Governor Bobby Jindal Kinda Sorta Declines Stimulus

• February 21, 2009

He’s taking the money for the “shovel ready” projects, but he’s turning down the expanded unemployment benefits.

“Today, Governor Bobby Jindal announced that the state will not change its law to use a part of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill that would result in an unemployment insurance tax increase on Louisiana businesses. The Governor also announced that the state will use a provision in the legislation to increase state unemployment benefits for recipients by an extra $25 per week, and reaffirmed his acceptance of the transportation funds included in the bill to fund shovel-ready transportation priorities in the state.”

Undoubtedly a good move, if only a partially, for Jindal. Remember that while the stimulus bill may fund expanded unemployment entitlements now, eventually that federal money is going to dry up and the taxpayers of Louisiana would be left footing the bill. Jindal turning down means less future tax burden for his constituents, even if he substituted his own mini-expansion of unemployment entitlements in its place.
It’s worth noting that expanded unemployment benefits usually mean more unemployment. Unemployment in Europe, where unemployment benefits dwarf those available in America, typically lasts a good deal longer than in the United States. Because with plentiful benefits available, workers can afford to wait a lot longer before the need to work becomes pressing enough to force them back into the job market.
It may sound cruel, but there’s no denying fact. The more comfortable you make the unemployed the less likely they are to get back into the job market. Meanwhile, the more people we have collecting unemployment benefits the more burden workers and businesses must carry.
To be perfectly blunt, the expansions of unemployment benefits in the “stimulus” are going to do the exact opposite of stimulating the economy. They’re going to further stagnate the economy.
But hey, we did the nice thing, so it’s ok right?

Tags: Domestic Issues, Politics

http://Array Lioncourt

He just announced for the Presidency, because he sure as hell just gave up the governorship.
harlonharley

There have been several articles and comments from representatives of other states, who have said that there is nothing in the stimulus that requires a state to change it’s law in perpetuity.

In fact, a competent state legislature would accept the money and when the funding dried up for the expanded unemployment coverage, change the law back to the 2008 version.

one of the expanded coverages is to allow people to collect benefits while entering training. Jindal has pushed education and the community/technical college system in his state. His state has been hit hard by not only natural disasters but the erosion of the auto industry (GM and subsidiaries plants in North Louisiana).

In a state where you have high illiteracy, high high school dropout rates, and virtually no industry in several towns (outside of the riverboat casino), this sounds like a good way to fund your community and vocational colleges to train workers in the rebuilding of southern louisiana, to fully staff the resurgent oil/gas industry in state.

Jindal reminds me of Obama without the populist appeal. He’s the consumate opportunist and very wishy washy until backed into the corner. I suspect that he will posture against this funding and then accept it. Right now he’s in campaign mode, fundraising for the party mode, but not governor mode.

He’s a dud, it’s time for our party to look deeper in the ranks for the next presidential candidate. How successful will it be to run for 2012 presidential election when you lost the 2011 LA governors election to Landrieu or former senator John Breaux.
bill-tb

Odummer has strings attached to everything. You have to be a fool, or an Obama voter to not know that.

One thing about Obama, what he says todays, has an expiration date of tomorrow.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

“rising star in the republican party” is like saying Head Porter on the Titanic.

Jindal’s state has the second highest poverty rate at 18 percent. MS is 22 percent. Both states strongly republican.

I think Jindal is homesick for India and wants to see the streets littered with humans in poverty.

Idiot republican slug.
http://hoosierarmymom.wordpress.com/ HoosierArmyMom

Well Rob, I think Jindal has a higher rate of stress than a lot of Governors in the US. Louisiana cannot be an easy State to be Governor of given the challenges left in the wake of Katrina and New Orleans.

Every state in the Union has received federal dollars to fund infrastructure,schools, hospitals, etc since I can remember. So I think that his thoughtful assessment is pretty profound. He obviously knows that raising unemployment taxes on businesses would be sealing the coffins on those that can eventually provide the lost jobs in the first place… kind of counter productive. I think Jindal is using common sense. The funds are being made available whether we like it or not. His job is to sift through the loop holes and do what he can to make something sane come from it.

I will be interested in seeing if he can manage to put the money for infrastructure (the shovel ready work) into places where corruption won’t negate the value. The last thing anyone needs is to see billions poured into projects that end up like the ones Obama and his cronies screwed up in Chicago… building housing projects that was so substandard that they are all boarded up and unable to be lived in within a few years! And yes, that is the community planner’s legacy no one wanted to look at during the election!

I think Bobby Jindal is looking at federal dollars that would be coming to Louisiana anyway since they have needs in NOLA and So. LA that are still present from the hurricane damage. I think he is looking at this logically and giving a lot of thought to what he can accept for the good of Louisiana and what he cannot accept as damaging to the future of our country.
robert108

Both states strongly republican.

Another lie from ignorant little dinostem. Louisiana is infested with Dems, and has been for generations; they only recently woke up and elected a Republican governor, so the future finally looks brighter, but the vast majority of their State govt is solidly Dem.
crshedd

The more comfortable you make the unemployed the less likely they are to get back into the job market.

are we talking 5% of unemployed or 90% abusing the system?

since unemployment will hardly cover someone’s rent, let alone food, clothing, bills, utilities, how many really abuse it?

if the abuse is at the lower end, why tarnish and punish everyone?
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

Was there really any doubt?
http://history-nerd.blogspot.com/ Daniel

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. — I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

Benjamin Franklin in the November 29, 1766 issue of the London Chronicle
http://norseberserker.blogspot.com/ Rugby Reader

“rising star in the republican party” is like saying Head Porter on the Titanic.

That’s rich! I like that.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

Bobby Jindal is a rising star in the republican party.
I think this is smart move.
robert108

The only argument against taking the pork spending bill money is if it would decrease the size of the bill. Since it doesn’t, this is a specious argument.
The lefties again illustrate their hypocrisy in supporting this wasteful spending by the govt, yet criticizing people for taking back some of what has been confiscated from them.

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Governor Bobby Jindal Kinda Sorta Declines Stimulus

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