Jindall Delivers a True Message of Hope in Response to Obama

I couldn't bring myself to watch President Obama's address to Congress last night. I knew it was just going to be another cookie-cutter speech, cut-and-pasted from any other Democratic president, governor, or mayor.

Promise gobs of programs, and un-equalled spending with absolutely no hint as to how to pay for it all. I was right.

I was more interested in the Republican response to the address, given by Gov. Bobby Jindall of Louisiana. Despite seeming to be on an elevated dose of Lexapro, or some other anti-depressant, Jindall delivered a red-meat Republican retort to Obama's left-wing spending spree.

Jindall described the plan put forth by congressional Republicans and ignored by the Democrats. One that might actually work to save the economy in this country.

...Republicans put forward plans to create jobs by lowering income tax rates for working families; Cutting taxes for small businesses; Strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers; stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for home buyers. These plans would cost less and create more jobs. The Democratic leaders in congress, they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make decisions with our own money they pass the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than a trillion dollars with interest.

This plan stands in stark contrast to Obama's pork-barrel program that will only serve to bury our children in debt and despair.

Another difference is that the plan described by Jindall has worked repeatedly in the past (see Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Bush), where Obama's spend-your-way-out-of-trouble plan has failed (see the Great Depression, Japan in the 1990s).

In Louisiana we took a different approach. Since I became governor we cut more than 250 earmarks from their state budget. To create jobs for our citizens we cut taxes six times including the largest income tax cut in the history of our state. We passed those tax cuts with bipartisan majorities. Republicans and Democrats put aside their differences; we worked together to make sure our people can keep more of what they earn. If it can be done in Baton Rouge, surely it can be done in Washington DC.

Jindall outlined the approach that has served this country well since it's inception, an approach that has been eroding over the past several years and will be obliterated by Obama, given the chance.

(The Republicans) oppose the national Democratic view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, to empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs.

Despite his-too happy delivery, Jindall's speech was far more inspiring; acknowledging the good in this county, celebrating the fact that hard work yields rich results, elevating the individual over the government, and lampooning Obama's cries of catastrophe that he somehome seemed to forget in his address.

You know a few weeks ago the president warned that our country is facing a crisis that he said upon which we may not be able to reverse... Don't let anyone tell you that we cannot recover; don't let anyone tell you America's best days are behind her.

If we can get more politicians of any party to stand up for the American people and not for the government, America's best days will lay ahead.