(Newsmax) – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says he’s still a few months away from an announcement about his potential 2016 presidential campaign, but the Republican state leader told Newsmax TV http://newsmaxtv.com Thursday that he’s convinced Americans want an outsider to come in and “make big changes, not incremental changes.”
“We need a president who wants to do something, not be somebody,” said Jindal, in an interview with “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner before his slated appearance later in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Jindal said he has spent the past year with a group, America Next, to discuss policy on healthcare, education, energy and more, and admits he’s biased toward a governor becoming the next president.
“They’ve run things before, they want somebody who’s bold enough to tell the truth even if you get criticized by the left and the media who will stick to their guns, stick to their conservative principles,” said Jindal, pointing out that he’s reduced the size of government in his home state and led to budget cuts of 26 percent that resulted in “30,000 fewer state government employees than the day I took office.”
Washington needs such fiscal leadership to restore the American Dream, noting that his parents came from India in search of it.
“This president wants to redefine the American Dream to be all about redistribution and government growth and government spending,” he told Berliner. “That’s not the American Dream. The American Dream is the circumstances of your birth don’t determine your outcomes as an adult. The American Dream is that we promise equality of opportunity. If you’re willing to work hard, if you want to get a great education, there’s no limit to what you can do in this great country.”
And as such, it’s important for Republicans to win the election in 2016, he said, and he is glad the GOP has “a deep bench” as he hopes “voters can vote for somebody, not against somebody.”
Meanwhile, Jindal said he expects the Supreme Court to rule “the correct way” and against Obamacare federal subsidies.
“That means that the individual mandate for the most part’s gone, the employer mandate is done in those states, and that’s a huge victory and a huge opportunity to get rid of this awful law,” said Jindal.
But he’s worried that there are Republicans in Washington who say Obamacare can’t be repealed, and “they’re already wanting to give up before the fight starts.”
“We don’t need a cheaper Democratic Party, we don’t need two liberal parties,” said Jindal. “This election, this last year, wasn’t about getting better office space for Speaker [John] Boehner and Sen. [Mitch] McConnell, it was really about standing up for conservative principles…We don’t need Obamacare lite, we don’t need a cheaper version of that program.”
Jindal said last year, he put out a detailed plan about how to replace Obamacare, and whether his plan or another is used, “it’s right that we do have an obligation to show how we would replace it.”
Jindal said his plan focuses on reducing costs, protecting the vulnerable, and not raising taxes or creating a new entitlement program.
But D.C. Republicans are allowing President Barack Obama to “dictate the terms” on taxes, entitlement and more when it comes to Obamacare.
“What the American people want is they want affordability, they don’t want government bureaucrats between doctors and their patients,” he said. “We really have a chance here to repeal this entire awful law. What I don’t understand is when they were campaigning, there was no asterisk in those campaign ads saying, we’re just going to repeal the easy parts.”
Jindal said that the nation needs conservative leaders willing to stand up and tell the truth not only on Obamacare, but other issues such as terrorism.
“We’ve got a president whose administration is saying foolish things like, well, we’re not going to win this war by killing our enemies,” Jindal said. “They’re saying things like we need a jobs program, we need better governance for these terrorists. That’s nonsense. We need to hunt them down, we need to kill them.”
Obama’s words on terrorism mean he’s unfit for office, Jindal insisted.
“He’s disqualified himself and I don’t take any pleasure in saying don’t say that for partisan or ideological reasons,” Jindal told Berliner. “One, he won’t identify the enemy as radical Islamic terrorism. If you don’t call it for what it is, how can we beat this enemy? Secondly, he seems more intent on bringing up things like the crusades and criticizing America.”
Jindal said he’d be willing to make a deal with Obama: “I’ll keep an eye out for medieval Christians if he will as commander-in-chief take the fight to the radical Islamic terrorists, hunt them down and eliminate them.”
The war against the Islamic State won’t be over, Jindal said, until “we’ve finished hunting them down and killing them.”
There can’t be a political timeline to appease the left, said Jindal, but still Congress needs to give Obama more authority on ISIS than he’s asking for.
Obama also does not like to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” and acts like terrorists’ actions are matters for the criminal justice system, complained Jindal.
Jindal said he is also concerned about long-term threats, including the potential for Iran to become a nuclear power.
“I worry that this president’s hesitancy to take on ISIS fully may be tied to his desire to get an overarching deal with Iran,” said Jindal. “The reason I say that, I believe Turkey would be willing to commit more ground troops, support and resources if they were convinced that America was truly committed to removing Assad in Syria.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Bobby-Jindal-America-Next/2015/02/26/id/627077/
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