Time for another Gooberhead Award – presented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues running 100-miles-per-hour, but forgot to put their brains in gear.
Today’s Golden Goober comes with a special Foot-in-Mouth Cluster, because this awardee has added a large dose of hypocrisy to his gooberheadedness. He’s Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, who is trying to become a national political star in Republican circles by vehemently denouncing President Obama’s economic recovery plan. Obama’s massive stimulus program, he cries, constitutes an unwarranted government intrusion into a state’s economy, and it will “have dire consequences” for America.
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Hot stuff. But, guess which state has been the biggest recipient of federal stimulus money in history? Right – Governor Jindal’s state. Even before Obama’s plan passed, Louisiana had received a record $51 billion in federal funds since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Far from suffering “dire consequences,” the state is enjoying an on-going building boom funded by those “intrusive” federal construction dollars. Everything from hospitals to sewers, schools to affordable housing, are being built, and Louisiana’s employment rate is now about the best in the country.
Indeed, Louisiana’s chief cheerleader for federal spending is none other than Jindal’s own top aide for economic recovery! “No other state in the nation has been blessed with such generosity from… the American people,” he told Congress in January, citing projects funded by the $10 million a day pumped into Louisiana last year. “You take ten million a day,” he testified, “you can generate a lot of energy in your economy.”
Please, Governor Gooberhead – either take the benefits and shut up, or send back our $51 billion and yak all you want.
“In Louisiana, a Test Case In Using Huge Federal Aid,” www.nytimes, April 4, 2009.
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