Where Money Grows on Trees - Putting an End to Fiscal Insanity
Statement
Where Money Grows on Trees - Putting an End to Fiscal Insanity
Posted by bobbyjindal
Representatives in Washington, D.C. and Baton Rouge have been on a spending binge for years - spending more and more, with complete disregard to the taxpayers who foot the bill. You have heard the stories of Congress wasting hundreds of millions of dollars to fund indoor rainforests and bridges to nowhere.
In the past few weeks, Congress has been debating funding legislation for next year. While this year's initial budget is already $61 billion larger than the one passed last year, some members of Congress want to increase the amount by an additional $23 billion.
What's worse? Politicians are already spending money we don't have - taking from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, even as baby boomers begin to retire. It's time to end this fiscal insanity.
Just recently, I voted against one appropriations bill that would have added $4.3 billion more than last year's budgeted amount - a 14 percent increase. Unfortunately, that is only one of many more funding bills to come.
As Louisiana taxpayers, we are getting hit at the state level too. State legislators passed a record-setting $29.7 billion budget - the most ever in the state's history.
While the state budget did contain many important items, such as pay raises for teachers and crucial funding for increased law enforcement, the bottom line is that spending is out of control.
When citizens, good government groups and the media asked legislators for specifics on the projects they inserted into the bloated budget, the politicians refused to release the details claiming that it was not public record. This is outrageous. This is our money and we deserve to know how it is being spent.
While the state budget grew to an all-time record level, an opportunity was lost to make meaningful investments in our roads, for example, by requiring all current gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees be dedicated to roads, or significant tax cuts, for example, attacking the business taxes on debt, utilities, and new equipment, or the individual income taxes raised by the Stelly plan. We could have spent hundreds of millions of additional dollars on roads every year without raising taxes or fees. We could have eliminated some of the taxes causing opportunity and people to leave our state. Modest steps were taken, but not nearly enough.
Louisiana cannot afford politicians making irresponsible fiscal decisions over real choices to transform and strengthen our state. Spending onetime dollars on recurring expenditures is fiscal insanity. Working to grow bureaucracy rather than instill reform will do nothing to move our state forward.
Money does not grow on trees - in Washington or Louisiana. It comes from our paychecks; and there is not a family or a business that could survive the reckless and unbridled spending currently taking place. Please be assured that I will continue to stand up for taxpayers and vote against the binge-spending that is threatening the future of our state.
Annual Farm Bureau Meeting
This past weekend, I was thrilled to attend the Louisiana Annual Farm Bureau Meeting in New Orleans. There is no doubt that the agricultural community is a vital part of our state's economy. Louisiana is blessed with abundant land, natural resources and skilled men and women who produce a wealth of food to benefit our entire nation.
However, while we have a proud tradition of feeding the world, the United States is getting closer to being a country that relies on imports for food. This is a dangerous situation. We cannot get into a situation where we are relying on foreign countries for food, like we have with our reliance on foreign sources of energy. We have already seen what can potentially happen when we rely on imports - such as with the recent contaminated imports from China with our pet food and toothpaste. We cannot be a superpower if we cannot feed ourselves. The Soviet Union is a prime example of what happens to a country that allows this to happen - soaring costs, long lines for food, and widespread hunger. We must not allow this to happen.
We have almost become complacent when it comes to a safe, affordable food supply. Many people think food magically appears at the grocery store. In reality, we must continue to help our farmers and ranchers in order to ensure that the aisles at our grocery stores remain full, and maintaining the Farm Bill is a very important step in that process.
I strongly support reauthorizing and improving the 2002 Farm Bill, but we need to do it right. We only get this chance once every five years. The government has made a commitment to farmers and agriculture industries and that promise ought to be realized.
I am glad I had the chance to meet with so many of our state's farmers this weekend and discuss the challenges facing our state at this critical point in time.
American Spectator: Hope Floats on the Bayou; Bobby Jindal to the Rescue
The American Spectator recently published a story highlighting several events during my time in office. I hope you enjoy the few excerpts from the article I have included below:
"But the real key to Jindal is not the energy of his conversation, but the energy and effectiveness of his performance. What made him a virtual folk hero in Louisiana was Jindal's response to Hurricane Katrina, from which crisis he was probably the only elected official to emerge with his reputation actually enhanced. By widespread agreement, Jindal and his staff are credited with responding to the storm in a superb manner, by organizing or facilitating aid of all sorts, by being accessible, by cutting through red tape (or just ignoring it) with alacrity and skill.
"Characteristically, Jindal deflects much of the credit. I had people in my office who lost everything they owned and their first reaction was to help other people. They didn't view themselves as victims; their immediate response was, all right, we have to get on the phone to help.'"
A more extended version of this article is available on my website at http://blog.bobbyjindal.com/2007/hope-floats-on-the-bayou-bobby-jindal-to-the-rescue/.
Thank you for your continuing support and please contact my office if we can be of any assistance,
Bobby
Posted in economics, legislation, Katrina recovery, ethics |
Hope Floats on the Bayou: Bobby Jindal to the rescue
June 25th, 2007 | Posted by bobbyjindal
Quin Hillyer, The American Spectator July/August 2007
Jindal's statewide approval ratings are consistently in the 60s. The two most dangerous potential Democratic opponents, Breaux and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, declined to enter the race. As of early May, Jindal (basically rhymes with "spindle") had some $5 million in his campaign coffers. And he already has a resume that would be impressive for somebody twice his age.
The son of immigrants from India to Baton Rouge, Jindal got his start in government-related work with two congressional internships in the summer of 1991, first with McCrery and then with Livingston. While with McCrery, he volunteered to write an original proposal applying McCrery's free-market principles to the Medicare messand blew McCrery away with its quality. McCrery soon began using Jindal's ideas in his speeches.
Jindal had just graduated that summer from Brown University and was en route to a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. He followed that up with a private sector post for a health-care consulting firm, and already had been accepted to both the medical and law schools of both Harvard and Yale when public policy again attracted his attention. He briefly met former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer and then-state Treasurer Mary Landrieu, the two front-runners for governor in 1995, and took perhaps more seriously than either one of them intended their respective invitations to give them a proposal to solve the state's Medicaid crisis.
Again, the product was superband it somehow made its way to aides for then-state Sen. Mike Foster, who came from nowhere to win the governor's race that fall. With heavy lobbying from both Livingston and McCrery, Foster began considering Jindal for a spot at DHH. But Jindal said he wasn't interested in the number two spot in the department, and went back to his private sector job. Another call came: Would he go meet with the governor-elect in person? The meeting went well. Foster gave him the job, and Jindal succeeded in reforming the Medicaid program.
From there, he went on to serve as executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare (co-chaired by Breaux), president of the University of Louisiana System, and assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. By 2003, Foster's two terms were ending, and Jindal began a long-shot bid for governor. Several other high-profile Republicans were in the race, and Jindal's name ID and poll numbers were both fairly low, but Foster and Livingston both decided to endorse him.
"I liked him, number one," Livingston explained this spring. "I had become convinced that he really was extraordinarily bright and had proven himself to be extraordinarily capable He just had proven that despite his youth that he could do just about any job assigned to him. I guess I wasn't thinking politically. I just was convinced that he had incredible abilities and could lead Louisiana forward I think I made the right choice."
McCrery, who has supported him every step of the way, elaborated: "Bobby has the most important quality to be successful as a political candidate: He has that fire in the belly. He really wants to serve. He presents the sense that he can make things better for people by serving in public office."
In person, though, what first strikes a visitor is less a fire than an almost irrepressible enthusiasm. Any question is answered with a torrent of words, rapid firealmost frustratingly so for an interviewer who wants to discuss a long list of topics. But what emerges is so Chevrolet-and-apple-pie-ish as to seem almost hokey, except that Jindal's sincerity is so palpable as to make the conversation leave hokey behind and at least border on the inspirational.
For example: How did he get into discussing health care with McCrery? "I was doing an honors thesis at the time on transmembranes, on the stochiometry of energy lost in the cellular membrane. We were looking in brain stem cells, we were looking in the fluid there to see if the sodium potassium worked there the same way as it did in the rest of the body "
Not until several minutes late can the interviewer get to ask how Jindal moved from medicine to an interest in government. "You have to understand that my parents came to Louisiana and my mom was a student at LSU when she had me
and the first seven years of my life we lived in student housing. But what we learned at home was two lessons, one the importance of getting a good education and working hard, that if you did that there was no limit to what you could accomplish in America, and secondly day after day my dad was drilling into my head how lucky we were to have the opportunities around us. Not everybody in the world had the freedoms that we did
so when it came to politics and public policy I was very much attracted by the conservative philosophy that says let's not have the government smother the individual in this, let's not micromanage, let's not excessively tax, let's not confiscate people's private property rights, let's not in other words create disincentives when the best thing that we can do for people is give them the opportunity to work and if you do that you give them a tremendous gift
"
But the real key to Jindal is not the energy of his conversation, but the energy and effectiveness of his performance. What made him a virtual folk hero in Louisiana was Jindal's response to Hurricane Katrina, from which crisis he was probably the only elected official to emerge with his reputation actually enhanced. By widespread agreement, Jindal and his staff are credited with responding to the storm in a superb manner, by organizing or facilitating aid of all sorts, by being accessible, by cutting through red tape (or just ignoring it) with alacrity and skill.
Characteristically, Jindal deflects much of the credit. "I had people in my office who lost everything they owned and their first reaction was to help other people. They didn't view themselves as victims; their immediate response was, all right, we have to get on the phone to help."
Jindal tells of a moment at the state's emergency response headquarters in the first several hours when nothing constructive seemed to be happening. The torrent of words comes again: "I remember looking at my chief of staff and we had the same thoughts, that there was no point in being here, it didn't feel like enough decisions were being made, so we got in our vehicles and we started driving throughout every point we could get to, to see what we could bring, what do they need "
They helicoptered to devastated St. Bernard Parish and found the sheriff: "They were still rescuing people out of the water; he went through the list: We need ammunition, we need cars, we need food, we need everything We called up people we knew at Ford Motor Company and other motor companies; we got them to donate dozens of vehicles we could use for search and rescue. There was a hospital on the north shore [of Lake Pontchartrain] that was running low on medicines and couldn't get through the bureaucracy to get the medicines they needed so we got a guy in Michigan we knew to donate a plane and a helicopter and we got a guy in Shreveport to donate the medicines ."
Stories around Louisiana are legion about how Jindal's staff was everywhere, helping everybody, bypassing the bureaucrats, getting the job done.
"The one thing I want to emphasize," he said, "is the tremendous generosity of others because, while there were a lot of things we were able to facilitate, just to be clear that there were so many people [churches, non-profits, individual volunteers and donors, the Coast Guard] . There are thousands of untold stories, of American heroes that we don't get to hear about."
It is no wonder that conservatives are rooting for Bobby Jindal. The American Conservative Union gave him a perfect 100 rating in 2005; the liberal Americans for Democratic Action just a 10. National Right to Life gave him a 100, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council 96, the National Federation of Independent Business 100, the Family Research Council 92 percent. But he supports working men and women, as is evidenced by support from some of the less ideological labor unions (International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, 75 percent).
"He gets it," said McCrery of his one-time intern. "He understands why our philosophy is the right one if you want to maximize the opportunities for the greatest number of people in our society to be successful."
It doesn't take a congressional budget analyst to know how to score the value of those convictions.
Posted in Katrina recovery |
Get a Free Bumper Sticker!
June 19th, 2007 | Posted by bobbyjindal
This election represents an historic opportunity; a once-in-a-lifetime chance to turn our state around. I continue to meet more and more Louisianians, just like you, who are eager to join me in my commitment to bringing our state a fresh start. I am asking you to help me spread the word to your friends and neighbors by showing YOUR SUPPORT with a Bobby Jindal bumper sticker!
Just click here, right now today, and my campaign will send you and ALL your friends a Bobby Jindal bumper sticker - straight to your home. For one week, we will mail out free bumper stickers to any of your friends, neighbors or colleagues who sign up themselves or have a friend register for them.
Show your support. Help spread the word. Louisiana is in need of decisive leadership and real change. Click here to make a statement and join the team with your own official Bobby Jindal bumper sticker, and please take a minute to talk to your family, friends and neighbors about why you are supporting me and my campaign.
Pushing For Ethics Reform
This past week in Congress, I sponsored federal legislation (The Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act) to increase the reporting requirements of our elected officials so they are required to disclose payments and travel expenses involving members of their immediate family. We have to amend our laws so there are not loopholes and caveats which could allow our elected officials to abuse the system. Those who are imbued with the public trust should be held to the highest standards of accountability and transparency - without exception. I will keep you updated on future legislation to further reform our ethics system as it evolves.
Addressing Weaknesses in Hurricane Preparedness
I am very happy to report that after several long nights in Congress this past week, I was able to secure a commitment from the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman to aid Louisiana in addressing weaknesses in our hurricane preparedness efforts.
This new commitment of federal resources will work to help our state and local governments identify shelter space in adjacent states during a disaster, ensure sufficient transportation resources to conduct timely and effective evacuations, pre-position life-sustaining resources including food and water, and care for those in critical need of medical assistance.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita showed that dramatic improvements must be made in our nation's emergency preparedness systems. While FEMA has identified various gaps in state preparedness plans and capabilities, sufficient funding is needed to assist states and local governments in addressing their identified weaknesses. It makes no sense to identify but not to address these gaps. It is imperative that we obtain the resources necessary to protect the lives of our citizens.
Wishing a Happy Father's Day
I was especially grateful this weekend that my travels not only took me to wonderful events in Shreveport, Bossier City, Minden and Winnfield, but also home to spend some time on Father's Day with my wonderful family. I am so blessed to have three amazing children and an incredible, loving wife. I encourage you to take the opportunity this week to continue to celebrate your family and the blessings in your life.
Thank you for your continuing support and please contact my office if we can be of any assistance,
-Bobby
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