If U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu would just get out of his way, Gov. Bobby Jindal could fully focus on his quest to be the leading critic of President Barack Obama this side of the Beltway. Outside of Washington, where congressional Republicans are being blamed as much as or more than the president for the fiscal crisis of the month, there is a competition to be the leading voice of dissent from the GOP heartland—and Jindal is right in there. As chairman of the Republican Governors Association, he used a recent meeting of governors at the White House to call for the president to avoid the across-the-board budget cuts of sequestration by delaying implementation of the Affordable Care Act, particularly the expansion of Medicaid. The White House, of course, ignored him, but Jindal did succeed in combining the two prime GOP beefs against Obama. Back home, though, Landrieu again tore into the governor for putting his national ambitions ahead of what’s good for the state by his refusal to accept the Medicaid expansion. It would cover adults with incomes of up to 138% of the poverty level, which would cost the state nothing for three years and 10% in 10 years. Leaving it to his press office to dismiss Landrieu as an Obama stooge, the next day Jindal was back on message to a national audience, penning an editorial for National Review Online entitled “The Era of Government Greed.” Read the full column here.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
