A Star Isn't Born

Louisiana Governor Piyush (Bobby) Jindal took on an enormous task last night - he had to provide the Republican response to President Obama's stirring and well-polished speech to the joint session of Congress and America. Obama was forceful, determined, and inspiring. Polls indicated that those who voted for John McCain this past November were nearly as impressed as those who voted for Obama with his address and his approval rating among Republicans improved vastly after the speech.

There are still thousands of people who do not believe in the type of government that Obama is proposing and moving ahead with presently. In fact, one Republican representative took the opportunity to act childishly and scream out "That's right!" when Obama said that the Republicans will browbeat the public that their taxes will be raised to support his ambitious programs. Jindal's job was to support that comment in a more professional way, but he failed miserably.

For those unfamiliar with Governor Jindal, who nicknamed himself Bobby after Mike Lookinland's character in The Brady Bunch, he is a stereotypical Republican except that he is the son of immigrants from India. He opposes same-sex marriage, embryonic stem-cell research and legislation against hate crimes. He supports chemical castration for sex offenders, making the PATRIOT Act permanent and off-shore drilling. But what is most stereotypical about Jindal and several other Republicans is that they rail against big government while enabling government to grow.

Louisiana has about 105,000 people on its payroll with base salaries totaling about $4.6 billion annually. Add retirement and benefit expenses and state supplements for teachers and other local public workers, and the state's overall annual obligation for personnel comes close to $8 billion. Moreover, since Jindal has been in office, state workers with salaries of more than $100,000 grew by $96 million, about one-fourth of this year's state budget shortfall.

Jindal claimed during his rebuttal that government doesn't work and cited the response to Hurricane Katrina as proof. Looking at Louisiana statistics, it is easy to see that his government isn't working - almost 30% of children live below the poverty line, Louisiana ranks 7th in highest violent crime rate occurrence and 1st in murder, and students routinely fall below the national average in reading and math. Now, faced with a $1.3 billion shortfall in the budget, Jindal wants to make cuts to education and health care. Yet, with a straight face, he claims that it is irresponsible to ask future generations to pay for the money we need now. Whether you ask them to pay back a loan or reduce their opportunity to learn, they are still on the hook for this generation's failure.

He bantered about things that never were, like a rail line from Disneyland to Las Vegas, and work that was never done, like Republicans offering ideas outside of more and bigger tax cuts. And he did it in a sneering, condescending manner, as if imploring people to stay dumb and put their faith back in the political party that ran up the debt with nothing to show for it except huge no-bid government contracts and restricted civil liberties.

The only thing that Jindal and I agreed on was that George Bush sucked. He said the Republicans got off track, but I think that the train just finally caught up with them.

If You Don't Create Change, Change Will Create You (Part II)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment plan looks like it is going to pass, despite the obstruction and consternation of many Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Over the past few weeks, we've heard a torrent of excuses from the minority party about why they will not support this piece of legislation, but the truth is that it is all about self-preservation.

Most of the Republicans who remain in office are from strict conservative districts and states who know that they need to keep the ideology of the Grand Old Party spewing from their mealy mouths in order to appease their constituents who watch Fox News and listen Rush Limbaugh. They are thinking about 2010 re-elections, not at a country on the precipice of economic collapse.

Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham have been outspoken in their accusations that President Obama and the Democrats have not been compromising and negotiating. McCain even went so far as to mock Obama, saying on Face the Nation that he thought there was going to be change in Washington with this new administration with his dirty-old-man smirk planted firmly on his face. But McCain and Graham have been rebuked by one of their own. Republican Senator Susan Collins said "I want to recognize that, regardless of how many Republicans vote for this package today, that many were involved, that several were involved, in the deliberations in which we participated."

There have been chances to work on this bill, but it's easier to heckle and instigate from the sideline, particularly when you have no intention of voting for something anyway. The Republican stance is to dismiss this work as a frivolous and grandiose spending bill by a liberal government that must be defeated. The Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, confirmed this when he told Republican Congressmen and -women during a conference call after the House of Representative vote on this piece of legislation that "The goose egg that you laid on the President's desk was just beautiful." By voting no, the Republicans are reserving their right to say "I told you so," while at the same time defending their ideological stature to the base of their party.

I can't blame them for these time-honored political moves, but I don't respect them either. Wild accusations and faux outrage are what is expected of the monkey in the zoo and you need to give the people what they want. It's refreshing to see elected officials stand on their own do what they think is best, like Republican Governor Charlie Crist, rather than play the tired role they've been practicing for years.