Jindal addresses Network at Noon crowd
By: Howell Dennis
CROWLEY - Governor Bobby Jindal made a stop in Crowley yesterday to address a gathering at The Grand Opera House of the South. The event was jointly sponsored by the Crowley Chamber of Commerce, the Crowley Kiwanis Club, and the Crowley Lion’s Club.
“We’ve had a few important anniversaries lately,” began Jindal. “We’ve had the fifth anniversaries of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as well as the anniversary of 9/11.”
“Have any of you noticed the response you will often get when you’re out of state and you tell someone you’re from Louisiana,” he continued. “People are sympathetic but down deep they may be thinking ‘What’s wrong with you people?’. What’s next, a plague of locusts?”
“I tell these people that we aren’t only going to recover, we’re going to come back better and stronger than ever.”
Jindal discussed his frustration following the BP oil spill.
“I didn’t realize how bad it was until I got on an airboat to tour the site,” he said. “The first thing you noticed was the silence, no mosquitos or fish jumping . . . then you notice the smell and upon arrival you see the oil stuck to everything.”
“It was so frustrating because nobody was doing anything,” Jindal said. “The creativity of our people amazes me. People approached me about using trucks equipped with vacuums to clean it up and it worked wonderfully.”
“When I approached the federal government they said ‘you’re not going to be able to get a truck out over the water,” he said. “Now I’m not the smartest man in the world but I asked them ‘with the technology we have today can’t you put a truck on a boat.”
Jindal said that Louisiana citizens volunteered the use of their barges but were called back for reasons such as the government needing a proper life jacket count and the possibility that the vacuums may drop a portion of the oil they picked up back into the water. Eventually the federal government complied.
“We lost 24 hours due to red tape like this,” he said. “We’re going to do what ever we can to protect our coast.”
Jindal devoted most of the remainder of his speech to “making Louisiana a better place so our children won’t have to leave the state to find work.”
“We have to keep our greatest exports and I’m not talking about oil or natural gas,” he said. “I’m talking about our sons and daughters who leave our state to pursue their dreams.”
“I’m proud to say that after 20 years, for the last three we have had more people moving to Louisiana than leaving .”
Jindal credited five of his administrations ongoing goals for this trend.
- A war on corruption. “It’s nice to see late night comedians making jokes about the governor of Illinois rather than Louisiana,” he said drawing laughter from those in attendance.
- A vow he made upon taking office not to raise taxes.
- An investment in workforce development. He specifically pointed out the technical and community college system.
- A dedication to reforming education. Jindal pointed out that parents these days aren’t as respectful of teachers as they were “when we were younger.” He also mentioned our state low college graduation rate which is the second worst in the country.
“If we had the second worst football team we’d get rid of the coach out really quick,” he stated. “Likewise, we should also be just as concerned about being second worst in this department.”
- An investment in the infrastructure.
“These five things have enabled us to outperform other southern and national states during this recession,” he said.
Jindal also spent time expressing his disdain for the Obama administration’s cap and trade policy and the offshore drilling moratorium.
The governor ended his speech by describing a light-hearted moment he had with his six-year-old son during the Saints’ game Monday night.
“When the Saints lost my son was upset and asked if, because I was governor, I could fire the officials,” Jindal smiled. “I told him I couldn’t do that but if Huey Long was still governor he’d have fired them right after the game.”