Living off other people's taxes

The Governor of Louisiana Mr. Piyush Jindal gave some cockamamie talk about fiscal restraint a couple of days back in what was billed as a rebuttal of President Obama's speech to the Congress. However, he needs to keep the following in mind as he goes about his duties...

Louisiana has gotten $130 billion in post-Katrina aid. How is it that the stars of the Republican austerity movement come from the states that suck up the most federal money? Taxpayers in New York send way more to Washington than they get back so more can go to places like Alaska and Louisiana. Which is fine, as long as we don’t have to hear their governors bragging about how the folks who elected them want to keep their tax money to themselves. Of course they do! That’s because they’re living off ours. From here.

When other states live off our taxes, one might expect the governors of those states to at least filter the seemingly random thoughts that seem to float into their minds and finding an outlet through their mouths.

Nihilist conservatism

David Brooks on Piyush Jindal's rebuttal of Obama's speech last night.

I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now. (via HuffPo)