Bobby Jindal's Downside (Jindal as POTUS? Take a closer look at his record as Louisiana governor)

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is busy promoting his new tome Leadership and Crisis with book tour stops all over the country. This latest tour comes on top of his previous speaking tours to raise campaign cash for himself and various Republican candidates around the country. The only place Governor Jindal has trouble visiting is his home state of Louisiana. The joke in Louisiana is that Bobby is known as a governor in 49 states.

Governor Jindal is intelligent and very well-educated, and he manages to look like a creditable leader during a crisis. In this he learned well from former Governor Kathleen Blanco's disastrous handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. He can spout numerous statistics off the top of his head and make complicated situations understandable.

However, as we've learned from the current occupant of the White House, command of statistics and the ability to explain the complicated do not necessarily indicate that one is destined to be a great leader.

Louisiana's last budget was balanced with numerous accounting tricks, one-time funding sources, and massive cuts to health and higher education. Jindal has been criticized for pushing hard decisions down the road to avoid offending anyone in preparation for a presidential bid, and it is well-known in Louisiana that Jindal is preparing to run and campaigning across the country on trips funded by Louisiana taxpayers.

Louisiana is a populist state that tends to overspend in flush times and flail in lean times. In Louisiana, health and higher education are not constitutionally protected from budget cuts and are routinely savaged when the economy dives. To be fair, there is a great deal of waste in higher education that needs to be eliminated, and LSU professors are not helping their cause by threatening to unionize in a state where unions are not looked on favorably. Also, LSU System President Dr. John Lombardi, Louisiana's highest-paid state employee, recently refused to trim his salary for the good of the school and further exposed the hypocrisy in Louisiana higher education.

During Jindal's administration, Louisiana has added over 3,100 new employees, and its budget has increased from $12 billion in 2008 to $24 billion in 2010. The governor seems to think this surge in state government will somehow conquer the budget in the long run.

When it comes to cutting spending, the governor can't cut even his own travel budget. One of Governor Jindal's favorite Louisiana campaign tactics is local church attendance by helicopter in rural areas rarely visited by any governor.

Jindal's celebrated ethics legislation promoting transparency in Louisiana government has backfired (see also here): it has been revealed that enforcement powers were stripped from the Ethics Board, resulting in several resignations in protest, and Jindal has zealously guarded the records of the governor's office from the light of day. The law's most notable accomplishment has been to drive worthy citizens away from serving on state boards by requiring draconian disclosures of every conceivable financial detail and close association in a futile effort to prevent political corruption. Are you kidding? This is Louisiana!

Governor Jindal devotes a sizable portion of Leadership and Crisis to detailing Louisiana's natural beauty, recounting political anecdotes, and listing boilerplate conservative talking points without ever mentioning his plans to deal with the state's looming $1.5-billion budget shortfall or the numerous challenges faced by Louisiana as its graduates flee in search of opportunities the state can't provide.

Jindal doesn't seem to understand is that status quo governing is currently not in vogue. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is talked about as presidential material precisely because of his willingness to shake up New Jersey's insular political culture without thought of higher office. Christie is willing to take on the special interests and make the hard choices New Jersey needs to survive, while Jindal is doing his best not to offend any powerful interests in Louisiana. This type of timid leadership is exactly what the Tea Parties are railing against.

Those promoting or considering Bobby Jindal as presidential material need to take a much closer look at his record as Louisiana governor. Jindal talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk.

Hat tip: C.B. Forgotston

Tom Roberson is an independent conservative holding finance and engineering degrees and doing his small part to save his country.

Even on this thread, you jumped on to attack Palin supporters.

I called you a liar because you came to the thread and lied about me. That's not "attacking Palin Supporters".

My post to the thread was to correct another freeper who falsely claimed that the freeper who posted this thread was anti-Palin. So far as I can tell, the freeper who started this thread has long been a Palin supporter.

So maybe you felt bad because I corrected a freeper for making the same kind of false statement you keep making.

As to the rest, a liar has no place trying to claim someone else is dishonest. You have no evidence for your lies, obviously, so you just keep repeating them, as if repetitiion might wish them into being.

I see you are trying once again to twist your own words, trying to find some way to make your false claim that I was "anti-palin" into something else.

But it is still a lie. I am not "attacking Palin"; you keep stalking around threads lying about what I am saying and making up attacks on Palin that you falsely attribute to me, and when I correct you it does no good. Other freepers have pointed your lies out to you as well, but you seem to have lost your moral compass.

Facts are pretty much neutral. If someone said 2+2=5, pointing out that 2+2=4 is not an "attack", it is a statement of fact.

On the other hand, the rants of a lying anonymous poster are not facts, or evidence. You have no evidence. You can point to no string of posts where I have attacked Palin, where i have defended Romney since the election, or where I have "denied" my previous support of Romney. These are all lies you keep repeating without evidence.

I now see that you are falsely claiming to have been involved in making up the "Swiss Ninja" name. You are NOT the freeper who gave me the nickname; I'm sure you wish you could be that clever. You on the other hand can't even find the thread where I was GIVEN the name.

You are just rambling, and lying even about this thread, you jumped on this thread to attack Palin supporters

This thread was created by a Palin supporter, The first comment to the thread said "I guess when the Palin bashers have a little free time, the go after Jindal."

I posted to correct that comment. Another freeper made the same error, and I posted again to correct that freeper.

Your reading comprehension is abysmal. You jumped into the thread and brought up Romney, when the thread is about Jindal.

I made it very clear that ejonesie22 was the individual

As did I and another freeper on another thread. But then you said "that is why we gave you the nickname", falsely implying that you had something to do with it.

I find it funny that you are directly claiming to use an "insulting nickname", when personal insults are BANNED in this forum. It's like you are bragging about breaking the rules that we are asked to abide by. Of course, I don't see it as insulting, but rather funny, both in character (there are several bloggers who use the term outside this context), and because you are so clueless about what it means, as well as incapable of making a rational argument thus requiring you to try to throw insults.

Still, you only repeated a lie in this latest comment, you didn't make up any NEW lies.

So far, about the only thing you have gotten correct is that there was a time in the past when I supported Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential primary. Everything else you have said about me has been a lie.

Your lies are so transparent, even Free Republic itself is having trouble handling them, probably why the servers are acting up. :-)

now we have to defend Palin and her supporters from you

If that was what you thought you were doing in this thread, you are a miserable failure. Friendly fire to defend someone falsely calling another freeper anti-Palin -- that's NOT going to win the battle for you. Of course, neither is your lying.

You are delusional if you think there will be ANY pro-Romney posts here. It is against the rules of the site. It is clear however that you could care less about the rules.

Palin can defend herself; she certainly doesn't need an incompetent defender like you "helping" her. You're an example of her biggest liability -- an ill-equipped lying supporter.

Still waiting for you to post a single piece of evidence to support any of your lies.

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