Bobby Jindal is playing politics with the lives of the Louisiana people.
Terrific post from Examiner.com
So why would any of these governors turn down help for their neediest residents? Maybe it’s because all three have been named as potential challengers to Obama in 2012. Jindal is being rewarded with the official GOP response slot after the President’s speech tonight. He, along with Barbour and Sanford, should be giving a different kind of gift from voters: they should be bounced out of office when they’re up for re-election. Or, maybe jilted voters can act sooner. Like Illinois, these states can use an impeachment process to dump governors who put politics and personal gain ahead of the best interest of their residents.
The republican response last night was, in a word, pathetic. It was as if we were listening to people from another planet and time. And the politics of his statement was loathsome. Most of the public, it seems, agree.
Examiner.com
63% of Americans think the Republican congress opposed the stimulus package for political reasons.
74% of Americans believe that President Obama is trying to be bipartisan by reaching out to Republicans.
Please keep this up, Republicans. Your demise is very welcome from the rest of us who give a damn about this country.
I have a hard time believing that these Governors would put their citizens in harms way, and do it so publically. Is there not another option or reason for their possible declaration of not taking bailout money? I don’t think that an OP ED columnist from the Chicago Examiner is going to be so objective in her thinking.
I would like to assume that you would concede that at well because anyone who might plan on running for President would probably not intentionally bite the hand that feeds them unless they had the vision, intelligence, and statistical knowledge to back it up that it benefited the long term.
If they are doing this for political gain and this is found to be true than they should be kicked in the groin.
Nice try, but Louisiana was the one state last month that actually **increased** employment rates. I don’t see how he’s playing politics. Think what you like, but the Louisiana state government is doing something right, maybe the rest of us should stop and take a look.
(reference: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm, “The only over-the-month increases in the level of employment were recorded in Louisiana (+3,700 or +0.2 percent)”)
The reason he is not accepting the $100M of money is because of the strings tied: the money is being used to fund unemployment benefits for 3 years, and the requirement is that the state must maintain the program even after those three years, after the funds are washed up. So effectively it is a delayed tax increase forced on the states!
More governors are joining in on the day. Yesterday governor Bob Riley in Alabama changed his mind and is rejecting bailout money (as a citizen of Alabama, I 100% support it) and even democratic governors like Phil Bredesen of Tenessee are considering rejecting it. (source: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44101)
It’s not just a democrat v. republican issue, it’s a federal v. the state issue. Why should the states be forced to raise taxes in order to accept federal money?
More governors are joining in on the day. Yesterday governor Bob Riley in Alabama changed his mind and is rejecting bailout money (as a citizen of Alabama, I 100% support it) and even democratic governors like Phil Bredesen of Tenessee are considering rejecting it. (source: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44101)
Lets just see what these guys do and don’t take when the cash gets dolled out. I’d be willing to bet they’ll take it all. Jindal, for one, is only questioning what amounts to maybe 3% of the budget. He’s accepting everything else. (And I’m sure when the time comes, he’ll take that three percent too when he’s sure the issue is out of the spotlight).
As far as his stewardship of Louisiana, Katrina notwithstanding, it has one of the largest population of poor in the United States. When has he done to change that in his time in office? Nada.