BOOK REVIEW, Leadership and Crisis, 2-2011

Jindal, Bobby. Leadership and Crisis
2010. 283 pages.
Regnery Publishing, distrib. by Perseus Books.
ISBN 978-1-59698-158-4.
$27.95 hardcover
Published Midwest Book Review (Reviewers Bookwatch 3/2011,Joanne's Bookshelf), Published The Livingston County News 3/24/11

--Joanne Conrad Reviewer

“The federal government was having workers clean the [BP oil-contaminated] marshes with the equivalent of paper towels.” America imports scientists and engineers because our education system “can’t produce enough of them here at home.” Trillions spent on the war on poverty for 40 years has hardly changed the poverty rate. Medicare is unsustainable.
These issues, many of which affect all of us, as well as those about congress, immigration, healthcare, energy, defense, Hurricane Katrina, and culture are Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s topics in his new book Leadership and Crisis (2010, Regnery Publishing). He joins other Republicans such as Gingrich, Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty, Palin, and others who are writing books these days. A “zealous proponent of free enterprise and an unapologetic advocate of American capitalism,” Jindal critiques the issues and offers solutions.
It’s hard to believe federal delays led to more spreading oil in the BP explosion. For example, the “feds shut down barges” needed to deploy booms because they needed “inspections and certifications.” The feds wanted “barges to return to port so they could count life jackets and extinguishers” and refused Louisiana’s request that inspectors go to the barges instead. After the barges returned to port for 24 hours, the feds eventually allowed their resumption without inspections. A week after the explosion, one site still had “boom and other matériel sitting on docks with skimmers nearby that were idle.” A Coast Guard Admiral admitted “not requesting skimmers from Europe” because they might “take 5 weeks to arrive.” The “…system was incapable of working quickly and efficiently. It was highly centralized, bureaucratic, and often unresponsive.” He says, “The reason the federal government failed to respond effectively to the oil spill (and for…Katrina 5 years earlier) is precisely because government has become too big.” He also says “BP’s response was as bad as the federal government’s.” His solution: a 10 point checklist, two of which are involving locals as they are on the ground and know their area firsthand, and often know more than the “Nobel Laureates,” and “don’t wait for feds…” to tell what to do.
His position on education uses his experience as Governor and also heading the University of Louisiana, which has 8 universities and is the 16th largest in the country. He graduated from Brown University and attended Harvard and Oxford. He says, “With our dysfunctional education system, we risk being overtaken by other nations.” He found that Louisiana was funding education based on enrollment, not results, and stated his concern about America’s not producing scientists and engineers. His concerns include the true lack of educational opportunity when students attend schools based on their zip code. He advocates pay for performance, school choice and charter schools, special scholarships, discipline, improved personal conduct with more parental involvement, different suspension standards, and true competition for students, as the latter forces school officials to focus on getting results. He compares university students to public school students, saying the better results for university students is the competition for them, versus K-12 “owning” students. As Governor, he has signed serious education reform, such as a Teacher Evaluation Bill in 2010, Teacher’s Bill of Rights, Red Tape Reduction and Local Empowerment Act, Recovery School District for New Orleans, and Student Scholarship Program in New Orleans.
Regarding poverty in America, he cites the 40 year war on it as ineffective, saying there is now a tug of war between those who feel what made America great is freedom, individualism, limited government, and personal responsibility versus those who see Americans as lost sheep unable to function without the enlightened guidance of the educated class, a wiser elite, with government playing a larger role—that we are sheep that need sheepherders. If we care, we would support a larger government agenda, but if we oppose, it means we “don’t give a damn.” There are times government needs to lend a hand, but it should also include help from the bottom up via individuals, civic society, etc. He cites Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks, who demonstrated that those skeptical of big government are actually more charitable, giving the lie that some people “don’t give a damn.” He further states, “…the most corrupt countries in the world [are] at the top of the list of centralized economies.”
As for Medicare and Medicaid, he writes at length about free market and capitalist solutions because enlarging government programs deter free choice and the expense is disproportionate to good results. In 1965, Medicare A was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990; it became $67 billion that year, and now media reports are that the entitlements may bankrupt the U. S.
Space prohibits his solutions for congress, immigration, energy, defense, disasters like Hurricane Katrina, and the culture of America. Suffice it that they are conservative principles.
He ends with a 7 step recovery program for America. It is a very readable book, having 18 pages of sources and an index. C-span has archived his book release speech of Nov. 20, 2010, which showcases his charismatic rhetoric (much better than his Republican response to Pres. Obama’s first speech to Congress in 2009) and is worth seeing (www.c-span.org and search its video library).
-30-

BOOK REVIEW, Rollback, 2-2011

Woods, Thomas E., Jr.
ROLLBACK: REPEALING BIG GOVERNMENT BEFORE THE COMING COLLAPSE.
Regnery Publishing ( 188 pp. )
$27.95
2/7/2011.
ISBN 978-1-59698-141-6
Published Midwest Book Review (Reviewers Bookwatch, 3/2011, Joanne's Bookshelf)
and The Livingston County News 3/3/2011.

What an indictment of big government. Woods, author of Meltdown, Nullification, and 9 other books, a graduate of Harvard and Columbia, says in his new book: The confidence (in government) “is about to be severely shaken….as the federal government is forced to renege on its impossible promises.” [1]
Despite some slight signs the recession is ameliorating, Woods maintains our track record is inevitably leading us toward disaster. Citing our debt not as $14 trillion, but rather $111 trillion with Social Security and Medicare programs, the “full future expense…exceeds the total net worth of the U. S. economy. That…the U. S is bankrupt.”[6] A Democrat economist, Lawrence Kotlikoff “…estimates the fiscal gap at an astonishing $200 trillion.”[7] Woods says the Republican proposal to cut $100 billion from the federal budget is “like taking three dollars off a trip to the moon.”[6] If we do nothing, “It will all come to an end in a very nasty manner. The first possibility will be massive benefit cuts for baby boomer retirees. Second will be astronomic tax increases, and third will be government’s printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.”[8]

Nothing is sacrosanct here. The author cites waste, fraud, and inefficiency almost every place: the states; cities; entitlement programs; government agencies, including defense, education, subsidy programs, health care programs; ad infinitum. Nearly every endeavor has been poisoned by government interference that has always backfired on those thinking government will solve their problems.
He hopes “The institutions of civil society, long dormant, (will) be resurrected.”[187] Caring for our families, helping friends and neighbors in need, volunteering to help those falling between the cracks, and creating a clearinghouse or exchange to share our skills and talents with those in need and with each other would help the U. S. survive. “It is the choice facing America.”[188] He includes thirty pages of footnotes from both right and left perspectives to substantiate his evidence. It should be required reading for politicians and citizens alike.
-30-