A budget is being proposed that will increase spending to $29.7 billion, tripling the size of government in only 12 years, giving Louisiana the highest growth of government per capita in the South. The budget also adds another 1,000 employees to state government. [so much for Jindal's "hiring freeze" - as toothless as his ethics reform!] Per capita, Louisiana has more state and local employees than any other Southern state. According to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are approximately 350,000 individuals employed in state and local government in Louisiana. Among that total, about 110,000 are state employees. While we grow government and add more people to the state payroll, nothing is being done to improve the private sector, which is contracting in Louisiana. There are no proposals being debated in the legislature to give substantial tax cuts to Louisiana businesses, even though they are overtaxed and being constantly courted to leave the state.

… We are moving quickly down the road toward socialism in Louisiana, as our tax rates are high, our government is large and our private sector is small and continually hamstrung with high taxes, needless regulations and overbearing government interference.

That’s Jindal’s record. Although he has massive support and a line item veto, instead of applying those conservative principles he campaigned on, he’s driving us further left. He’s rapidly becoming more popular with Democrats than with Republicans – much like John McCain. Jindal played us, and now we’re stuck with him, but there’s no reason the rest of the country can’t wise up and learn from our mistake.

Leave Bobby alone. Go destroy the party with your usual cadre of party hacks.

The last thing this young man needs is to be associated to a lunatic like John McCain.

Bobby Jindal – run and hide – that’s my advice.

Jindal said he did not want to give legislators a reason to sidetrack the bills he wants passed. “I don’t want to give anybody any excuse for slowing down any of the important reform going through the legislature (that are) important to the people of Louisiana,” Jindal said.

Jindal mentioned health care, education and tax initiatives pending legislative approval as the session nears a June 23 end.

Asked if he had been threatened by lawmakers, Jindal said he would not discuss private conversations with legislators.

This is a stealth attempt to get a full-time legislature, which we emphatically DO NOT NEED. Those people cause enough trouble in three months; the LAST thing we need is for them to go at it full time.

Carleton Fiorina seems to be the best choice for Juan. Romney would make a good VP, but GOP needs to avoid a all-white, all male, all the time ticket this time around.

http://www.la-par.org/guide_laleg1.cfm

The chart about a third of the way down the page seems to be a good, yet concise introduction, for readers who don’t want to linger. If LA-PAR’s representations are accurate, the existing compensation seems pretty shabby, especially considering the abuse one suffers in an elective office and the lack of job security.

I do know both parties like to bait and switch. That is how Clinton, Bill and Carter got elected. Obama too, as far as I can see is a total unknown photgenic fish like Bill and Jimmy slid on the plate so fast you did have time to check the details (there weren’t any details)

After the election you can find out what they stand for

The last minute menu changes always substitute something ‘photogenic’ and ‘Presidential’ for real meat.

If only I could believe these guys again

What do generations of bad government have to do with what Jindal is, himself, doing right NOW? Nothing. I’m not bashing him for stopping other people from doing something wrong. I’m bashing him for what he, personally, is doing wrong. Things well within his power to do. He won’t veto the pay raise; he won’t use the line-item veto on the pork and other things; he let his ethics reform get gutted without saying a word – except to brag about it on Leno; he’s fighting to have exceptions for himself and his staff from sunshine laws. All totally unacceptable things from Jindal himself.

Oh boy, youth, dark skin, exorcism AND crackpot crypto-philosophical “science classes”

Hes the whole package!

Squid Shark on June 16, 2008 at 9:47 PM

Balances out the ancient pasty agnostic who runs as secular humanist with no tolerance of social conservatives and evangelicals? No? ;-0

Face it squid, McCain needs help if he is going to win in November. That help is going to come by broadening his appeal. To date, McCain seems loathe to reach out to any bloc that doesn’t have the same wrong-headed liberal views that he does. At some point he is going have to get out of his comfort zone and actually talk to the real Republicans that got GWB elected the past two cycles.

The days of McCain simply listening to like-minded fools and basking in their adoration need to come to an end. McCain needs to get serious about campaigning. A good first step would be for his supporters to not automatically label anybody who isn’t a McCain moonbat the way you (wrongly) portray Bobby Jindal.

Hes the whole package!

Laura on June 16, 2008 at 9:15 PM

I think your condemnation is a bit premature. Let’s not forget the generations of bad government entrenched in Baton Rouge. You really are bashing him after six months on the job? I’m more disappointed with the legislature who had no problem proposing tripling their salaries to make up for all those ethics reforms. I am also disappointed that Jindal won’t veto the compromise doubling of salaries but I still think it is too early to write him off as just another Louisiana politician criminal.

Cindy, I don’t care about ID. That’s at the very bottom of my list. But take his ethics reform – a total sham – we ended up with less than we started with and all he does is take a bow for the “great thing” he did. That’s not a matter of inexperience. That’s a lie. A total lie, after a campaign based on honesty and ethics. And now that he’s in office, he’s fighting oversight and sunshine laws tooth and nail. Giving massive salaries to his cronies and staffers. This is a matter of character, and he doesn’t have it. We got played, it’s as simple as that. I just hope the rest of the country catches on quickly so this is as far as his career goes.

But even more basic than that is age: On inauguration day next year, he’ll still be fully five years younger than the youngest man ever to become president (and his extreme precocity only makes McCain’s age that much more striking by contrast).

Inexperience and age is not the “contrast” that matters most. It may not be polite but Bobby Jindal and his family gives the ticket some ethnicity. John McCain and his family come off as what they are- lilly white bluebloods who have spent little time outside a world where everybody looks precisely like them, thinks like precisely like them, acts like precisely like them. In John McCain’s world, the only Hispanics he knows mow his lawns and cleans his houses. John McCain is precisely the type of Republican that Howard Dean was talking about when he made the comment about having to bring in the wait staff for the GOP to be diverse.

I don’t think Jindal is a good choice for the simple reason he just got elected governor. It seems a bit opportunistic on the Clintonian magnitude for him to throw Louisiana under the bus so soon after they overwhelmingly voted him into office.

Laura on June 16, 2008 at 8:33 PM

What? Exorcism isn’t curing cancer as well as everyone hoped?

Rationally speaking, it’s silly to distinguish between the capabilities of a 47-year-old and a 37-year-old,…

Obviously, anyone 44 years old or younger is simply wet behind the ears, naive, and unseasoned.

/45 yrs. old : )