Shreveport Times
Editorial
March 27, 2009

“… Gov. Bobby Jindal visited Caddo Correctional Center last week to announce a $1.1 million program to prepare inmates for re-entry into society in hopes of avoiding repeat offenses. Our own Caddo Correctional Center was chosen for the pilot program. … Louisiana is already known for having the highest incarceration rate in the world. This is a step toward making sure those who are released have every chance to succeed without returning to prison.”

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GOVERNOR BOBBY JINDAL

SPEECH TO NRCC DINNER: March 24, 2009

**TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS**(Watch the Speech here)

GOVERNOR JINDAL: Thank you.

Thank you for that very warm reception. Thank you for that generous introduction.

It is great to be here amongst friends again.

I want to especially commend the leadership – our leadership in the house -  starting with John Boehner, Pete Sessions, Peter Roscam’s done a great job tonight, Eric Cantor, Mike Pent, and so many others.  Let’s give a round of applause to the leadership of our House Republicans.

We see a unity of purpose; we see a commitment to conservative principles; as a rank and file conservative I thank them for their leadership, I thank them for their mission, their purpose, I thank them for what they accomplished already…

I was asked to speak to you tonight, actually, many of you asked that I reprise my State of the Union Response Speech…..(long pause)…..that was a joke… you’re allowed to laugh at that, by the way.

Indeed I understand with President Obama's principles against torture, they’re not allowed to show my speech to the folks at Gitmo anymore, they’ve now banned that.

I’m not going to spend all night making jokes – don’t worry - just one more – and I apologize in advance to my friends from Michigan…

But, I couldn’t come talk to you without mentioning the AIG bonuses and what’s kind of taken root across American.

There is some good news out of this whole debacle. It apparently turns out that the Detroit Lions have gotten into the act as well.

Apparently, they want AIG-style bonuses – they’ve arranged contracts – the more they lose – the more their going to get paid, next season.

Alright, that’s enough – I know you didn’t invite me to come share a bunch of jokes with you tonight.

I do want to thank you for having me. I do want to speak with you very seriously tonight about where we find ourselves in the public debate. I want start with this assertion – for much of the last five years the lines between the two political parties have become blurred.

To the voters it hasn’t been clear which is the conservative party. You’ve heard me say this, America didn’t stop being conservative, they felt like the Republican Party stopped being conservative. To too many voters, too many folks believed that both parties wanted to increase the size of government. Many folks believed both parties wanted to increase spending, wanted to drive our country into debt. Many folks didn’t think there was much of a difference between the parties on taxes.

On the Democratic side, let’s start there. We now see the greatest expansion of government in our lifetime.  If you go by the numbers, we see the greatest expansion of government in anybody’s life time…in our country’s history.

I want you to think about these facts…

The spending spree under the Obama Administration and Speaker Pelosi is now costing the taxpayers more than the Iraq war, more than the Vietnam War, and even more, and I hate to say this…even more than the Louisiana Purchase. At least we got a good return for the money we spent…at least I believe we got a good return for the money we spent on the Louisiana Purchase.

Leader Boehner referenced some of these facts. I want you to stop and think about this. Nearly a trillion dollars spent on the stimulus bill, including interest. Followed shortly by a 410 billion dollar appropriations bill, where there were 8,000 earmarks. Then follow that by a 3.6 trillion dollar proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

Now, let’s concede just for a second, let’s assume the administration is exactly right about every one of their assumptions. Let’s assume that these temporary government programs truly are temporary and don’t become permanent. Let’s assume our economy starts growing in the second half of 2009. Let’s assume they really do get all these savings from defense spending. Let’s assume that what their price tags are estimating for health care and cap and trade are right and not what others have said. And let’s finally assume their numbers - not CBO’s numbers - are right.

Even if you were to grant all those assumptions, even if you granted every assumption the administration makes, you would still be looking at annual deficits under the best case scenario…of over half a trillion dollars for years to come. Money that our children and grandchildren are gonna be paying back. I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t look a lot like the candidate, Barak Obama, that we met on the campaign trail. I liked that guy better. I liked the spending he was describing a lot better. I liked the fiscal-conservatism, the bi-partisan, the end to earmarks that he described better than the spending proposals we’re seeing today coming from the administration and from Speaker Pelosi.

But let me be clear…it is wrong to suggest the new Administration has anything other than good intentions.  This difference is born of nothing more, nothing other than a fundamental and an honest disagreement about the right direction for our nation.

Too often in the heat of battle in politics we get to this place where we talk about the other people as if they are sinister, as if they have some master plan to hurt our nation.  Some on our side say the Democrats are trying to destroy the free enterprise system and bankrupt America, and some on their side say that we don’t care about working people.

Let me be clear, neither of these assessments is true, neither is reasoned political discourse. I give the national Democratic leadership credit for being sincere. I happen to think they’re sincerely wrong…but I do give them credit for being sincere.

It’s really this simple – the Democrats believe the historic spending and expansion of government is the way to get us out of our current economic problems.  They honestly believe that.

Conversely, we honestly believe that they are wrong, that their path will have dire consequences not only for this time, but for the future of America.

So what do we want to do? What do Republicans want to do?  What do Republicans want to believe?

That is very simple as well – we believe that small business, American ingenuity, hard work, and the relentless and tireless pursuit of the American Dream by individuals are the keys to our success as a nation both in the past… and in the future.

We believe there has never been a challenge that the American people, with as little interference as possible by the federal government, cannot handle.  We believe that rugged individualism and freedom are the timeless virtues which have made America the greatest country in the history the world.

We believe America is never stuck.

We believe that an endless series of government expansions, bailouts, stimulus packages, and bloated budgets will take our country down the very path that European socialism has already stumbled.  And we believe that it is a dangerous path that could harm the very promise of America.

We believe in freedom, and we must articulate that philosophy boldly every single day.

But there is more that we must do.

As Republicans, we must do more than argue a philosophy. We must offer solutions, and we must demand both competence and excellence in government.

As a fiscal conservative, I don’t wanna see government expand and do so many things, but what government does, it must do well. I live in a state that in 2005 saw what happens when government doesn’t perform well. So, what government does, it must do well.

On health care, we must fight the inertia of miring down into an argument on whether health care is a right or a privilege. We as a party are better than that. We should focus our energy on improving the health care every single American…every single American gets.

And let’s be clear… our Republican Party ought to be the home of meaningful health care reform.

Our system often offers the very best health care in the entire world when it rewards and stimulates ingenuity.

Let’s also admit there are things that need to be improved in our health care system. Years ago, the CEO of the Mayo clinic encountered over 100,000 pages just in the Medicare program. Indeed, American Hospital Association did a study saying in some settings, nurses spend an hour filling out paperwork for every hour they provide care.

Tens of millions of Americans, many of them working Americans and families with jobs can’t afford basic health insurance and end up in our emergency rooms. We have a system clogged with paperwork, we have a system clogged with frivolous lawsuits, we can do better than this.

We must have more incentives for new health care technology. We believe in the power of the individual. Let’s lead a modernization of the entire delivery system. Let’s put the individual patient at the center of every policy. That’s the fundamental difference.

We want patients and providers, not government bureaucrats running our healthcare system.

…That means on insisting on electronic, portable, patient records for all. It means reforming our insurance system so we’re not just pre-paying for health care. It means more organized purchasing coalitions to offer our economies of scale. It means reforming our tax code to give people the ability and the incentive to save toward catastrophic, unpredictable health care expenses. It means putting an emphasis on primary and preventative care. In other words, it means making every individual a smarter consumer, of both healthcare and insurance.

It means rewarding wellness and fitness. It has to mean getting rid of the inefficient bureaucracy – both public and private – that makes health care too expensive. This is the debate we must have. We must not allow the other side to drag us towards a single-payer, government–run healthcare system that simply expands inefficient bureaucracy, but rather…we can’t also defend the status quo. We must insist that every American gets the healthcare we know we’re capable of delivering.

On education, we must summon the moral courage to confront the unjust system that the other party desperately clings to and therefore perpetuates. The left hasn’t had an original idea on education since the invention of the chalk board…

Our party believes in education reform. We have nurtured a sincere education reform movement. We know the current system is broken for too many of our children. We all believe it.

Everybody knows the dirty little secret of education in America – the idea that all children, regardless of class, geography, income, or any other factor, the idea that all children deserve and have a right to equal opportunity in education….that idea is NOT a reality in America today.  And that is a shame.

We must have the fortitude to win the political battles it will take to make fundamental changes in our schools, to allow for new ideas, to allow parents to have more meaningful choices…to break from the old model and move to a new model which demands equal opportunity in education. This isn’t about jobs; it’s not about government monopolies. Our children only get to grow up once. It is simply unfair to tell them to wait while we tinker around the edges and while we make incremental reforms. This is about more choice for parents, it’s about discipline in schools, and it’s about rewarding and paying - appropriately - good teachers. This is about making sure that every child has access to a great education in America.

On energy, we must be the party of YES…the party of bottom line answers while the Democrats lurch more and more toward being a party of dogma. As Republicans, we must embrace the clean energy options of the future.  Clean, green, sustainable energy is not a partisan issue – it’s an American issue. It’ll make us more independent, more responsible and we should seek that outcome.

But, unlike the Democrats, we shouldn’t be willing to wait on clean energy alone…We need our bridge and that bridge will be built on domestically produced energy, on nuclear energy, other energy that’s available to us today.

We’ll never get to that green future if we insist as a country on destroying America’s energy industry through ridiculous taxes and regulations.

We must insist, we must insist on making maximum use of EVERY American energy source. That means a commitment to exploration and research on oil and gas…as well as a commitment to nuclear energy - doing everything in our power, everything in our power… to make Americans as strong and as independent as we can.  It’s simple, when it comes to looking for more solutions to our energy needs, our answer needs to be yes to all of the above.  The Democrats want to pursue half the options and limit the rest.  Let them have that terrain, we are the party of YES, the party that wants to explore every option.

And on ethics….every national Republican victory in my lifetime has been inextricably wed to a reform movement in our party. 1980. 1984. 1994. 2000. 2004. When we are the party the voters judge to be the most committed to cleaning up Washington and restoring honesty and integrity to government, we win.

Let us be clear – we came to Washington to change Washington, not to be captured by Washington. When the voters are confused about which party will bring reform and change, we lose. When the party of the outsiders becomes the party of insiders defending the status quo – we rightfully lose elections. We must vow to each other that we will never again tolerate poor ethics in the highest levels of our government or the highest levels of American business.

We know the difference between right and wrong. We have to be strong enough to stand up and say so.

Now…in the short time I have left, I want to comment directly on the latest “gotcha” game I have noticed occurring in Washington today…it’s a game the left has been playing and some in the media have gone along with.

I’ve noticed that some of your Democratic colleagues in Congress have been badgering Republican leaders with the following question – Anytime you criticize the president, the administration, or his proposals, they ask – “so, do you want the President to fail?  Do you?  Yes? Or no?”

Well, I’m going to give you a very direct answer to that question in just a minute.  I’m not gonna disappoint you.  I’m gonna be very direct.

But first, let’s look at the question…the motive behind it, and what is really afoot here.

The suggestion behind this question “do you want the President to fail” is this  – If you don’t answer that question with a loud “NO” immediately, if you don’t express instant obedience to the question, then they’re trying to suggest you’re not really a patriot, they’re essentially saying that you’re trying to undermine America.

Make no mistake, anything other than an immediate, a compliant – “why no sir, I don’t want the President to fail” is treated as some act of treason, civil disobedience, or political obstructionism.

This is political correctness run amok.

Let’s be clear, the very Democratic leaders who are now asking this phony question, are the ones who for so long wanted to see the last President fail, regardless of the issue, regardless of whether he was right or wrong.

There is a very important role in our republic for the loyal opposition.  We must be both.  We are loyal to this country, and to the republic on which it stands, one nation under God.  And we will always be so.  And we are loyal to the President of the United States, whether he is a Democrat or a Republican.

But make no mistake, loyalty does not mean we have to agree with each and every one of his policies.

We are also at present the opposition party.  We are the party out of power.  It is proper and right, and healthy for our Democracy, for us to speak up when we don’t agree with the policies that this President pushes and proposes.

I will not be browbeaten on this. I won’t kowtow to their political correctness.  We will be the loyal opposition.

So…my answer to the question is very simple – When they ask: “Do you want the President to fail?” – It depends on what he is trying to do.

There is something far more important to us than whether the President or ANY politician fails.

Far more importantly, we don’t want America to fail.

When and if the President wants to cut taxes on job providers, reduce our national debt, stop the massive explosion of government spending, make good on his promise to seek earmark reforms, govern in a way that is fiscally responsible, consistent with his rhetoric in his campaign, and act in a truly bi-partisan fashion, then I want him to succeed and I wish him God’s speed.

Let me repeat that…in case anybody misses the point, when and if the President pursues those policies, I do NOT want him to fail. I want him to succeed.

However – when the President wants to spend our country into debt, interminable debt, putting not only this generation but future generations into a position where the only way out will be massive tax increases…we oppose that policy, not because we want the President to fail, but because we want Americans to succeed.

It should worry us that we’re talking about incurring debt for our children and our grandchildren. It should worry us that our Secretary of State has to go and ask the Chinese to continue buying our debt. It should worry us that we’re set on policies that will drive up inflation, interest rates and drive down the value of our currency.

When the President wants to increase taxes on small business owners, the very people who create the vast majority of the jobs in this country…we oppose that policy, because we want America to succeed.

When the President wants to change the law so that taxpayers’ money is used for abortions…we say no, because we want all Americans, born and unborn, to succeed.

When the President wants to use the stimulus bill as an opportunity to radically grow the size of government …we oppose him because we want America to succeed.

When the President wants to change the rules so that union elections are no longer conducted by private ballot, the way that all American elections are conducted, and by the way…the way that certain Democratic leaders believe that Mexican union elections should be conducted…we will not go along, because we want America to have the freedom to succeed.

When the President considers attempts to squelch media outlets that are not favorable to him by pursing the unfair so-called “fairness doctrine” …we will not support that policy, because liberty is a key ingredient of American success.

When the President talks about striking the very word “enemy combatant” from our vocabulary …we disagree because we want Americans to succeed in every corner of the world.

When the President pursues polices that spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much … we will not go along, because we are committed to making sure that America succeeds both now and in the future.

And when the President pursues polices, when he pursues polices that are akin to those of European socialism … policies that taken too far could cause America to fail, we will oppose, and we will stand up and be counted, we will do so proudly…not because we want the President to fail, but because we want America to succeed.

And, by the way…I make no apologies for any of these positions, and neither should you.

We are now in the position of being the loyal opposition, both loyal, but also offering constructive, alternative solutions. The right question to ask is not “Do we want the president to fail or succeed,” but rather we want America to succeed.

Thank you for you time tonight. Thank you for what you do for America.

May God bless you all…May the loyal opposition continue to speak out and stand up on principle.

Thank you, and good night.

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