The Honorable Bobby Jindal                                                                             Governor                                                                                                              State of Louisiana

Bobby Jindal - Employment- Governor of Louisiana, took office January 2008, elected with 54 percent of the vote in the primary with a platform of ethics reform, state healthcare, education, and transportation systems reform, and post-Katrina economic development and recovery efforts; former member, United States House of Representatives (2004-2008), represented the first district of Louisiana, elected freshman class president, served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the House Committee on Homeland Security, and the House Committee on Resources, served as assistant majority whip, passed legislation to bring significant offshore energy revenues to Louisiana for the first time and to keep FEMA from taxing certain recovery grants as income, re-elected to Congress in 2006 with 88 percent of the vote; assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001-2003), appointed by President George W. Bush, served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services; former president, University of Louisiana System, the 16th largest higher education system in the country, worked to establish areas of excellence at each individual institution; former executive director, National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the commission, which drives the debate on how to strengthen and improve Medicare; secretary, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (1996-1998), rescued Louisiana's Medicaid program from bankruptcy, childhood immunizations increased, Louisiana ranked 3rd best nationally in health care screenings for children, and new and expanded services for elderly and disabled persons were offered; former consultant, McKinsey and Company. Education- Graduate, Biology and Public Policy, with honors, Brown University; Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University. Personal- Father of three; married to Supriya.

"Remarks"

GOVERNOR JINDAL:  Thank you very much.  Thank you for that incredibly warm reception, and thank you also for honoring my home state with your presence here today.

          I know that originally you were intending to be here in 2005.  Obviously, events interrupted those plans.  We are so thrilled to have you back.  Indeed, we arranged this beautiful weather just for you all to be down here.

          You know, there are so many things I want to talk to you all about tonight.  It is so good to see so many friends again, either from Henderson when I last was here to speak to you all or from the Koch Industry's retreat out in California or from other different places.  It is wonderful to see so many friendly faces here in New Orleans, here in Louisiana.

          I want to talk about so many things.  Certainly, I will start by talking about those awful storms that defined so many people's impression of Louisiana, what happened down here.  I talked about that at length in Henderson.  So I won't talk about that exclusively tonight.  I also want to talk about some of the reform, some of the changes that are happening down here, and then, certainly, when we have a little bit of time, talk about health care, an issue I think we as conservatives have a lot to say and a lot to offer, and we don't dare be silent in the face of a single‑payer system and the plans by Senator Kennedy and others.

          Senator McCain, I had a chance to see him.  He was down here.  After he spoke to your group, he actually went to a State Republican function, a State Republican Party function.  I had a chance to see him, and he was worried that day.  I think it was just yesterday actually.  He was worried that day.  The New York Times apparently was upset with him.  I said, "Senator, you don't understand.  That's great news."  I said, "The angrier they are with you, the better off you'll do with the voters."  I said, "I'm actually worried.  They wrote something positive about something we did down here, and I'm worried that will cost us votes down in Louisiana."

          Let me start with what happened down here in 2005. I'm not going to repeat what you already know.  You know there were two awful storms.  You know over a thousand people died, tens of billions of dollars of damage.  All kinds of generosity and compassion flowed to this State.  Yes, a lot of government money flowed to this State, but a lot of volunteers, missionary groups, churches, school groups, it's been amazing.  Anybody that doubts the strength of our country, the generosity of our country, the resilience of our country needs to just spend a couple of days down here.

          If you go out to the 9th Ward, if you go out to the 17th Street Canal Bridge, if you go anywhere in this Greater New Orleans Area, not just the City of New Orleans but outside the city as well, you will meet people from all over this country, two and a half years after the storms.  You will meet college students on their spring breaks.  You will meet church groups that have driven down here in large vans.  You will meet volunteers who are down here helping people rebuild their lives.

          Now, if you watched the national TV reports, you saw a lot of frustration.  You saw a lot of government bureaucracy.  I actually wrote an editorial.  I said it is amazing to me, some of the people that complain the most about the bureaucracy and the red tape of government want that same government to run our health care system.  It is amazing to me they didn't see the irony of this, but I am here to tell you that that frustration was genuine.  That frustration was heartfelt because it was real.

          I could tell you stories that would make you cry. They'd either make you laugh or cry when you just realize how slow the response was, how inefficient the response was.

          There was a sheriff that asked for help.  He was literally told, "Well, Sheriff, don't call us.  We are only taking e‑mails for help."  He said, "An e‑mail?  I don't have electricity.  How am I supposed to e‑mail you a request for help?"  They said, "Sheriff, put all the details in an e‑mail when you send it to us.  Tell us you don't have electricity in the e‑mail," and they literally hung up the phone on him after that.

          You literally had communities that were waiting for bottles, for trucks with bottled water, food, medical supplies.  When the trucks arrived, they were turned away.  When volunteer truck drivers showed up with the supplies, they were told, "If you don't have the right paperwork, you are not allowed into the city, into the area."

          I could tell you story after story, but I don't want to tell you those stories.  I don't want to dwell on what didn't work.  I want to tell you what worked because you don't always hear those stories.  You always hear about how the faith‑based groups or how the big corporations all are not doing enough.

          Let me tell you about some of the amazing stories.  Monday, Katrina hit.  That day, Wal‑Mart called the local sheriff and said, "Sheriff, we are opening up our stores.  Come take what you need for free.  We don't have any staff there.  We don't have any people there.  We are not worried about inventory.  We know people need generators, food, water, medicines.  We have all that stuff.  Come take what you need."  That was the day of the storm.  He was still waiting weeks later for the official channels to deliver the help that he needed.  The day of the storm, he had his deputies sleeping in Wal‑Mart stores, taking the supplies they needed to help serve people who were left behind.

          You know, I went down to St. Bernard Parish.  They thought they had been forgotten.  They were the first parish hit by the storm.  South of New Orleans, they felt the real brunt of those storms.  Every single house, every single business in St. Bernard Parish took water, took damage.  Not one escaped damage.  You just couldn't because of the geography.

          Got down there.  There was really no way to get down there, other than taking a helicopter in with another sheriff right after the storms.  They got there.  They felt like they had been completely forgotten.  They had been down there.  People didn't remember they were down there.  I said, "Sheriff, what do you need?"  "Congressman, we need food, water, trucks.  We need ammunition."

          Now, I don't know where you're from, but in Louisiana, when you hear a sheriff tell you he's run out of ammunition, that's pretty scary.

          They were still rescuing people off the rooftops, out of the water, and they just needed basic supplies.  We couldn't wait for the bureaucracy.

          I called up a friend.  I happened to know this guy at Ford Motor Company.  I said, "Look, this sheriff is down here.  He needs help."  Within hours, I got a call back saying, "There are dozens of trucks.  The keys are in the ignition.  The paperwork is in the glove compartment.  If you send the drivers, you can have them," no questions asked.  He said, "Just get these trucks to the people that need them."  We got high school and college students to deliver those trucks.  You should have seen the faces of those deputies.  They thought they had been completely forgotten.  They couldn't believe it when these trucks showed up.

          I called up the other motor companies and said, "You know, Ford just gave me a bunch of trucks."

          I'm glad to report to you, competition works in America.  They all said, "Oh, we want to do the same thing."

          There are thousands of these stories.  I could keep you here all night just telling you about the amazing stories.

          I just want to tell you three more, and then I am going to stop talking about Katrina because we could talk about this all night.

          But I remember there is a famous sheriff down here.  Maybe you have heard of him.  You can probably still see his signs as you drive through this area.  His name is Harry Lee.  Harry is no longer alive.  He died last year.  It surprised everybody.  We all thought he was going to live forever.

          Harry Lee weighed about 500 pounds, if he weighed a pound, a huge man.  Now, Harry probably wouldn't have been comfortable in this group.  I don't think you could call him a Republican or a conservative.  That would be stretching those words beyond recognition.  He didn't even pretend or try.

          Harry was probably one of the last yellow dog Democrats, been in office forever, forever.  He just ran things the way he wanted to run them, but you know, in his heart was a decent, caring man.  He and I probably didn't vote the same way in any national election, but we got to be friends.  He was just one of these guys that got the job done.  He would be elected sheriff every time he ran and really could have been in there forever, died in office.

          Well, I was in his office right after the storms. He was the sheriff of Jefferson Parish, right next door to New Orleans, one of the largest parishes in our State, and he was mad.  I had never seen Harry this mad.  He was yelling in the phone, and he was cursing up a storm.  I said, "Harry, What's got you so upset?"  I would hear him yelling in the phone, "Well, I'm the sheriff, and if you don't like it, you come arrest me."  That's how mad he got. I said, "Harry, what's the matter?  Calm down.  What are you so mad about?"  No power, no water, he's sitting there in a trailer trying to run his deputies around the parish, and like the other sheriff, trying to rescue people out of the water.

          Literally, one of the interstates over him, the water got so high.  It is kind of hard to see it now when you drive around and things look like they are getting back to normal in many neighborhoods.  As you drive out to the airport, if you look to the left on the interstate, you will see this Target, this three‑story ‑‑ now it's a two‑story Target shopping store, one of the few two‑story Targets out here, and it is a big mall, Clearview Mall, about halfway between here and the airport.  The water had gotten so high, that interstate ramp had become a boat launch, and they actually were launching boats from that interstate exit to go rescue people.

          Harry had run out of boats, run out of men.  So he had gotten on the radio and said, "I want anybody that can hear me to come with your boats, come rescue people.  Fishermen, recreational fishermen, people from all of the State and the country, anybody that could hear his voice responded.  It was great.  Like I said, it was a great time to watch this country's resilience and generosity.  Hundreds of people showed up with their boats.

          And then some self‑selected bureaucrat showed up and told these people if you didn't bring proof of insurance, if you didn't bring your registration paperwork, you were not going to be allowed to go in the water.  People were literally drowning, dying because they couldn't have enough boats to go rescue them.  People had driven all this way.  Even sheriff deputies with their own personal boats were being turned away because they didn't have the right paperwork.

          So I am sitting there, and Harry is not a shy man. I am sitting in Harry's office.  I said, "Well, Sheriff, I agree with you.  That's just ridiculous."  Before I know it, Harry Lee is on that phone yelling, "I got Congressman Bobby Jindal here.  You can come arrest us both if you don't like it."

          I said, "Harry, who are you talking to?"  He said, "Oh, it's just WWL Radio.  Nobody is listening to us.  Don't worry," the most powerful radio station on the Gulf Coast by transmission, and I'm thinking this is great.  Harry is a big man.  I said, "Harry, you are going to have to protect me when we go to jail.  I'm hiding behind you."

          Because he has passed away, I will just tell you one more Harry Lee story before I move on.  You know, he had the only communications tower that was working, and he got so mad because FEMA had come and cut his wires to use it themselves, and he was using it to direct the first responders.  He told his deputies, "You go cut their wires. Plug our wires back."

          His men said, "Well, wait a minute, Sheriff.  What happens if the FEMA guys show up?  They're the ones that cut the wires in the first place."  He said, "If you see somebody from FEMA, shoot."

          The problem with Harry is you never knew if he was being serious or not.  He would say things like that.  You didn't know if he was being serious or not.

          You know, the other awful thing that happened was that people that could take care of themselves, that could defend themselves, that could feed themselves became victims of their own government.  What do I mean by that?

          I want to remind you of what it was like.  It was August.  Unlike March, it is incredibly hot and humid down here in the month of August.  It was many times sweltering. People were in their homes with no power, no air‑conditioning, and no fans.  They had no TV reports.  There were reports on the radio of looting, reports on the radio of gangs and all kinds of thefts and crimes and violence.

          Many people were in their homes with their legally owned weapons, their guns, protecting themselves, protecting their families.  There were stories of a grandfather who scared away people trying to take his generators with a machete.  It was primitive conditions, but people had their windows open to let the air in.  They had strangers walking around their neighborhoods.  They were trying to protect their property.

          In my own neighborhood, we had a guy that patrolled around in a boat with a gun to scare off looters because they had come and robbed a few homes.  When you think about it, some of the basic rules of society had broken down, and people were defending themselves.

          In response to this, sometimes the folks in New Orleans said, "Well, we can't respond to every call we get. We can't go out there.  We just don't have the resources," which was understandable.  Yet, somehow the bureaucrats had the resources to go and confiscate a thousand guns from law‑abiding citizens.  I want you to think about that.

          You are sitting there in your home not bothering anybody, and they come take away your legally owned gun.  They had one woman.  You can go see it online.  They had one woman not bothering anybody, had food, had water, was by herself.  They came into her house, wrestled her to the ground, took her gun away.  The next day, she was a victim. She was robbed.  She couldn't defend herself.  She couldn't do anything because they had broken the door to get in her house, and so her house was no longer protected from the elements.

          I had a rescue team that contacted my office.  They wanted to go in there, send some doctors and others to go and help people.  They couldn't go because they were told nobody in your group can bring a gun if you want to go in there and rescue people.  These were licensed, certified, not only medical responders, but trained professionals, and they said, "Well, we can't go in there if we can't defend ourselves."  You can't call 911 in a situation like that.

          I really had to pass a law in Congress saying this will never happen again, but what was amazing to me ‑‑ and the head of NRA described it this way to me, and I hadn't thought about it this way.  He said, "This was the first time in American history where at the threat of gunpoint, American citizens were forced to give up their legally owned weapons to their own government," and he said he never thought it would have happened in Louisiana.  Well, the good news is it won't happen anywhere else after we pass the Federal laws.

          I am not an attorney.  We have got a former Attorney General here, and he could explain this better than me.  I know he doesn't agree with what these folks did.  I'm not an attorney.  I just don't understand.  People create things that aren't in the Constitution.  They ignore the things that are in the Constitution.  It is amazing to me.  As a lay person, it seems to me you can read it and understand what the Founding Fathers intended.

          The last Katrina story, I will tell you because there are so many other things, and I know that you have got other speakers and other things you want to do tonight.

          The last Katrina story, I will share with you because I want to at least close on an uplifting Katrina story before I talk to you about what is going on in Louisiana.

          I had this wonderful talk with a widow that lives in the northern part of my district, my old district up in Washington Parish.  They got hit like Mississippi did by the winds, not by the waters as much, but still it was devastating.  Trees were all over their property.  They didn't know what to do.

          This poor old woman didn't have a lot of money, didn't have a lot of family, was just almost literally trapped in her house.  She described the scene to me.  She said one day, a stranger knocked on her door and said, "Ma'am, can we remove these trees for you?"  So she said, "I'm sorry.  I don't have any money.  I can't pay you."  An older woman, no family, no money, a widow, didn't know what to do.  They said, "Ma'am, that's okay.  We'll do it for free."  Well, she's skeptical.  She says, "For free?  Well, what's the catch?"  They said, "Ma'am, there's no catch.  We're from a faith‑based group, from a church.  We have declared this to be our missionary field for the year.  We want to do this for you because we love you."  She said, "Well, I'm sorry.  I don't belong to your church, to your denomination.  I don't belong to that church."  They said, "That's okay, ma'am.  We still love you.  We still want to do this for you for free."  She said, "Well, you boys, you do whatever you want out there.  I'm not converting no matter what you do."

          They laughed and said, "Ma'am, you don't have to convert.  It's okay."

          When she told me this story, she had a tear in her eye.  She said, "Bobby, if God hadn't sent those angels, I don't know what I would have done.  I may still have been trapped in my house."

          Do you know I literally had to author and pass a bill saying the Federal Government shouldn't discriminate against churches and faith‑based groups after storms?  Can you believe that?  Why would it take a Federal law?  And literally, we would have debates in committee.

          In a related debate, in the Education Committee, I actually had a colleague take me aside and say she just didn't want to give funding to any group that started its day with a prayer.  She had actually caught a group that had done this and posted this ‑‑ you know how congressmen like to have these big old poster boards when they think they have caught somebody doing something wrong?  So she had actually caught this group starting its day with a prayer.

          I had to gently remind her, "You know, Congress starts its day with a prayer.  Supreme Court starts its day with a prayer."  I said, "If we are looking for groups to stop funding, let's start there."

          Now, I don't know if you all are clapping for prayer or clapping to shut down Congress and the Supreme Court, but either way, think it's all good.

          Well, I am here to tell you, Katrina was a tragedy, but it doesn't define Louisiana.  Katrina has given us a chance to rebuild not only this city, but our State in a way that will be even better than we were before the storms.

          Don't let anybody convince you that Katrina and Rita caused all of our problems down here.  Anybody that says that is fooling themselves.

          You go back before August 2005.  You will see a high crime rate in New Orleans.  You will see a city that was at risk of being at the top of the per‑capita homicide rates.  You will see a city that was plagued with some of the worst public schools in the State and even the country. You will see an economy in Louisiana that was the only one in the South losing people to our neighboring States, 30,000 people a year moving out faster than they were moving in.  You will see a health care system more expensive than our neighboring States delivering the worst outcomes in the country.

          So it's easy, it's fashionable to say, well, Katrina did all this.  Katrina caused a lot of damage, killed a lot of our people.  I can't overstate the damage it did to our State and to our city, but the reality is out of that tragedy that nobody asked for, we have got a choice about how we want to rebuild.  Do we simply rebuild the way we were before, or do we say here is an opportunity?

          And my criticism of the Federal response, after the rescue efforts and the recovery efforts, was we were just putting new wine in old wine skins.  Yes, tens of billions of dollars came down here, and some of that money was absolutely critical for levees, for coastal restoration, but in too many cases, instead of saying we know the old policies don't work, instead our government simply said let's just throw more money at those same old policies and hope for a different result.  I think that is the definition of insanity.

          I would like to share with you a little bit about what we are trying to do down here.  Now, we had a first special session, just concluded about a week and a half ago. I said when I got elected, we had to declare war on corruption and incompetence.  I won't go through all the statistics.  You know the stories.  Louisiana ranks fourth worst in the BGA's integrity index, ranked forty‑fourth in the Center for Public Integrity's Index on Disclosure.  We have all heard the jokes, all heard the stories, who you know is more important than what you know.

          We have a former governor who is in jail currently.  Three insurance commissioners in a row went into jail.  The former president of the senate is in jail, and the list goes on and on and on.  Indeed, I tell people, you probably have gotten accustomed to laughing at our politicians.  We hope you'll come down here and enjoy our cuisine, our music.  We hope you will laugh at our comedians, our actors, but my goal is for our politicians to no longer be entertained.

          You know, I told the press as soon as I was elected ‑‑‑ they asked me.  They asked me about my plans the day after.  I said, "Well, I am taking my kids to Disney World, going to go see some furry animal," I think it was Elmo, "a couple of weeks later."  I said, "My goal is to be the most boring but hopefully one of the most effective governors in Louisiana's history."

          We declared war on corruption.  We had a special session, 65‑items.  We call it a "call."  We issued a call with 65 items, three to four dozen bills.  I called that legislature into session and said, "Let's not be timid.  Let's be bold.  People didn't ask us to move from fiftieth to forty‑ninth," and guess what, they did it.  We passed bills that, for example, said if you are an elected official, statewide, legislator, whatever, you can't do business with the State.  Your family can't do business with the State.  There is nothing wrong with being an elected official, nothing wrong with doing business with the State, but you got to pick one or the other, no more back‑room deals, sweetheart deals, brother‑in‑law deals.

          Secondly, we said we are going to have comprehensive disclosure for all of our elected officials.  Let the people see who is putting money in your pockets.

          Third, we said, let’s have more disclosure for those special interest groups, and if you are an elected official, no more free golf games or tickets to events like football games or lavish meals.  In other words, serve us, not yourselves.  Make sure that if you are running for office, you are doing it for the right reasons.  Don't do it because you are looking for a salary or for retirement.  Do it because you want to improve our State.

          And I am proud.  The Center for Public Integrity said we went from forty‑fourth to first best in the country with our disclosure laws.

          We have the nation's toughest conflict of interest laws.

          Now, look, laws don't make morality.  Laws don't change hearts.  We have got to change our culture.  We have got to change our expectations.  We put in provisions where citizens can call in 1‑800 numbers, go to web pages and report fraud.  We did some things that will change the culture of this State, passed some people that people didn't pay attention to that are going to be very important.  We said all government spending will be posted online.

          So, long after I am out of office, when I go home and check my computer, I can see where my tax dollars are going.  They went from $16 to $32 billion in six years in this State's budget.  I can't tell you where all that new money went.  I can't tell you.

          I certainly can tell you services aren't twice as good as they were six years ago.  I know that is not true.  I know our roads aren't twice as good as they were six years ago.  Our schools aren't twice as good as they were six years ago.  There are a lot of reforms in that package that are going to have profound differences on the way that business is done here.

          This is an important point, and I won't go through the dozens of bills.  You don't need to hear me talk about all the different details, but this is an important point.

          I was a Member of Congress.  I was there for the last two years in the Majority, saw us lose the Majority as a Republican Party in Congress.  I don't think the American people hired Nancy Pelosi to be their Speaker.  I think they fired the Republican Party, and the Republican Party gave them reason to be fired.  Let's be honest.

          And I say this as a lifelong, unapologetic conservative.  Look, I don't make any apologies for my beliefs, but when you look at what happened to our party, we became a party that all of a sudden became a party that was making excuses for corruption, we would have condemned rightly if the other side was doing it.  We became a party that began to think our earmarks are okay when we condemn the other side's earmarks.  We became a party that really thought holding onto power was more important than using that power to pursue innovative policies and ideas.

          And this is my belief.  I don't think we give voters enough credit.  I think voters, if they look at two candidates and say, well, one is an authentic liberal and the other one is just pretending to be a liberal, they are going to vote for the real thing every time, and why wouldn't they?

          And the same thing is true of being a conservative.  Let's be honest and bold and authentic in our convictions. We have got such a great opportunity.

          Here in Louisiana, let me just give you three or four examples of how we are going to transform this State.  We have got a second special session starting tomorrow, and I basically said we are going to come in there, we are going to get rid of five taxes, and we are going to invest.  There is money to be spent, and instead of growing the government, we are going to actually put that in infrastructure, and what do I mean by that?

          My predecessor put $800 million of one‑time money in recurring expenditures.  It was a great departure gift.  This is what we inherited in the budget.  Added in the last year, they added over 1,250 new jobs, State jobs I mean, not private sector jobs.  The budget that we proposed has 1,300 fewer State employees, and that is just in our first year, but let me tell you about these taxes that we want to get rid of.

          Louisiana's current tax structure is the greatest gift.  My apologies to those of you from Texas and Mississippi, but our tax structure is the greatest gift we could be giving your States because every time you go to recruit businesses, jobs, and investment, you are going to say, "Look at Louisiana's tax structure.  Why in the world would you want to go there?"

          In our State, we tax debt, new equipment, utilities.  Think about that.  A company is about to modernize.  They are about to borrow capital, and we tax that.

          You know, look, I am not an economics major, but I kind of understand it this way.  If you want to discourage behavior, tax it.  If you want to encourage it, don't tax it.

          Well, why in the world in this State would we want to stop people from investing money and modernizing facilities?  I talked to a plant manager.  He told me.  He said, "Bobby, my newest equipment is older than the oldest equipment at any other facility we compete with in this country."

          Now, liberals will tell you, taxes don't matter, tax policy doesn't matter, companies can't go anywhere, they’ve got to be in Louisiana.   You’ve got ports, natural gas.  You’ve got oil.  You’ve got the Mississippi River.  Maybe that was true when Huey Long was governor.  It is not true today.

          The companies we are courting, the companies we want to expand and keep here, they are not just looking at Texas and Mississippi.  They are looking at Brazil.  They are looking at China.  They are looking all over the world, and they will go where the tax policies make sense.  Look, Ireland is no coincidence.  These things happen for a reason.

So we are going to start a special session tomorrow.  We are going to get rid of these taxes.  We are also going to make sure that if there is government money, we actually give some of it back to the people, and if we are going to spend new government money, we are going to spend it on things like roads and infrastructure.  We have got a $14‑billion backlog, and instead of just growing government programs, let's do what government is supposed to do.

          But you know, I've got to tell you, the second area we can make a huge difference is education.  One of the tax deductions I am proposing is for those parents who are paying tuition, who are home‑schooling their children.  By the way ‑‑ those of you from California, I read where they just made home‑schooling illegal in California.  My chief of staff was home‑schooled.  He has home‑schooled his children. We have got plenty of homes for sale in Louisiana for those of you from California.  We'd welcome you.

          You don't need passports.  You are welcome to come to Louisiana.

          We are going to give a tax deduction for those who home school, who pay tuition.

          I want to tell you, I want to talk to you just a minute about education, though.  We proposed about $90 million of education innovations in this budget this year, about $20 million to start the deductions.  We said we want to put another $20 million for merit pay, flexible pay, whatever you want to call it, for teachers, $10 million to start a scholarship program here in the City of New Orleans where parents can send their children to the schools they want.  This is just a start, $90 million in our first year in our first budget.

          The State of Louisiana spends ‑‑ out of the State budget -- $3 billion a year on public schools.  I proposed $90 million out of new revenues for these three initiatives.

          All of a sudden, I get asked every time I do a TV interview about our budget or about the session.  The teacher’s unions say you hate public schools, why are you attacking them so much, why are you doing these vouchers, and it is amazing to me.  You know, but in a way, I think that criticism is a compliment.  I think those who don't want change, those who like the status quo, understand these changes, even though the dollars aren't a tremendous amount of money, are profound changes.  You give parents choice.  You give children the chance to get a high‑quality education, and this isn't about ‑‑ I am not trying to say every student in Louisiana needs to go to a private school or parochial school or be home‑schooled.  I am here to tell you I want every child to get the best education they can, and let me tell you why I am passionate about this.

          My wife and I graduated from public schools right here in Louisiana.  You can get a great education here.  My dad was the first in our family to go beyond the fifth grade, and the reason I am standing before you today is because he was determined to get an education, and he was determined that his children would get an even better education than he had.

          I think it is absolutely critical we give every child an opportunity to get the best education possible, but I think it is interesting.  Our critics have figured out, even more than we have, how important these changes are.  If they didn't, they wouldn't be opposing them so strongly.

          I was telling John earlier, there was a letter to the editor in today's newspaper in Baton Rouge, and I read it online.  I thought it was a good letter.  The headline says "Jindal Favors Businesses."  I thought, well, this is great, one of my fans must have written in.

          Of course, it wasn't.  It was a critic, criticizing the second session about how we were going to spend all this money on tax breaks and the rest of it.

          You know what is interesting, sometimes our critics understand the profound impact of our changes even more than we do.  I am reminded in my lifetime, clearly, Ronald Reagan was the best President we have been blessed to have.  Absolutely. And one sign that he was a profound leader was you look at the intensity of the criticism when he was in office.  You will remember it wasn't enough for them to disagree with his ideas.

          Now years after his passing, certainly history has been much kinder to him, and people talk about him being the great communicator, and people talk about him winning the cold war and resurrecting the economy out of the stagflation of the '70s and doing all these wonderful things, but at the time, remember all the ridicule.  Remember the people that said what is this evil empire talk, he is going to get us in a World War III.  You will remember at the time the intensity.  It wasn't just criticism of his policies.  It was criticism of his work ethic, of his character.  These are ad hominem personal attacks, and I wasn't privileged enough to know him, as many of you were.

          But I've got to believe his sunny public demeanor, his personality, he probably took those as badges of honor, as compliments that he was actually changing the world and he was about something, and that his opponents understand how profoundly he wanted to change America and the world that he lived in.

          The third and final example, housing.  There has been a huge debate about the change in housing policies here in New Orleans, to a lesser extent across our State.  I was asked by a reporter.  He said, "You know, two different United Nations groups have now condemned the changes in housing down here in Louisiana."  I asked him, "How do we get three United Nations groups to condemn us while we are at it?"

          I mean, here is the amazing thing.  The New Orleans City Council, which does not have one Republican member on it, a completely Democratic council, unanimously voted to give the permits to demolish the failed public housing complexes that were standing before the storms.

          You know, it would be so easy to tell you this was some vast right‑wing Republican conspiracy, except for the facts.  You have got a Democratic council and a Democratic mayor saying that public housing before the storms didn't work, but here is the thing.

          Before the storms, we had the State's largest charity hospital in New Orleans.  We had these large public housing complexes before the storms, and before the storms, if you had said we need to take them down and do something different, we need to make the residents homeowners, we need to give people access to private coverage, we need to change the way that we deliver services, people would have told you, you just can't do that.  "You can't knock down this hospital.  It has been here for decade.  You can't knock down this public housing.  It's been here forever."

          Well, how many times have we said on a blank sheet of paper, we never would have created these policies?  This is the closest any American city, any American State is going to get to a blank sheet of paper.

          Shame on us if all we do is say we have got to rebuild everything the way that it was before the storms.  We will have wasted an enormous opportunity to improve people's lives, to improve this State, and to show the country and the world our principal ideas work.

          If we really care for people, if we are really compassionate conservatives, to use the word that is popular today, if we are really compassionate, we should show them that our ideas work.  We should show them that it is better to give children access to the best possible schools.  It is better to help people buy their own health care coverage.  It is better to give people access to jobs and become self‑sufficient.  It is better to get them out of public housing, make them owners, give them equity, give them a stake in their communities. And we are doing that, and we can do that in New Orleans, here in Louisiana. The country is watching, and that is a great thing because they are going to like what they see.

          You know, I told you at the beginning, I want to talk about Katrina.  I wanted to talk to you about what's going on in Louisiana.

          I want to close by talking to you just very briefly about health care.  Here is something where as conservatives, I don't believe we can beat something with nothing.

          Now, what do I mean by that?  Too often we show up to the debate and the other side knows exactly what they want.  Look, I don't agree with Senator Kennedy on health care.  I don't agree, probably, with him on most things, but I respect the fact that when it comes to health care, he knows exactly what he wants to accomplish, and he knows to try to go at it one step at a time.

          If we were to go to the American people and say we are going to have the government take over your health care, we are going to have a single‑payer system, you just pay a lot more taxes, the government will tell you which services you will get and where to get them, people would reject that.  They have been given that chance before, and they did reject that.

          So, instead, they take it one step at a time.  Who in the world is going to be opposed to adding 64‑ and 63‑ and 62‑year‑olds into Medicare?  You must not like the elderly if you are not for that, something that President Clinton had proposed.

          Who in the world would be against adding children whose families make one dollar above Medicaid and SCHIP eligibility, who would be opposed to putting them into Medicaid and SCHIP?  Now, what is so magical about 300 percent?  What is wrong with 350 percent of poverty or even 400 percent of poverty or 301 percent of poverty?

          And it goes step by step, and too often, the conservative response to health care has been, well, if you want 350 percent, we will give you 325.  If you want 60‑year‑olds, we will give you 62‑year‑olds.  All we do is slow down the train.  It is still going in the same direction.  We are just slowing it down.

          Senator Kennedy and his colleagues are smart enough to know that when they do get the White House, when they do get the Congress, they will just move in that same direction even faster.  We have got to have a different agenda, different ideas, and we have them.

          Here is the amazing thing.  With electronic patient records, with online information, we have got within our grasp, the tools to give Americans a patient‑centered health care system, and I will tell you briefly what we are doing in Louisiana and what we need to do nationally.

          Here in Louisiana, for the first time, Medicaid and SCHIP have always been Louisiana government‑run, no private plans, no private participation.  Already, we have been in office just less than two months.  For the first time we are putting a portion of this SCHIP population into a privately-run plan, and that is just the first step.

          I hired a guy from Florida who is doing a great job, Secretary Levine.  Some of you know him from his Florida reforms, but so much more can be done to give people ownership of their health care.

          Think about this little fact.  In Louisiana, like so many States, we tell people if you don't have a job, we will give you free Medicaid.  You get free health care.  It is probably better than anybody's health care coverage in this room.  I mean no deductibles, very, very low, if any, copayments, very few caps on services.  Most of us don't have health care like that anymore.

          Now, if you go get a job and you come to the government and say, "I want to pay part of my premium, and my employer wants to pay part as well," the government basically says no.  They say, "We will pay for everything or nothing.  We really don't want to help those who are working and want to pay a little bit themselves."

          Across this country, 75 percent of the uninsured are in families that had jobs some part of that year.  How in the world does that make sense?  We tell families, we want you to get off welfare, we want you to go to work.  This country did a great thing with welfare reform, but we left the job half done.  For whatever reason, they left health care out of the equation.

          Now, think about that.  If we conservatives got together and said, "We have got a great idea.  We will have a separate but equal health care system," we would be rightfully condemned for proposing that.  Yet, that is exactly what is going on today.

          We have the system.  We tell people, well, we want to mainstream them.  We want to get people into jobs, get them off welfare, but when it comes to health care, we need to leave them in government‑run programs.

          Listen to some of the rhetoric on the other side.  You’ve heard people say, well, seniors just can't make choices for themselves.  It is too confusing.  They can't navigate all those choices.  We just need to give them one choice.  You know, people, families in Medicaid, they just don't have the wherewithal to go and pick their own doctors, pick their own medicine.  They will be overwhelmed by that information. The conservatives who said that would be rightfully condemned for being patronizing, for not respecting the dignity of people to make the most fundamentally important decision for themselves.

          You know, I don't have time to go through all that needs to be done in health care.  I can summarize it for you, though, in one number and one story, and then I will be done.

          The number is this.  On the Medicare condition, the head of the Mayo Clinic came and testified to us at the time.  He was the head at the time.  He said, "Look, we hate it when the Federal Government cuts our rates, but we could probably live with that for a couple more years."  He goes, "This is what's really killing us.  We have counted.  There are 130,000 pages of rules and regulations telling us how to deliver health care at the Mayo Clinic."

          The American Hospital Association did a study.  They said in many settings, nurses spend an hour filling out paperwork for every hour they provide care.  No wonder we have got a shortage of nurses across this country.  They are all filling out forms the government wants.

          When I was at HHS, we had a form called OASIS that home health agencies have to fill out.  Some of the questions on these forms, by the way ‑‑ my mother‑in‑law had a home health agency about that time.  They would come, and they would ask you at the time in your home.  Now, remember you could be using private dollars to pay a private nurse to come to your home, no government money, but they are still required to fill out these forms.

          They will ask you how often do you use foul language in your home?  They will ask you how often do you have sexual relations per week in your home?  I don't know about you, but there are certain things I really don't want to know about my mother‑in‑law.  I don't really want to hear the answer to that question.

          We asked the agency called HCFA, now called CMS, why in the world were they collecting this information, and here is their answer:  "Ten years ago, a researcher told us it would improve the quality of health care."

          I said, "Well, has it worked?  You have been collecting all this data for 10 years.  Has health care gotten better?"

          They said, "Oh, that researcher doesn't work here anymore."  They forgot why they were asking the questions.  When the researcher left, they had no idea.  So we said, "What do you do with this information?"  They said, "Oh, we don't look at the answers because we don't even remember why we put those questions there in the first place."

          Now, we got rid of some of those questions when we were there, but that just gives you a little bit of insight into the growing bureaucracy in our health care system.

          When Medicare was created, Congress said that the Federal Government would make no rules and regulations impacting the delivery of care and the practice of medicine. Whenever I say that to a room full of doctors, they all start laughing.  They say, "Are you kidding me?"  Of course, the way that the government decides to pay and run its programs absolutely interferes with their practice of medicine day in and day out.

          The second fact, one little story, and then I will be done on health care.  You know, we heard from a retired judge from the Medicare Commission.  He thought he was dying of a heart attack one day.  He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.  He gets there.  The doctor starts providing care for him.  He says, "You are not going to die, but we need to do this procedure."  The judge doesn't have any idea what the name of the procedure is.  He doesn't remember what it was.  He goes, "Okay, whatever."  You know, when you think you are dying, you will do anything to get better.  You'll say, "Sure."

          In his mind, he was promising God he would give up smoking, drinking, and every other bad thing he ever did.   You know, it is amazing how death concentrates the focus like that or the threat of death.

          Well, the doctor says, "Before we can do the procedure, we need to get some paperwork filled out."  The judge says, "Don't worry about it.  I’ve got the best insurance in the world.  I'm in Medicare.  They'll pay for everything."

          It's amazing.  When you're a patient, you can see the facial gestures before the doctor says anything.  The doctor starts hemming and hawing and stuttering, and the judge says, "Am I dying?  Is my heart okay?"  The doctor says, "No, no, no.  You're fine."  He said, "I just didn't realize.  I didn't think about it."  He goes, "You know, I don't think we need to do this procedure after all.  Don't worry about it."

          The judge is not an idiot.  He goes, "It is because Medicare won't pay for it.  Right?"  And the doctor says, "Yeah, that's right."  The judge says, "Don't worry.  I've got BlueCross/BlueShield.  Let's go get this procedure."  He doesn't have any idea what this procedure is.  All he knows is five minutes ago, the doctor was convinced he needed it to save his life.

          The doctor says, "You don't understand.  If Medicare won't pay for it, I am not allowed to take your private insurance card."

          Well, the judge says at that point, "Look, I got a credit card in my wallet.  I'll pay for it."  You know, at that point, you will give any of your money.  I mean, you will do whatever it takes.  You just want to get better.

          The doctor says, "You don't understand.  If Medicare says they won't pay for it, I am not allowed to take your money.  I am not allowed to give you this procedure."

          The judge couldn't believe that was right, didn't end up getting that procedure, went home, was okay, recovered later, went home and researched the law, found out the doctor was exactly right.  Once you are 65 and older, once you are in Medicare in this country, if they decide you don't need the procedure, you can't pay to get it yourself, and your insurance company can't pay.

          Now, you will be happy to know, Congress was on the case.  They have fixed the problem.  Congress has now said if your doctor, if your hospital wants to leave the Medicare program for two years, they can take your insurance or your credit card.

          Now, you think about this.  Let's say you are 70 years old.  In this country, you can choose to spend your money on another vacation home, on another car, on anything you want, but if you want to buy a health care service that the Medicare and Federal Government says you can't have, you can't do it.  Good luck trying to find a doctor or a hospital that has left the Medicare program.  They don't have to just leave for you.  They've got to leave for everybody for two years.  That is the future of government‑run, single‑payer medicine if we try to fight something with nothing.

          Our response on health care can't simply be let's do it cheaper, let's do it a little bit less than what they want to do.  Our response has to be a full‑throated embrace of empowering patients.  It is pretty simple.  The only question you have got to answer is who do you want running and making your health care decisions?

          Do you want it to be a provider working with a patient or a Government bureaucrat?  It is as simple as that.  Once you figure out the answer to that question, it will tell you how to reform Medicaid, Medicare, the private market, and this involves some fairly aggressive changes to our Tax Code, fairly aggressive ways that we use technology.  Yes, it is medical savings accounts, but it is a lot more than that, and I'll look forward to coming back and talking about that on another evening, another night.

          I don't want to overstay my welcome.  I know I have talked to you about a lot of topics tonight, about Katrina, about Louisiana's ongoing recovery, about what we are trying to do to change our economy, our code of ethics, and I certainly, again, want to thank you for being here.  I certainly invite you to invest here, to come back and be more than tourists and visitors here.  We are thrilled to have you here this weekend.

          I will close with a personal story, and then I will let you continue with your evening.  You know, it has only been about six or seven weeks since I was sworn into office, and it has been an incredible experience for my family and me.  The last couple of months have been an incredible experience, hopefully for the State of Louisiana as well.

          I will tell you a story about Inauguration Day.  It was a beautiful sunny day like this.  We were worried.  The weather had been bad before, but we were just blessed.  The Lord gave us a gorgeous sunny day.

          We were out there, and I gave a speech about new Louisiana, gave a speech about how we were no longer going to tolerate corruption and incompetence, how we were going to create jobs so our young people don't have to leave home.

          You know, I was so proud.  My parents were there watching the speech.  I’ve got to tell you, my parents are my heroes, and the reason I say that, they have lived the American dream.

          Mark Twain said the older you get, the smarter your parents become.  I'm paraphrasing, and he's right.  You know how you'd always roll your eyes when your parents would tell you those stories growing up.  My dad would tell me every day how he walked uphill going to school, coming back from school.

          He didn't have downhill when he was growing up, apparently, no school buses, no downhill.  He had no electricity and no running water, one of nine kids, middle child, only one that went beyond the fifth grade, but you know the other thing he'd always tell me growing up. He'd tell me, "Son, you live in the greatest country in the history of the world," and I'd kind of roll my eyes thinking, "Well, Dad, where else are we going to live?"  I mean, I was born in Baton Rouge.  I have lived here all my life.  I mean, you kind of just ‑‑ you really didn't understand it.  You didn't appreciate it.

          As I got older and now that I have my own children, I am beginning to understand what my father meant.  You know, he always told me, "Look, I am not going to give you a famous last name or an inheritance."  What makes this such a great country, though, is not that you are going to be born wealthy.  It is not that you are going to have a fancy home or a big new car or any of those things.  What impressed him so much is that everyday, there is no limit on what you can do.  If you are willing to work hard, follow the rules, get an education, in this country you are free to follow your dreams, and he had an immigrant's appreciation.  He has an immigrant's appreciation for that, that so many of us take for granted, those who were born and raised here and don't know any different.

          You know, it's kind of like ‑‑ and he didn't come from behind the Iron Curtain, but you will meet people who came from formerly Communist countries just so grateful for what this country gives them everyday in terms of freedom, and it is a gift that I am just so grateful he taught me to respect and to value and never take for granted.

          And I'll have to say my dad, he is hilarious, never involved in politics in his life, but just convinced that in this country, anything is possible, absolutely convinced.  I was 31 years old when I came home and said, "I'm running for governor."  Most fathers would have said, "Go get a real job.  Are you crazy?"  My dad's response was, "Well, of course, you'll win.  In this country, anything is possible."

          Any time we have ever told him anything ‑‑ he kind of reminds me ‑‑ and this is the only time I will say it in this way.  He kind of reminds me of an old story ‑‑ I don't know if it's true or not ‑‑ that when Bobby Kennedy came home and told his dad that he wanted to be a Catholic priest.  His dad had wanted him to become President of the United States.  He came home instead and told his dad, "Dad, I think I want to become a Catholic priest."  His father is reported to have said, "That's great, son.  We have never had a Pope in the family.  It would be great to have one of those in the Kennedy family."

          That is my dad.  I mean, I came home and said, "I want to run."  "Well, of course, you are going to win.  Of course."  I mean, this America, anything is possible, but I don't want to sugarcoat my upbringing.

          Let me be clear.  My dad was a pretty strict dad.  You never came home and complained you got hit in school.  You just got hit again at home.  That didn't do you any good.  He has become a grandfather.  Some gene gets turned off when that happens.  You grandparents know what I am talking about.

          I was putting my little boy in time out.  We lived with my parents for six months after the storms.  Our house had some damage, nothing to complain about.  Right after the storms, I was putting my little boy in time out.  My dad comes in, opens the door to let him out.  I said, "Dad, what are you doing?  I just put him in there."  My father looks at me and says, "Son, that is cruel.  You can't put a child in a room by himself.  He is screaming and crying.  That would be cruel to leave him in there."  I said, "Cruel?  There was no time out when I was growing up.  I just got hit.  Time out would have been a vacation growing up."

          My dad looks at me, a grown man who is still healthy, looks at me and says, "Son, what are you talking about?  I never hit you as a child."  He has forgotten my entire childhood.  It is amazing.

          I was telling a friend this in church.  He said he only got hit twice growing up.  I said, "Really?"  He said in the mornings and the evenings, the only two times he'd ever get hit.

          Look, in certain circles, you say that, people think you are abused.  I don't mean abused.  We just got hit.  We got spanked.  That is what my father did, and we are better off for it, quite frankly.

          But I wanted to close on the Inauguration Day because I gave this speech about a new Louisiana.  My little kid, six years old, then five years old, a three‑year‑old and one‑year‑old, those three little kids were playing with the grandparents who were sitting behind me on the stage.  I guarantee you, they didn't hear a word I said.  They have no idea what it means to be Governor of Louisiana, and they don't really care.  My little three‑year‑old boy comes home everyday, disappointed I am not something cool like a fireman or a policeman.

          He came home one day from school and said, "Daddy, show me your badge."  I said, "Son, I don't have a badge."  He looked at me and said, "You mean you're not a trooper like everybody else?"  I said, "No, son, I'm not."  But that day, something very neat happened that just impressed my little boy, all of three years old.

          The inauguration had ended, this beautiful sunny clear day, Deacon John was singing "God Bless America."  Oh, you couldn't have choreographed a better moment, and right when he hit that high note, it was amazing.  These F‑16's just flew over at exactly the right moment.  My little boy looked up.  His jaws, his mouth was just wide open, stared at that sky for like five minutes, didn't move, just couldn't believe that, never seen anything like it.

          He looks at me, and that little boy, just complete awe, just looks at me and says, "Daddy, make them do it again."

          I said, "Shawn, I can't."  So we go up to my office which is on the fourth floor of the Capitol that Huey Long built, and I am pretty sure he never envisioned me having his office, by the way.

          I went up to the fourth floor.  My little boy had his head stuck to the window, and I said, "Shawn, what are you doing?"  He said, "Daddy, when are the planes coming back?"  I said, "Son, if you behave, they will come back in four years."

          Thank you for being in New Orleans.  Thank you for being a voice of principle, reason, conservatism.  Thank you for showing the country there is another way.  God bless you, and thank you very much.