we saw that...

Senator Yvonne Dorsey, one of the two most senior members of the Legislature for East Baton Rouge Parish, reacted on Monday to Governor Jindal's announcement that he has issued 258 line item vetoes against HB1 , the state's principle budget bill.

Dorsey said, “No intelligent person can believe that HB1 contained that many problems after the administration itself spent so many months stirring the pot while we had it on the stove. Jindal has made a mockery of the line item veto and I am confident that we'll have the votes to put a stop to it.

All of his vetoes are just political grandstanding aimed at feeding his ridiculous Presidential ambitions. I used to think that his political greed was just pathetic but now he's hurting ordinary citizen, especially children and the elderly.

Can you believe he vetoed the YMCA? A Boy's and Girl's Club? Habitat for Humanity...twice, once in HB1 and earlier in the budget supplemental? Programs to help children in court? Meals for the elderly? This arrogant political climber is punishing our state's children, our Katrina victims, and the elderly just to set himself up for a hopeless run at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in four years.”

“With these vetoes he has single-handedly undone all of the benefits of the Federal stimulus program in Louisiana by shutting down assistance programs and killing jobs while depriving our economies of the further stimulus effects which we had passed. Each of these programs would have had a multiplying effect in local economies all across our state. Now hundreds of organization will be shutting down or firing people.”

Dorsey pointed out that Jindal has already used the line item veto more times in a mere seven months than the last two Governors combined. “That's obviously an outrageous abuse of the line item veto. He is attempting to arrogate to himself the revenue powers which constitutionally belong only to the House and Senate. This kind of attack on our constitutional authority cannot be tolerated.”

“The Constitution specifies that the line item veto is a last ditch defense to allow a Governor to keep spending within budget, yet HB1 already gave the state a $2.5 billion surplus using revenue projections with oil at just $88 per barrel. By now our true surplus is at least $3 billion. The line item veto was never meant for this kind of arrogant abuse.

Anyone can see that all of his picking and choosing was based on devious political motives. He is letting $36 million worth of amendments stand, most of which are just like the $17 million worth that he has vetoed. He calls some programs regional while the same things elsewhere he says are local. For example, he has the audacity to tell us that the Baton Rouge Balloon Festival, which generates hundreds of thousands of tourism dollars for the Greater Baton Rouge Metropolitan Area, is 'local.' Everyone for fifty miles in any direction has seen those balloons flying and knows better. The man's an idiot if he thinks he can fool voters with this latest Jindal Swindle.”

Dorsey says that she has had direct experience in the Legislature with four different administrations. “Jindal is the first whose word simply cannot be trusted. Both he and his staff are blatant liars. We've caught them time and again telling one person one thing and ten minutes later you find out they've told someone else the exact opposite.

Everyone in the Legislature is on to them and we're getting pretty fed up with these Jindal Swindles.

He promised ethics, but gave us a toothless Ethics Commission and a trail of sabotaged bills designed to keep the Governor and his staff from having to comply. He promised jobs, but only gave us a new label slapped on the Department of Labor and an annual $370,000 salary for a do-nothing glad-hander.

He line item vetoed the state's one and only job training appropriation from the supplemental budget bill. He promised transparency, but gave us more of his double-talk, lies and political grandstanding. We've been fed one Jindal Swindle after another from this administration and I sincerely hope that the Legislature is now in a mood to a period to this man's lifetime of inflated stories about himself. Reality is going to come knocking.” ~ read more