Growing our Economy

I don’t know about you, but I am increasingly bothered by the “tax and spend strategy” the folks in Washington, D.C., have chosen for our country. Over the past few years, Washington used taxpayer money to pass a stimulus bill that was enormously expensive and didn’t stimulate, grew the national debt from $9 trillion to $14 trillion, and took us to the point where our debt is almost as large as our entire economy.

The frustrating thing about Washington is that their strategies too often lack common sense. My wife and I have three young kids, and I’m already preparing myself for the day when one of my kids calls home and says, “Dad, well, you remember that credit card I have? Well, I owe $6,000 on it … and if I don’t pay it there’s going to be real trouble. So, could I borrow some more money?”

That is exactly what our federal government is saying to the taxpayers today. We spent money here in Washington that we didn’t have, so now we need to borrow some more from you … right now. What is a parent to do? Well, I can think of three options.

One, I could say, “Sure, here’s some more money. No problem.” But that will certainly lead to more irresponsible behavior and eventually to bankruptcy. Or, I could say to my kid, “No, that’s your problem. You won’t get anything from me.”

But the problem with that is, it’s my kid, and we are part of the same family; and if he fails, I fail. The third option is to say, “Son, here’s the deal. I’ll loan you the money and get the card paid off right now. That’s the easy part. Now son, here’s the rest of the story, you are not going to have a credit card for a while. And we are going to make some structural changes in the way you live. You are not going to be eating out anymore. You are not going to the mall. You are going to sell your fancy car and buy a beat up used car. You are going to get a job. You are not going to spend more than you make, and you are going to start saving some money every month.”

That is precisely the message that we must send to the federal government in Washington.

In Louisiana, we know this common sense approach to government works. We are required to balance our budget every year, and because we don’t want to raise taxes on our people or our businesses, we must cut government when government has less money.

Since taking office three and a half years ago, we have cut government spending by $9 billion, or 26 percent. This means we have reduced government by over a quarter of the size it was just three and a half years ago. We have also eliminated a total of 9,900 full-time government positions, bringing fulltime government positions to their lowest level in almost 20 years.

We balanced our budget every year, even in the face of back-to-back deficits, specifically to keep our Louisiana economy growing. As a result, we secured economic development projects that are creating more than 45,000 direct and indirect jobs for Louisiana workers, $10 billion in capital investment and hundreds of millions in new sales for small businesses located across Louisiana in just the last three and a half years.

My commitment to you is that we will continue to keep our economy growing until every Louisianian has an opportunity to pursue a rewarding career. We will keep using common sense, which is all too rare in our nation’s capital but essential in parenting, to not spend more money than we have. We will invest in our businesses. We will protect critical services for our people. And each time we need to tighten our belts, we will make the hard decisions that need to be made to protect health care and education while encouraging job creation and greater economic growth.

In Louisiana, we will leave future generations with more than we inherited, and set an example for Washington, D.C.