Bobby Jindal, 44, let it be known today he wants to be the GOP’s 2016 presidential nominee. He’s governor of Louisiana, a state with an oil-dependent economy, thus it’s not surprising he’s wrestling with ugly budget troubles. Maybe this isn’t the best time for him to forsake his day job to play at running for president?
And then there’s the problem of what he believes in, fights for, and wants to do.
His “solutions” to Louisiana’s revenue crisis include stripping the state’s public university system of up to 300 faculty and 3,000 course offerings (while raising tuition), cutting health spending, and tinkering with taxes on business inventories(and charging smokers more).
Jindal boxed himself in by signing Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge. Thus, to maintain his fealty to Norquist’s arbitrary diktat, Jindal must insist on revenue neutrality, and therefore oppose any overall increase in the state’s income to deal with his citizens’ pressing needs. Presumably he would impose the same idiocy on the United States of America if he somehow became president.
Jindal’s proposed budget would require layoffs of hundreds of state workers … but give pay raises to cops. It would continue a six-year-old freeze on public education spending … but give more public money to parents who send their kids to private schools.
On social issues, Jindal issued an executive order to implement an anti-gay measure the legislature hesitated to pass after big business objected to it because feared it would drive away talent. He cares less about keeping good jobs in his state than pacifying the bigots who make up a substantial portion of his electoral base.
On ethics, his henchmen snuck a rider into a 2008 education bill that made his office the least-transparent governor’s office in the 50 states.
Is this lightweight someone we want to trust with our most important national decisions? I don’t think so. But we probably don’t have much to worry about. He’s polling only 1% among Republicans.