« Vocabulary Improvement | Main | Beware The Iron Fist »
February 24, 2009
The Jindal Response
Posted by Tina
Republican Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, gave a terrific response to President Obama's address to the Congress tonight. I particularly liked the following portions and wanted to share them with you in case you missed it. Links to both speeces are at the bottom of this post.
Bobby Jindal:
** As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country - and they instilled in me an immigrant’s wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: ‘Bobby, Americans can do anything.’ I still believe that to this day. Americans can do anything. When we pull together, there is no challenge we cannot overcome. *** Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us. *** Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina, we have our doubts. *** Let me tell you a story. **
** During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, ‘Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.’ And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: ‘Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people. *** There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens. We are grateful for the support we have received from across the nation for the ongoing recovery efforts. This spirit got Louisiana through the hurricanes - and this spirit will get our nation through the storms we face today. *** To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you - the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything. *** That is why Republicans put forward plans to create jobs by lowering income tax rates for working families … cutting taxes for small businesses … strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers … and stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for home-buyers. These plans would cost less and create more jobs. *** But Democratic leaders in Congress rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history - with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a ‘magnetic levitation’ line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’ Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC. *** Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy. What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt. Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did. It’s irresponsible. And it’s no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children. **
President Obama’s Address to Congress
Posted by Post Scripts at February 24, 2009 10:02 PM
Comments
Go Bobby Go!!!
Posted by: Nick Freitas | February 25, 2009 2:34 PM
Hmmm. I just did alittle peruse. Tina does not have much company, even among conservative pundits. I am heartened. "Cheesy" and "inane" seems to be the consensus. It seems that people do want their volcanos monitored ... you know ... just in case. If we have to print money to stimulate the economy, train building and school refubishing is as good a use for the funds as any. I am heartened.
Posted by: Libby | February 25, 2009 3:25 PM
BIG DEAL. With the fawning coverage that Obama has gotten from the beginning and the incredibly nasty coverage of Sarah Palin it's not at all surprising that you found the responses you did.
People can decide for themselves what is just empty rhetoric and what isn't.
What good will higher education do for future generations that will be saddled with all of this debt and stuck bearing the burden of exploding SS and healthcare on top of that? They won't have two dimes of their own left in their pockets even with having learned to fish.
Posted by: Tina | February 25, 2009 5:34 PM
"What good will higher education do for future generations that will be saddled with all of this debt and stuck bearing the burden of exploding SS and healthcare on top of that? They won't have two dimes of their own left in their pockets even with having learned to fish."
I didn't hear the Republicans complaining about debt, when Bush put us in all that debt. Also Republican columnist David Brooks speaking on the Charlie Rose show, didn't have anything good to say about Jindal's response. Actually see Brooks comments on the Lehrer News Hour: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/25/jindal-response-nihilism_n_169806.html LEHRER: How well did he do?
BROOKS: Not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
Posted by: Walter Ballin | February 25, 2009 9:29 PM
Thank you, Walter, for the thoughtful comment. I hope you will continue to participate on Post Scripts; we need and want strong voices here.
If you didn't notice conservatives complaining when Republicans were creating debt I'm surprised...and you must not have been paying attention when we tossed them out for betraying this basic conservative principle.
I defended them on one point. The size of our our government grows every year. Increases in the funding for the various departments and programs is automatic. The Republicans did manage to cut the rate of increase in many of these programs and they did consolodate departments. That is a difficult sell to the public, however. Promising the moon, as Democrats do, is much easier...LOL. Also, spending as a percentage of the GDP was not excessive under the Republicans and our economy had steady positive growth with low unemployment.
With all due respect to Mr. Brooks I heartily disagree with the following:
""government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party."
It is well documented that government played a big part in creating the economic problem we face. It is well documented that many politicians (and many of those Democrats in key policy or leadership positions) also played a part in creating the crisis...and profited from the policies that created this problem.
Government has been the problem and as it grows will continue to be the problem. Not speaking out and trumpeting basic conservative principles and the truth about big government will amount to handing Democrats the argument. They will not be quiet.
They will continue to lay all of the blame for the economic crisis on GWB, Republicans, and "all" of corporate America which the public has been persuaded to believe are Republicans. (A da**ed lie if ever there was one...corporate America is full of Democrats & Democrat supporters and two of the ponsi scandal guys were big democrat contributers.)
There were plenty of greedy bums that contributed to this mess and we cannot afford to step aside and let Democrats place them all in the Republicans camp...because they will...and that's a lie.
Telling the truth is never a wrong move. It may or may not be a winning move at the moment but I would still go with the truth and with the fundamental principles of smaller government and lower taxes. It's inevitable; there will be a bigger mess greeting us down the road. Massive growth in the size of government, fewer taxpayers and more people dependent on government, higher taxation, and mandates and micro management will not ease economic woes and will place an extreme burden both on business and on future generations. I cannot be silent about that and Mr Brooks shouldn't either.
Fearing fear is no way to run a party...I agree it is unfortunate that we find ourseleves here at this particular moment in time.
(Ultimately, I put my faith and trust in the man upstairs and I know he wouldn't want me to stay silent in a lie...but that's just me.)
Posted by: Tina | February 25, 2009 11:08 PM