Daily News Channel
Tapped by the Republican party to deliver the GOP’s response to President Barack Obama’s congressional address Tuesday night, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal took on the massive stimulus package and big government — and pledged that his party would regain the nation’s trust.
President Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term. He identified exploding health-care costs as the chief culprit behind rising federal deficits during a bipartisan “fiscal responsibility summit” convened to discuss ways to restore fiscal stability without deepening the recession. Meeting with the congressional leadership of both parties, as well as a range of business, academic, financial and labor leaders, Obama warned that the country cannot continue its current rate of deficit spending without facing dire economic consequences.
Thrust into the spotlight as a Republican rising star, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been depicted as an up-and-comer capable of helping reshape the party and jockeying for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. And now, Jindal’s party is putting him on a national platform, awarding the once little-known congressman the political plum of delivering the Republican’s televised response to President Barack Obama’s address to Congress on February 24.
President Obama met Friday with 85 mayors from across the country to discuss the implementation of city-related funding from the $787 billion stimulus package. “You shouldn’t have to succeed despite Washington; you should be succeeding with a hand from Washington, and that’s what you’re getting now,” Obama said at a White House reception. “This plan does more to lay a new foundation for our cities’ growth and opportunity than anything Washington has done in generations.” The economic stimulus package sets aside billions of dollars for highway construction, transit improvements, school modernization and community development block grants