VIDEO: Jindal Decries ‘Secret Plan’ Of Fiscal Hawks To Impose Massive Tax Increases

This is short. It’s only about 45 seconds long. And it hits a subject that Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield hit on this morning; namely, that the House moved eight bills out of the Ways and Means committee with unanimously or overwhelmingly unfavorable recommendations today – and those are now “shell” bills which can be replaced with the elements of the deal the fiscal hawks are cooking up with the Legislative Black Caucus, elements nobody yet knows the particulars of…

Of course, there is one piece to what Jindal said which hurts his credibility; namely this accusation of a $500 million tax increase.

There is no evidence the fiscal hawks are pushing a $500 million tax increase.

Jindal covers his rear end on this by saying “as much as” a $500 million tax increase, and that’s horribly dishonest for him to do when the final plan hasn’t been released.

Not only is it dishonest for him to say that, it’s stupid. Because by screaming about a $500 million tax increase, Jindal sets himself up to lose the expectations game. If the fiscal hawks only propose a $150 million tax increase, it will look like reasonable policy in comparison to what the governor accused them of.

You really don’t want to make the other guy look good in comparison to your expectations of him.

Jindal would have been a lot better off howling about the $100 million tax increase the fiscal hawks were about to propose. Then, when it’s a $200 million tax increase (for instance), he can be aghast and say “This is even worse than I thought!”

And then there’s Rep. John Schroder’s speech on the floor of the House of Representatives…

I am troubled by the implication that it’s bad for Louisiana when conservatives and democrats work together or that because a “fiscal hawk” might actually want to find some common ground with a member of the “black caucus.”

I know a lot of you received calls over the weekend. I certainly did. Over the weekend the administration and the state GOP did everything they could to distort, confuse and downright misguide the people of this state. To insinuate that simply working with democrats is detrimental to Louisiana is despicable.

We really need to thank the Governor and his administration. Unbeknownst to them, it’s their Washington style of political polarizing tactics that has helped bring the entire House of Representatives to the table.

This bi-partisan group has been working on a deficit reduction plan that works over time to end the policy of mid and end year cuts. We are working on a solution that guarantees that this budget will leave the House of Representatives with real dollars and does NOT rely on the sale of assets and the laundering of money to circumvent the law in an effort to give the appearance of a ‘balanced budget.’

It will be a budget that provides for reliable sources of revenues to fund the critical services of this state, so that departments do not have to endure a 6th consecutive year of mid-year budget cuts.

Deficit spending in Washington D.C. has led this country to financial uncertainty and instability. We will do everything we can to keep that from happening in our great state. Our plan collectively declares that the people of this state are more important than the personal interest of each of you and that each of you are willing to withstand the pressure and the political price of making those extremely difficult decisions.

But just like this debate has been from the start – there are valid points to be made on both sides and there are grave weaknesses on both sides. One would expect that to lead to a compromise. But not here in Louisiana, apparently.

UPDATE: And Jindal weighs in on the subject of exemption cuts and tax increases…

Meaning that even an adjustment to the film tax credit program gets opposition…

This is puzzling. Perhaps you can say giving $170 million a year in subsidies for production budgets to Hollywood producers who raise money for Obama, according to a plan enacted by Democrats, is somehow a conservative policy you’re a RINO if you don’t support, and maybe you can even say it with a straight face. But that’s hardly something we understand. It just looks like crony-capitalism and government picking winners to us.

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