Louisiana governor and former John Locke Foundation Headliner Bobby Jindal explains for National Review Online readers why he’s not buying into the gloom-and-doom message the Obama administration is trying to convey in advance of pending sequestration cuts.
Sequestration cuts account for less than 3 percent of the federal budget, but the president would have you believe that the world is going to end if they happen. Americans know that at least 3 percent of federal-government spending is wasteful — and they would tell you there’s room to cut the waste without jeopardizing critical services. The president is asking the American people to believe that there is no waste or fat in government. It’s just a ridiculous notion.
It gets better: Even after the sequestration reductions, the federal budget will actually be larger than it was last year. Let that one sink in. Only in Washington, D.C., would this be called a cut.
One idea I had was to delay Obamacare by not implementing the health-insurance exchanges and the Medicaid expansions. This would save tens of billions of dollars, and it wouldn’t cut a program that has already started.
Of course, the president has rejected this idea and every other rational proposal to make these cuts in a way that doesn’t jeopardize services. Instead, he’s using scare tactics and political theater to promote the solution he prefers for every problem — more taxes and more spending.
This week he even rejected an idea that would have given the administration more flexibility to make these reductions in a way that wouldn’t affect critical services. Why, you ask? This administration has an insatiable appetite for higher taxes and government growth. There has been over $600 billion in new spending and nearly $6 trillion in new debt under this president. Last month, he approved over $600 billion in new taxes that will affect nearly every American. Now he wants more money out of our paychecks.
