for decades.

We have the seventh-lowest median household income and the third-highest unemployment rate. After decades of so-called “reforms,” we still have the worst public schools in the country. We’ve cut higher education funding more than almost every other state.

I could go on. We are first in almost everything that’s bad and last (or near last) in almost everything that’s good. In most cases, even mediocrity seems beyond our reach.

The experience of the last four decades should settle any question about whether Louisiana and its people will soon awaken from their coma of complacency. We know well the diseases of ignorance, poverty and pollution that afflict us — and have accepted them as sad facts, not obscenities.

The question isn’t whether there is much hope or aspiration left in Louisiana’s people. There is not. The question, instead, is whether this is a place our promising young people should abandon as soon as possible.

So here’s what I’ll tell my children: If you want to stay, then regard Louisiana as a mission field. However, if you want a place that will enlarge your life, expand your horizons, offer new opportunities and challenge your thinking, you should look elsewhere.

Our insular, prehistoric ways will not soon spawn a dynamic, creative culture to revive our economy and attract bright young minds to study at our universities and, after graduation, remain here to build a vibrant state. Our people have said loud and clear over the decades that we do not desire such a state.

It’s time to admit that Louisiana is sick and dying.

Robert Mann, an author and former U.S. Senate and gubernatorial staffer, holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog, Something Like the Truth. Follow him on Twitter @RTMannJr or email him at bob.mann@outlook.com.