The Candidates
Well, good.
The legislative pay increase issue that had consumed Bobby Jindal’s governorship these last few weeks, overshadowing his historic tax cuts and school choice initiatives and leading to not inconsiderable conservative criticism is about to be defused. Jindal has vetoed the controversial measure doubling legislative pay.
And Jindal’s tax cuts were important. But what I want to see from Jindal — and from Palin, Pawlenty, Crist, etc. — is the ability to use economic conservatism in new and inventive ways to lift working class and underclass Americans into the middle class, and to make the middle class’ life easier, while they’re at it, by creating a growth society that lifts all boats. When the fundamentals of the economy are strong, and the middle class is vibrant, budgets can be balanced and entitlements can be streamlined to the sound of thunderous applause. The fact that a Democratic president was the last guy at the national level to “get” this speaks volumes about why the Republican Party has fallen and where it needs to go. Let’s just say I’ll be paying very close attention to Jindal and the others over the course of the next few years.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
The luster is gone from Jindal. I still think he has a bright future ahead, but he’s been stumbling right from the starting blocks.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
100% pay increase! Where do I sign up?
June 30th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Your discussion about and description of the correct approach to growth economics for the GOP is spot on!
July 1st, 2008 at 7:34 am
Louisianans should also require Gov Jindal to veto bill SB312, a fluoridation mandate bill which will require that unnecessary and harmful fluoride chemicals be added to all public water supplies at taxpayers’ expense, eventually. Watching on internet streaming, LA legislators seemed confused about the bill they voted for and the Louisiana Dental Association bragged they were taking advantage of the new make-up of the Legislature which in the past didn’t approve of mandates and passed a bill to “encourage” water fluoridation. But now it’s a mandate bill.
People can send a letter to Gov Jindal here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2477/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25086
For more info:
Fluoride Action Network
http://www.FluorideAction.Net
July 1st, 2008 at 8:31 am
Bark,
Jindal began his term by pushing through the legislature an incredible package of ethics laws that gave LA some of the toughest laws in the nation. Until this year, for example, legislators were not prohibited from doing business with the state and there were no financial disclosure requirements.
Jindal followed that up with a special session where he forced legislators to spend the state’s surplus (LA benefits from high oil prices) on road construction, a fund to offer incentives to attract new business development. The old practice was that the governor routinely “bought” votes by allowing funds to spent on local “community organizations” inevitably run by the legislators’ cronies. Those days are now over.
In this regular session, he overhauled the state’s technical schools to make them train for jobs that our state businesses actually say that they need workers for (instead of mindlessly churning out more hairstylists). He cut business taxes. He pushed through a radical school voucher program for New Orleans. He signed a $300 million cut in personal income taxes.
How in any way has he been stumbling from the starting blocks?