Centennial Review - October 2014

Editor, John Andrews
Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute
Volume 10, Number 11 • October 2014
Publisher, William L. Armstrong
Our best days
are not
behind us.
What would you say is the most
dangerous consequence of the
Obama administration? There are
a lot of things that worry me about
this president. I worry about $17
trillion of debt.
I worry about Obamacare. We’ve
got bureaucrats between us and our
doctors. I worry about a foreign
policy where our allies, as well as
our enemies, don’t know where
America stands from day to day.
I worry about a culture that decays day
by day in front of our very eyes. I worry
about an EPA that is out of control and
smothering our economy. I worry about
ever more spending and borrowing and
regulation. But these can be reversed with a
conservative majority in Washington, D.C.
Dream Redefned
No, the thing that worries me most, not only as a governor
but as the father of three young children, is this president’s
relentless effort to redefne the American dream.
He seeks to divide us by class, by geography, by gender, by
race. He talks about how government needs to get bigger,
more intrusive, more powerful. He wants to make us more
and more like Europe.
We have a president who describes an America whose
best days are already behind us —a president who wants to
manage the slow decline of this once great country.
The American dream that I learned from my parents was
never about decline or envy or class warfare. It was an
America where our best days are always ahead of us. An
America where you’re not promised equality of outcomes,
but you are promised equality of opportunity.
An America where the circumstances of your birth don’t
determine your outcomes as an adult. An America where
every generation leaves more opportunities for our children
and our grandchildren than we inherited from our parents.
Bobby Jindal, son of immigrants from India, is serving his second term as the 55th
Governor of Louisiana. By age 30 he had already been head of the state health system
and a university president, later serving in Congress. He was a Rhodes Scholar at
Oxford after graduating from Brown University. This essay is adapted from Gov.
Jindal’s keynote address at Western Conservative Summit 2014, July 18 in Denver.
Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance
public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation.
By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom,
teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.
So let’s talk about what we must do to preserve that
American dream for our children and grandchildren. In
Louisiana we’ve done some things in that direction that
I’m proud of.
We’ve cut our state budget 26 percent. We’ve got one
of the strongest Second Amendments in our state
constitution. We have cut 28,000 state government jobs,
and we have a booming private-sector economy with
more people working than ever before. Year after year,
we’re rated the most pro-life state in the country.
Parents as Educators
I’m especially proud of the fght we have fought to make
sure that our children get a great education. It is not
honest to tell a child you can pursue the American dream,
if that child doesn’t have a chance to go to a great school.
But right now there are millions of children across this
country who are trapped in failing schools.
So in Louisiana we have said we’re going
to let the dollars follow the child, instead
of forcing the child to follow the dollars.
Pretty simple, right? We think parents are
the frst and best educators.
No two children learn exactly alike. Some children will
be better off home-schooled. Some will be better off in
Christian schools, private schools, public schools, charter
schools, online schools, dual-enrollment programs.
Parents know best.
In New Orleans 90% of our kids are in charter schools,
and in fve years they have doubled the percentage who
are doing reading and math on grade level.
We’ve got a statewide choice program where the dollars
follow the child. We save taxpayers tens of millions
of dollars, and 93% of the parents are satisfed. The
enrollment grows by double digits every year. Who could
oppose a program like that? Teachers unions, that’s who.
DEFENDING
THE AMERICAN DREAM
By Bobby Jindal
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The unions had this to say about our choice program:
“Parents don’t have a clue when it comes to making
choices for their kids.” Really? I have met with so many
moms who disagree.
“We make choices for our kids every day,” those mothers
told me. “We know the needs of our kids better than some
bureaucrat in Baton Rouge or Washington, D.C.”
But make no mistake about it. This is exactly
what this debate is about. The Left thinks
we’re not smart enough to buy Big Gulps.
They think we’re not smart enough to own
guns. They think we’re not smart enough to
worship and live our faith in our own way.
They think we’re not smart enough to buy our own health
insurance. They think we’re not smart enough to choose
the right schools for our children.
So Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice took
Louisiana to court to stop children from leaving failing
schools and have a choice to go to better schools. They did
that last year, and, ironically, it was almost 50 years to the
day after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Meet the Moms
After they sued us, I invited President Obama to come and
meet those moms who told me this is the frst time their
children are bringing home homework, going to a school
with uniforms, a school where they feel safe, a school
Centennial Review ▪October 2014 ▪ 2
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- John Andrews, Director
Five years
no one would
believe.
where there are paper and pencils in the classrooms, toilet
paper in the bathrooms.
I wanted him to meet the single mom who told me her
mom had gotten pregnant as a teenager and had her and
gone on welfare. Then she in turn had gotten pregnant as
a teenager and gone on welfare.
Now here she was in tears, talking about how she works
three jobs so her daughter can go to a private school on our
scholarship program. What a story. She was determined
her daughter would break the cycle. But no presidential
meeting as yet.
Trapped in Failing Schools
How cynical for the Obama administration to try and use
the laws designed to help these kids, to keep them trapped
in failing schools. How immoral to do this to children who
only have one chance to grow up.
And how hypocritical, because neither the president nor
the attorney general would send their children to the same
failing schools they’re choosing for these children.
I’m proud to report to you we won that case in federal
court. But how did we get to the point where the federal
government believes it has the power to keep children
trapped in failing schools?
Or how did we get to the point where the federal
government thinks that it has the right to
dictate curriculum to local school districts
through Common Core? We’re fghting that
battle in Louisiana too.
Predictions Sadly Fulflled
Think about the government abuses and excesses we have
seen in the last fve years. If I had stood here in 2008 and
predicted for you the things we have seen come true, you
would have laughed at me. You would have said, no way.
I’m thinking of predictions like these:
That our federal government would borrow up to $17
trillion dollars in debt? Would we have believed that? No.
That our federal government would use the IRS to go after
conservative groups for their beliefs? No again.
That our Justice Department would give guns to Mexican
drug cartels while they fght the rights of law-abiding
Americans to have guns? That they would create this new
entitlement program called Obamacare when we can’t
afford the programs we’ve got? Unbelievable again.
If anyone had predicted in 2008 the mess this president has
made of foreign policy, we wouldn’t have believed it. That
our ambassador would be killed in Benghazi, and they’d
blame a YouTube video, and our Secretary of State would
then say, “What difference does it make?” Incredible, of
course not.
War on Religion
Or how about one of the worst examples of all: that our
federal government would be waging war on one of our
most precious rights, the right to religious liberty?
We’re all grateful that the Supreme Court found that the
Green family and Hobby Lobby do not have to spend their
money buying abortifacients for their employees. But how
did it ever come to that?
Here’s a family that’s created jobs, an entrepreneurial family.
They close their stores on Sundays. They pay their employees
well above the minimum wage. They buy full-page ads
in the nation’s newspapers to explain the signifcance of
Easter, Christmas, and the Fourth of July. They’re building a
wonderful museum to educate our children about Scripture.
This is a family that should be
celebrated, not persecuted. It’s great
that the Green family won, but why
was it a 5-4 decision in the Supreme
Court? Why was it not 9-0?
When you hear President Barack
Obama or former Secretary Hillary Clinton talk about
“freedom of worship,” be careful. What they mean is, you’ve
got the right to worship the way you want for an hour on
Sunday and maybe an hour on Wednesday —but that’s it.
That’s all you’ve got. Which is a far cry from the full scope
of religious liberty as our Founding Fathers understood it.
Temerity to Disagree
You see examples of this in large cases and small. Remember
when the guys on Duck Dynasty got in trouble? Maybe you
noticed that one of their frst and loudest defenders was the
Governor of Louisiana.
Why was that? I defended Phil Robertson not just because
they make the show in Louisiana, and they’re friends of
mine, and my boys are huge fans of the show. No, I spoke
up for Phil and the guys because I am so tired of the Left.
They keep telling us they believe in tolerance and diversity
and respect—and they do, except for anybody who has the
temerity to actually disagree with them.
While I knew the President didn’t like the Second
Amendment to the Constitution, I thought he at least liked
the First Amendment. Apparently not. We’re told Barack
Obama is a constitutional scholar, but I think he should sue
Harvard Law School to get his money back. What was it he
learned during those three years? He certainly didn’t read
the Constitution.
Centennial Review ▪ October 2014 ▪ 3
Intolerance
discredits
the Left.
WHY I AM AN AMERICAN BY CHOICE
By Helen Raleigh
It was just over a year ago, September
18, 2013, that I became a U.S. citizen.
What a happy day.
My journey to become an American
started in Communist China, where I
was born and raised.
My childhood was closely associated
with food rations, communal living, political
indoctrination at a young age, and loudspeakers
everywhere, waking everyone up at 6:00 a.m. with
propaganda.
Everything changed in 1989 when I heard the
Declaration of Independence read out loud by students
on Tiananmen Square.
The moral principles that “all men are created equal”
and that we all have “inalienable rights [to] life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness” transcended cultures and
awakened something deep in my soul.
I began asking, “Why does someone from the
government get to decide how much I can eat and where
I should live? Why can’t I decide these for myself?” I
wished to take control of my own destiny.
That opportunity finally came in 1996, when I arrived
in America to pursue a graduate degree. From then on,
I have had the freedom to determine my own future and
better my own life.
Today, I am a wife, professor, author, and business
owner. The American dream is never about achieving
merely material goals, but about the freedom to pursue
one’s inner capability to the fullest without constraints
from government.
I experienced high financial costs and long delays in my
17-year quest for U.S. citizenship—a typical experience
for many legal immigrants.
But it was all worth it because I so firmly believe in the
moral principles upon which this country was founded,
and I will do whatever it takes to help preserve them. ■
Helen Raleigh is a Denver businesswoman and a
Centennial Institute Fellow specializing in immigration
policy. Contact: [email protected]
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Centennial Review ▪ October 2014 ▪ 4
America’s
genius is
freedom.
Defending
the American Dream
By Bobby Jindal
We needn’t settle for the divisions,
defcits, and decline that characterize
Obama’s America. Outside
Washington, in states like Louisiana,
reforms are producing leaner government, economic
growth, and educational opportunity. After fve years of
unpleasant surprises, many Americans are looking to take
our country back. By choosing to renew the principles of
freedom, we can prove the USA’s best days are still ahead.
Big Gap
And remember earlier this year when the President
addressed the National Prayer Breakfast? He spoke
eloquently about the need to defend the rights of religious
liberty and persecuted Christians.
It’s true there is a shooting war overseas against Christians
who are being killed because of their faith. Here in America
it is only a silent war, and I’m not confating the two.
But it was still jarring to hear this president
once again ignore the Grand Canyon-sized
gap between his rhetoric and his actions.
He might as well have said, “If you like your
religious liberty, you can keep your religious
liberty.”
My message for President Obama is this: The United States
of America did not create religious liberty. Religious liberty
created the United States of America. It is the reason we
are here today. There is no freedom of speech, there is
no freedom of association, there are none of these other
rights without the fundamental right of religious liberty.
What Difference?
As for national security, do you think our president should
be negotiating with terrorists? Should he be releasing fve
terrorists, only so they can go after more American lives
and continue waging war on our very way of life?
Should he have the right to pick and choose when and
which laws he wants to follow or ignore? No, you don’t
think so, and I don’t either.
Overall, when you look at what the Obama administration
has been doing to our country and the American dream
the big question is this: Are we witnessing the most
radical, ideologically extreme, liberal administration in
our lifetime? Or are we witnessing the most incompetent
administration in our lifetime? That’s a tough one, isn’t it?
The only way I can answer is to quote Hillary Clinton once
again: “What difference does it make?”
Taking Back Our Country
Yet I remain a complete optimist about America. In my
bones I know our best days are ahead of us, and it’s not
because of our government. The Founders knew this. The
genius of America enshrined in our founding documents
is the freedom they entrusted to the American people.
To husbands, to wives, to mothers, to fathers, to the
entrepreneurs creating something out of nothing.
Our best days will always be ahead of us,
provided we remember the words of our
40th President, Ronald Reagan: “Every
generation must choose for themselves to
renew these principles of freedom.”
How will we choose, you and I? I sense there is a rebellion
brewing in these United States of America. So many good
people of faith and good principled conservatives are
saying enough is enough.
We’re going to wage a hostile takeover. We’re going to take
our country back from those in D.C. We’re going to restore
the American dream for our children and grandchildren. ■