By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Holding the mirror to the Republican party, Louisana’s Indian American Governor Bobby Jindal has called for his party to rethink their approach to the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations.
“At present, any reading of the headlines over the past week indicates that Republicans are fighting to protect the rich and cut benefits for seniors,” he wrote in an op-ed published in Politico, an influential politics focused media site.
“It may be possible to have worse political positioning than that, but I’m not sure how,” Jindal said asking the Republicans to fight for structural reforms, such as instituting a federal balanced budget amendment, requiring a super majority to raise taxes or creating term limits.
While he didn’t explicitly suggest that Republicans should drop their opposition to tax increases on the wealthy, he argued that the party’s focus should be elsewhere in talks on the fiscal cliff.
Fiscal cliff refers to the situation that the administration may face in the absence of a deal with Bush era tax cuts set to expire along with spending cuts in the new year that some fear may drive America back into a recession.
“(I)n the negotiations, Republicans certainly should fight to at least get something done that will matter,” wrote Jindal, considered a possible 2016 presidential contender.
Jindal sounded a pessimistic note on the future of America’s finances, predicting that the fiscal cliff would be followed by “the fiscal mountain, after that the fiscal black hole, and after that fiscal Armageddon”.
“Additionally, amidst all the talk of increasing taxes and cutting entitlements, something more important than either of these has been lost — economic growth,” he wrote.
“America is forever young because America is forever growing, leading the world and showing the way forward. All actions taken by Washington should be seen through this simple prism – will this help grow our economy? If not, maybe we shouldn’t do it.”
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])