Have you ever wondered why Gov. Bobby Jindal writes all those op-ed pieces for the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Heritage Foundation, and Politico and not for Louisiana publications?
Could it be for the same reason that he doesn’t hold press conferences that aren’t tightly managed and/or staged? Could it be because the ones who read those publications are, for the most part, not from Louisiana so he can get away with his half-truths and outright prevarications (a polite word for lies)? What he says in those publications would simply never fly in Louisiana and he knows it—because we know him.
His ruminations can best be described as the artful practice of creative license because his ideas rarely are grounded in reality. They are more suited to one of those inane, shallow plots from The Brady Bunch, from which, coincidentally, he took his first name Bobby.
But now, in his ubiquitous quest for the presidency, he is taking his unsolicited opinions global and the powers at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are probably quaking in their boots.
Our governor, who, in his six years in office, has yet to present an executive budget that wasn’t held together with Bondo, baling wire and duct tape, has offered President Barrack Obama and French President Francois Holande the benefit of his vast economic knowledge in his latest op-ed for The Heritage Foundation. And he even managed to invoke the memory of D-Day in doing so.
Perhaps we subconsciously plagiarized Jindal who in his op-ed piece criticized Obama and Hollande for their “pretensions to economic knowledge vastly exceed their capacity to make smart policy choices.”
Would that be smart choices like your school voucher plan? Or like your ill-fated state retirement reform plan? Or would it be more like your income tax reform plan of last year that was dead on arrival? Or perhaps it was your visionary plan to build those $250 million disappearing berms to stem the flow of oil from the BP spill? What about your rejection of an $80 million federal grant to provide Broadband internet services to the state’s rural areas? Or even your inspirational plan to trick the feds into matching its own federal funds with more federal funds in your infamous hospital privatization plan through advance lease payments? Or maybe the health insurance premium reduction that resulted in that historic drawdown of the Office of Group Benefits reserve fund from half-a-billion dollars to something like $60 million or so? And there’s that $5 million contract with Alvarez & Marsal to cut state spending by, among other things, cutting Medicaid fraud and having Medicaid Mamas birth their babies at home. But then it could be your going against the advice of a dozen or so legal scholars and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to sign SB 469 that kills the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) lawsuit against those 97 oil companies that wrecked our coastline and marshes but which contains language that might also kill ongoing claims by local governments for damages inflicted by that BP spill. It’s not, after all, like his own legal counsel is batting a thousand in these matters.
No matter. We can readily see there is a plethora of examples of stellar economic wisdom flowing from the fourth floor of the State Capitol.
Why, you are so full of wonderful economic ideas that you even supported the rejection of Senate Concurrent Resolution 142 by Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston).
I mean, let’s be reasonable. Gallot wanted to pass a resolution asking that the Department of Revenue to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that all oil and gas severance taxes due the state from oil companies is paid in accordance with state law.
Gallot, in his frenzied call for heavy-handed governmental control, actually wanted the Department of Revenue and the Legislative Auditor to work together to determine the accuracy of self-reported (as in no oversight) data from oil and gas companies to determine the amount of severance taxes owed as well as the accuracy of tax refunds claimed on those severance taxes.
Gallot also wanted to take the oppressive hand of state government even further by having the two state agencies “review and conduct yearly audits of all who may owe mineral royalties to ensure that the state receives complete, accurate, and timely payments.”
Really? We wouldn’t just want to continue to take the word of the oil and gas companies?
The State Senate, apparently caught unaware of Gallot’s Gestapo-like tactics, approved the resolution by a 35-0 vote with four absences (Conrad Appel, A.G. Crowe, Jack Donahue and Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb) but the House, much more alert to threats to members’ generous campaign contributors, defeated the measure by a 48-44 vote with 12 absences—22 votes short of the required two-thirds needed.
Here is the House vote on SCR 142:
YEAS
Anders
Arnold
Badon
Barrow
Billiot
Broadwater
Burns, H.
Burrell
Chaney
Connick
Cox
Dixon
Edwards
Fannin
Franklin
Gaines
Gisclair
Guillory
Harrison
Hazel
Hill
Honore
Hunter
Jackson
James
Jefferson
Johnson
Jones
Landry, T.
LeBas
Leger
Montoucet
Moreno
Morris, Jay
Norton
Ortego
Pierre
Ponti
Price
Reynolds
Richard
Ritchie
Shadoin
Smith
Thierry
Williams, A.
Williams, P.
Woodruff
TOTAL: 48
NAYS
Adams
Barras
Berthelot
Bishop, S.
Burford
Burns, T.
Carmody
Carter
Champagne
Danahay
Dove
Foil
Garofalo
Guinn
Harris
Havard
Henry
Hodges
Hoffmann
Hollis
Howard
Huval
Ivey
Lambert
Landry, N.
Leopold
Lopinto
Lorusso
Mack
Miller
Pope
Pugh
Pylant
Robideaux
Schexnayder
Seabaugh
Simon
St. Germain
Stokes
Talbot
Thibaut
Thompson
Whitney
Willmott
Total – 44
ABSENT
Mr. Speaker
Abramson
Armes
Bishop, W.
Brown
Cromer
Geymann
Greene
Hensgens
Morris, Jim
Pearson
Schroder
TOTAL–12
After all, who needs another layer of government bureaucracy to ensure that the state receives the money due from the oil and gas companies? They already have folks on staff to make certain that the ordinary citizen pays his taxes so why do we need to duplicate that effort with the oil and gas companies? After all, we killed that pesky lawsuit against the oil companies.
And now Jindal, the financial wizard of Louisiana, writes an essay critical of…France’s revenue shortfall.
While saying America’s labor force participation rate is at a 36-year low (could be because American corporations ship jobs overseas for cheap labor, thus robbing Americans of decent jobs?), Jindal claims that Obama’s proposed minimum wage increase could cause as many as a million Americans to lose their jobs. Apparently, he would prefer that we revert to the dollar-an-hour minimum wage of the ‘60s and McDonald’s would love nothing better than to outsource its hamburger flipping jobs to Bangladesh if it could find a way to do so.
Jindal also was critical of France’s 11 percent unemployment rate, contrasting it with Louisiana’s 4.3 percent jobless rate.
But as Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate reporter Mark Ballard, quoting Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, pointed out, France’s unemployment is the result of the country’s practice of giving government aid to students to help them complete their education as opposed to American students who work, but at low-paying jobs to pay their way through school. At the same time, Ballard, again citing Krugman, said that French adults “in their prime working years…are substantially more likely to have jobs than their American counterparts.”
But here’s the kicker: Jindal, with his smoke and mirrors economic policy, believes dealing out tax breaks, exemptions and other incentives to rich corporations like so much Halloween candy leads to employment for the poor. It’s a classic example of misdirection and precisely the reason he prefers to write for publications outside the borders of Louisiana.
“But in Louisiana,” he writes for The Heritage Foundation, “we’ve tried to show that there is a better way—one that leads to quality jobs and robust economic growth.” That growth, it should be obvious to those forced to sling burgers for a living, is why our tax base continues to shrink instead of expanding, his sage advice to the French president notwithstanding.
“While Obama raised federal taxes by more than $1 trillion, we passed the largest income tax cut in state history,” he writes. “As a Democratic Congress rammed through trillions in new spending for Obamacare, we cut the state budget by 26 percent. And even as the EPA proposes new regulations that could decimate critical portions of our energy sector, we’ve worked to create a more predictable legal environment for energy companies in the state,” he said.
Well, there is certainly no disputing that last statement as witness the Jindal-led successful effort to kill the lawsuit by the SLFPA-E litigation.
But we do have a question: how is it that our governor can spend more time writing his self-serving op-ed pieces for the national publications than he spends at the job for which he is paid? Perhaps someone will ask him that if he ever holds a real press conference in Louisiana.
Louisiana Voice 
Lining my bird cage now…
As i’ve said for six years now, we know where the bodies are buried.
When we read the lies and half-truths that is said by jindalies himself there is no doubt that he lives in a dream world or is completely out of his mind. How in the world can he be trusted or believed? He fooled the people of our state twice and if given a chance he will repeat his lies and innuendos to America and people will believe him. Hopefully the truth will come out and set us all free of this person. Your reporting is second to no one; it is first. Thank you for your hard work and diligent digging up of bones.
He is indeed delusional about being POTUS but his perpetual candidacy is very lucrative. There’s a market for wingnuts—it seems that the clown cart is never full. His career is now all about garnering attention by saying or doing something outrageous enough to be in the news so he can pick up more “donations.” If no one is paying attention, he writes some crap and calls it an op-ed. On the side, he sells our state off in pieces and provides favorable legislation to the highest bidder while our legislators look on in awe. His wife has her own organization to bring in the cash for favors. He’ll pimp out anything. And he doesn’t mind being pimped either…He can make his living like this for a long time.
If the rest of America’s desire to vet what they read and hear about Jindal is as sharply whetted as Louisiana’s desire to vet what they read and hear about the President, then yes, they will believe every word Jindal says.
I am more than certain that Obama and the French President will give lil booby’s advice all the consideration that it merits.
Attention La. Voice readers:
http://www.theamericanzombie.com/2014/06/970069-signatures-to-recall-him.html
Hopeless I know, but boy howdy it would sure feel good. 😉
Signing the petition
While saying America’s labor force participation rate is at a 36-year low (could be because American corporations ship jobs overseas for cheap labor, thus robbing Americans of decent jobs?)
It could very well be that, or it COULD be because NOT WORKING in Louisiana, as well as the rest of America, is not a bad enough deal for a certain segment of the population to be incentivized to work. I have managed businesses continually since my college graduation, and have NEVER been able to staff at full employment. As a matter of fact, none of my friends who manage businesses have been able to staff at full employment. I think it’s a much more accurate assumption that the labor force participation rate is at a 36-year low BECAUSE lazy people don’t WANT to work, and in the current state of our society they don’t HAVE to in order to get by.
That’s something that needs to change, and change soon.
I agree there are lazy people who don’t want to work. Always have been, always will be. But there also are people who want very badly to work but the only things being offered are low-paying jobs because skilled jobs have been exported.
Without specifically identifying your company, why type of employment do you offer? Is it skilled or non-skilled. Minimum wage or higher? White collar or outside labor? Computers or shovels?
You and everyone you know have jobs available they simply cannot fill? Really?
Yeah. Really.
The jobs I have open require certifications and licensure, as well as a state-mandated background check. We provide the certification class, and when we are able to fill a class, we retain about 30% of the graduates. The jobs my friends have open require a general knowledge exam, and we both require drug tests.
Lazy people or those that do not want to work is a perfect iD of the master himself jindal. He doesn’t work he just jumps from state to state, stage to stage and puts on a performance and draws a paycheck from Louisiana and collects monies for his exit from the State. Besides all meals are free, insurance and vehicle provided, housing, transportation and body guards provided, free education for children, butler service, you name it he has it and doesn’t have to work full time just part time and just think he gets by. Must be nice, huh???
Oh not sure if he ever took a drug test but why should he, he doesn’t plan on driving anyway, not in this life time anyway!
Every time I read stuff like this, I cannot help but blame Gov. Mike Foster for first elevating this buffoon way out of his league, but it’s the complacent and disaffected voters of this state who made the huge mistake of electing and then re-electing him. Thank you Tom Aswell for another fine article about this crisis of incompetence that we’re all just hoping to survive.
My first career after Tech was supervising production for an international forest products manufacturing company, I worked at three different locations, two in North Louisiana, and one in Southern Arkansas. They were all within reasonable driving distance of Ruston, and I lived there the entire time. The company employed mostly laborers and skilled technicians. Entry level laborers were paid about 150% of the minimum wage at employment, and had tenure raises after. There was a pension and a 401k, and insurance was provided after 30 days. There were about 15 or 20 progressive job classifications, some of which paid in the low $20 per hour range. The labor was unionized. Shortly after the company was absorbed in a hostile takeover, I changed careers, and for the past ten years have been a manager for a mid-size Louisiana based long-term care provider in several locations. We have some entry-level jobs at minimum wage, but most pay above that, and there is opportunity for advancement.
I served a four-year term as a City Councilman, and currently serve as a School Board Member in my community. I am frequently frustrated when elected officials, as well as local citizens, complain that there are “no jobs.” I happen to know that there ARE jobs, at least here, there just aren’t any jobs where the employer is ok with employees coming and going as they please, missing work without appropriate excuses when they feel like it, and deciding what of the employer’s policies, procedures, and work rules they feel like following. I don’t feel that our non college-bound young people have any idea what the world of work is like.
Would the following sum up your work experience?: You first worked in plywood manufacturing and now manage nursing homes. I’m just asking because early in my career I did job analysis and test development projects on-site at these and many other workplaces in Louisiana. The problems you cite today were prevalent then primarily because of working conditions vis-à-vis pay rates. I’m not attacking or defending either business. I’m just saying there are obviously better places to work than these and some people are unwilling to work in either in the first place and not necessarily because they are lazy.
@Stephen, you beat me to it because I had a long reply to Mr. Walton but we’re on the same page. In my case, to counter what were low wages for the aides who looked after my parent and the one or two good lpns, I basically (against the rules) bribed them. I would give them either store branded gift cards or a Visa or Mastercard gift card. I usually had to find a way to “sneak” them to the employees because they could get fired for accepting a “gratuity”.
Plywood and lumber yes. The companies I worked for paid good wages for unskilled labor, hands coming in made nearly $12/hr, and that was at least 15 years ago. The insurance and retirement benefits were competitive with anything in this area, at any education level, save working for the State. You have reinforced my point. Not working period is a viable option versus working in the jobs that are available, because of support to some that the state has taken and redistributed from the labor of those who are working. I have a problem with that.
@Matthew: Louisiana based long-term care provider
So Matthew you manage a nursing home yes? The “entry-level” jobs at minimum wage or just above are for the aides…the ones who have to help clean up the patients, feed them (if needed), change their diapers and such? The advancement is maybe to an LPN if they are able to get their license? And then there is one RN per unit per shift. If you are also a rehab facility then you have physical, occupational and speech therapists to help out post-CVA and other similar patients. But the trends I’ve seen for the therapists is that the home usually contracts with a PT group and so they aren’t really n..h. employees. My experience with a n.h./snf was that the LPNs were barely a cut away from losing their licenses and seemed to be the ones who couldn’t cut it in an acute facility, i.e. a hospital. The ones I dealt with, with a parent, were more interested in spending time on their cell phones and “charting”..seemingly continuously for an 8 hr shift. The couple of good ones that I dealt with seemed to be recent nursing school graduates who put in some time there at the n.h. and then moved on either to a hospital or private physician’s office.
What I am most concerned with about his national political aspirations is not that he might get elected. That is as likely as Sara Palin. I’m concerned that in the slightly possible election of a republican( I can’t bring myself to capitalize the word), he might be put forward by the energy sector to head EPA or the Dept of Natural Resources.
Little bit of info here for Mr. Walton:
http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2014/06/louisiana_nursing_home_rank_po.html#incart_river_default
Jindal not content! No one is content working for the State of LA anymore!! It had become the case for us as it did for a few people from Arkansas, and they said everyone just wanted to get Clinton out of the Governor’s Office. I worked for the State for 15 years before I couldn’t take it anymore. These stories only touch the surface. Insiders working for the State know things that would make the public lose faith in humanity. By the way, I wish his travel expenses were pulled and published. Especially, costs for the man hours and fuel used for that beautiful blue helicopter that stays gone most weekends. Weekends? Yes, I did say weekends!!!