I did a search for this and nothing came up, so sorry if it's a repeat initially missed a diary from yesterday. Please visit: mysiclaker's diary.
Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana and a so-called "rising star" of the Republican Party nationally, has announced that Louisiana will not be accepting almost $100 million in Federal stimulus funding.
From Politico:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he will decline stimulus money specifically targeted at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage, becoming the first state executive to officially refuse any part of the federal government’s payout to states.
Jindal claimed that he refused the money because he thought that increasing these benefits would lead to increased unemployment taxes in the future, and yet, as Think Progress reports, Jindal himself admits that the Federal money would fund the program for three years, after which the state could phase out the program.
Two points:
First of all, it's obvious what's happening here. As Mayor Nagin put it, Jindal's presidential ambitions are distracting him from focusing on what's good for his state. "...I think he's been tapped as the up-and-coming Republican to petition a run for president the next time it goes around," said Nagin. "So he has a certain vernacular, and a certain way he needs to talk right now." Remember, Jindal is scheduled to give the Republican response to Obama's address to Congress Tuesday.
Second of all, as the letter in the open thread mentioned the other day, I agree that it's going to be pretty fun to see what effect rejecting stimulus money is going to have on the electoral chances of Republicans running for re-election, or, like Jindal, mulling over a presidential bid in 2012.
What a complete idiot. When Louisiana's unemployed fall even further behind in the coming years, Jindal is going to have to answer for that.
Update: Added two links: first is kos's comment from yesterday regarding the possibility of this happening. Second is mysticlaker's diary from yesterday, beating me to the punch. Mine is more on the Jindal's rising star angle, so hopefully we can coexist - but please give his a visit - sprinkled with bible quotes to point out republican hypocrisy :).
Update II: Wanted to add this from a link in the Think Progress article: link (pdf) to an excellent chart from the National Employment Law Project estimating the number of people who would be helped with the expanded unemployment insurance. In Louisiana, Jindal is screwing over 24,981. Just for future reference, should Gov. Palin reject the same portion of the money in the bill, she'll be screwing over 14, 765. In Texas: 125,398. And in N. Carolina: 127,814.
Update III - ACTION: If you live in the state of Louisiana, as pointed out in the comments and by and BarbinMD, the state legislatures can override their ***hole governors on this - so give 'em a call! Let them know that you don't support Gov. Jindal's decision to turn down this money, and will be expressing this disagreement at the ballot box next go-round :)
Louisiana Senate:(225) 342-2040
Louisiana House:(225) 342-6945