Jindal proving hard to read I guess I’m not part of the “political class” that keeps “busy with a new pastime: reading tea leaves” concerning what Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal will promote as policy when he takes office. Maybe I’m just too simple, but it seems like to me it’s all been made very obvious to us – which will give us clear benchmarks by which to assess his performance in the future. It baffles me why one cannot go to Jindal’s campaign site and read what he has to say about important issues of the day. One columnist claims there’s only issue he seems to be clear on – ethics reform – and then thinks everybody must guess what he’s going to do. Well, it’s not hard to figure out, so let me assist: 1. Jindal wants to change the focus of health care. He proposes moving from a one-size-fits-all concept to one that simultaneously empowers consumers and brings more efficiency to the state’s pursuit of better health care. 2. He wants to shift spending priorities, principally dealing with transportation. He’d like to get rid of “slush fund” kind of spending which is determined more by politics than by genuine needs, where one of the biggest needs is an ailing transportation system. 3. He wants to change emphasis in education. He supports reconfiguring education systems and improving learning environments not necessarily with more expenditures, but by higher and reconceptualized standards. 4. He wants to reduce taxation, principally on income taxes. Certainly he desires immediate relief on certain counterproductive business taxes, but in the long run he’d like to lower if not eliminate income taxes. To put things in even more specific terms that the “political class,” journalists, and anybody else who can’t understand the above: (1) Jindal wants to pass more stringent ethics requirements for those in government, (2) he wants to adopt an indigent health care system that steers money towards patients and the choices they make rather than to institutions where most money then gets controlled by government, (3) he wants to divert money when raised in certain specific areas such as transportation for use in that area, (4) he wants to have funding for higher education focused more on benchmarks of education of students rather than attraction of students by an institution, and (5) to cut corporate and individual income taxes, perhaps all the way to zero if he stays in office long enough. None of this is really difficult to understand, and has been repeated and publicly reported upon numerous times. Jindal either will carry out what he said he was going to do, or he won’t. He’s not at all been ambiguous about what he supports, and a good portion of those who voted for him did so because of what he said on the issues. Yet somehow one observer opines it was not clear what “Jindal was saying and doing just to get elected, and what was an actual governing priority.” Perhaps it’s just a cynical reporter (with plenty of cause in this state to adopt this attitude, for sure) who just can’t believe her eyes or ears that Jindal would actually do what he said. But Jindal’s career has given no evidence that he will do anything but what he articulated. (An aside: maybe the “political class” seems concerned about a regional “imbalance” in the selection of legislative leaders that supposedly puts north Louisiana on the short end of the stick, and, admittedly, I don’t hang around the “political class,” but hanging around the citizenry in north Louisiana I have detected no concern whatsoever about who is leading what. All they want is what they voted for, a more conservative, less populist, reform government, regardless of who leads it. Which may tell us that the so-called “political class” isn’t very much in touch with what Louisianans really think or want.) Until by his actions Jindal does things that credibly allow for doubt in his promises, he should have the benefit of the doubt, and questioning whether he really means what he says at this juncture serves no constructive purpose. Rest assured that if Jindal does not make a good faith effort to implement his articulated policies, he will suffer the same inability to win reelection as has confounded every other “reform” governor in modern Louisiana history. (If you'd like to have Prof. Sadow's column mailed to you, go to http://www.between-lines.com and click on "Join the mailing list!" on the left-hand side.)