Yesterday, Perry added to his list of gaffes, misstating how his tax plan — which would supposedly implement a 20 percent flat personal income tax — treats deductions. Fortunately, he had Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) there to bail him out:

During a question-and-answer session with the audience, Perry was asked if his flat tax plan would include the standard deduction in the current tax system.

After Perry first indicated that it wouldn’t, Jindal reminded him that the plan actually raises the standard deduction to $12,500 per person in a household. “Thank you for correcting me on that,” Perry said to Jindal. “Not that I ever make a mistake.

Removing the standard deduction — which is the set amount that every person gets to claim tax-free on his or her tax return — would make Perry’s wildly regressive tax plan even worse. As it is, the plan already gives millionaires a tax cut of half a million dollars every year, while raising taxes on most of the middle class.

Perry has admitted as much, conceding to the Des Moine Register’s editorial board that under his plan, low-income people get slammed while it would be possible for a millionaire to pay literally nothing. When CNBC’s John Harwood noted that the plan gives millionaires hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks, Perry replied, “I don’t care about that.” And he evidently doesn’t care enough to learn the details of his plan either.

But with states across the nation rebuilding in the aftermath of hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and tornadoes, Jindal wants to put restrictions on emergency funds that didn’t exist for the funds that benefited his own state. In an appearance on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown today, Jindal told host Chuck Todd that deficits and debt are a “man-made disaster,” and because of those, the disaster relief funds for New Jersey, Virginia, and other states in desperate need of relief “should be offset”:

TODD: There’s been a movement afoot to…search for budget offsets now, a change frankly. [...] Any advice for your fellow Republicans in the House when dealing with disaster relief?

JINDAL: We certainly as a state benefited after Katrina and Rita from the generosity of the American people. I fully support making sure the resources, the necessary resources, are there to help. [...] I do however, also support, at the same time, so they need, they deserve the help they need to get back on their feet. At the same time, I do think these dollars should be offset, should be part of a balanced approach to the budget. The reality is the deficit, the debt in DC is not caused by natural disasters, that’s a man-made disaster.

Watch it:

While some Republicans fought to offset Hurricane Katrina funding, Jindal was not among them, and neither was then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), who argued that the funds should be deficit financed. And in 2008, Jindal traveled to Washington to lobby Congress to preserve $400 million in funding for ongoing hurricane relief and recovery efforts that had been stripped because they weren’t offset by other cuts.

Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond (D), who represents New Orleans, recently told the New Orleans Times-Picayune he couldn’t imagine what would have happened had Republicans held disaster relief hostage for the millions driven out when Katrina put his city under water. “We would have been waiting for months or even years for the assistance we needed to get New Orleans up and running again,” Richmond said. Jindal, apparently, has forgotten that.

Though Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) picked up the support of Bobby Jindal yesterday, the Louisiana governor was unwilling to endorse Perry’s tough talk on Social Security, despite repeated questions from reporters after the Republican presidential debate.

In his book Fed Up!, published in November 2010, Perry called Social Security unconstitutional, a claim he stood by after a question from ThinkProgress last month. Since that time, Perry has repeatedly called the retirement program a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie.”

Following yesterday’s debate in Florida, Jindal spoke with the press about Perry’s performance. However, as reporters asked Jindal whether he agreed with Perry that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, the Louisiana governor ducked the question, repeatedly saying, “call it whatever you want” and “I don’t care what you call it.” When ThinkProgress asked Jindal if he agrees that Social Security is unconstitutional, he again demurred.

REPORTER: Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

JINDAL: Look, call it whatever you want. What was clear to me today was that when you listen to all the different candidates, they essentially agree with Gov. Perry’s position. [...]

REPORTER: Do you agree with that characterization that it’s a Ponzi scheme?

JINDAL: Look, I don’t care what you call it. What’s important is that if we don’t do anything it will not continue to be sustainable for younger workers. [...] Call it whatever you want, the bottom line is it’s not sustainable, it needs to be fixed. Look, people in Texas talk differently from people in Louisiana. They have a different accent, they use all kinds of different words. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what’s most important is the substantive point he was making.

KEYES: Do you think he’s right that it’s unconstitutional?

JINDAL: Look, bottom line on Social Security, I think you heard everybody agree with the governor tonight that it needs to be kept and preserved for the seniors in the system that are approaching retirement, but it also needs to be reformed and improved for younger workers.

Watch it:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed a progressive solution to ensure Social Security’s solvency for the next 75 years: simply lift the payroll tax cap.

No person, either for himself or on behalf of another, shall employ, hire, recruit, or refer, for private or public employment within the state, an alien who is not entitled to lawfully reside or work in the United States. [...] For a third or subsequent violation, the appropriate local governing authority or licensing agency shall immediately suspend the violator’s permit or license to do business in the state for not less than thirty days nor more than six months and a fine shall be assessed that shall be not more than one thousand two thousand five hundred dollars for each alien employed, hired, recruited, or referred in violation of this Section.

Although the Court’s very recent decision in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting permits Louisana to strip away business licenses from companies that hire undocumented workers, the state’s attempt to fine employers unambiguously violates federal law. Under a doctrine known as “preemption,” Congress may invalidate state laws which conflict with a federal policy, and federal immigration law preempts “any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ…unauthorized aliens.”

Although Whiting held that the express exemption for “licensing and similar laws” allows states to enact a law which strips business licenses from companies that employ undocumented workers, the exemption only applies to licensing laws and not to general fines for business that employ immigrants. Any attempt to fine businesses in order to regulate their employment of undocumented workers is a clear violation of federal law.

Jindal said he couldn’t understand why anyone would oppose the bill, comparing the new notices to Miranda warnings for women who receive abortions — a constitutionally protected procedure — to criminals:

“When officers arrest criminals today, they are read their rights,” he said. “Now if we’re giving criminals their basic rights and they have to be informed of those rights, it seems to me only common sense we would have to do the same thing for women before they make the choice about whether to get an abortion.”

The analogy, however, may be somewhat apt, since Louisiana already has some of the harshest anti-choice laws in the country. According to NARAL, the state still has an unconstitutional and unenforceable measure that prohibits abortion by anyone other than the woman unless necessary to preserve the woman’s life or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. Louisiana outlaws second-trimester abortion procedure with no exception to protect a woman’s health and in 2006 “enacted a near-total ban on abortion, to become effective if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.”

Under the state’s Right To Know law, abortion providers in Louisiana are already required to distribute pamphlets with information about pregnancy, termination, and alternatives. Women must also sign a statement that they have received the state information and are not being coerced into an abortion before undergoing the procedure.

Recognizing the need to raise revenues, the mostly Republican Louisiana Legislature voted earlier this week to renew part of the state’s cigarette tax, which brings in $12 million a year. But Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is expected to veto the legislation this week:

It’s a bad habit that helps bolster the state budget. Smokers in Louisiana pay an extra 36 cents in state taxes every time they buy a pack. But part of that tax is set to expire next year. And while lawmakers voted to renew it, Governor Bobby Jindal is expected to veto the tax extension early this week. “It’s going to be a very tough fight on both sides,” said Clancy DuBos, WWL-TV political analyst and Gambit political columnist.

The segment of the tax that the legislature voted to renew would maintain a tax of 36 cents on every pack of cigarettes bought. If vetoed, the taxes per-pack would fall by four pennies to be 32 cents per pack. WWL-TV covered the debate over the tax. Watch it:

Jindal has until tomorrow to decide to sign or veto the cigarette tax legislation. “I think it’s a mistake to lower the tax on cigarettes,” says House Speaker Jim Tucker (R). “Louisiana is accused of being backwards all the time. This vote (to eliminate the tax) would easily support that position.” Interestingly, while Jindal wants to lower taxes on cigarettes, he has endorsed raising tuition and fees on students.

But as the Advocate noted, “the only real tax hike proposed thus far filed is an increase in the state tobacco tax”:

House Bill 63 by state Rep. Harold Ritchie would increase the 36-cent state sales tax on a pack of cigarettes by 70 cents. The state’s tobacco tax is among the lowest in the nation.

In the past, Jindal has explicitly voiced opposition to raising the cigarette tax, even though Louisiana’s cigarette tax is the second lowest in the country, after Virginia. According to the Louisiana Budget Project, the proposed increase in the cigarette tax would raise about $200 million, while also lowering health care costs. It would also provide almost twice the savings of Jindal’s proposal to raise tuition and fees for Louisiana’s college students:

Tucked in the pages of the $24.9 billion spending plan are provisions for spending more than $98 million that Jindal hopes the state’s colleges will get through tuition hikes on students. Separate legislation would need to be passed to enact the cost increases…The increases would come on top of increased costs for students already set to take effect this fall and more increases for at least four additional years, under legislation passed last year.

In the last two years, Louisiana has cut $315 million from higher education, even as it charged students more for tuition.

Louisiana’s current tax code is a mess, with 441 different exemptions that cost the state $7 billion per year, several times the size of its current budget shortfall. One exemption alone — allowing residents to deduct the amount they paid in federal taxes from their state tax bill — costs the state $643 million per year while overwhelmingly aiding the richest Louisianians. But Jindal has ruled tax increases off the table, deciding that the more prudent course is to force students to cover the cost of the state’s budget woes.

Nineteenth Century Nullificiationist John C. Calhoun

One of the more disturbing developments of the last two years is the reemergence of nullificationism, the unconstitutional notion that states can invalidate laws that they don’t like, among conservative lawmakers and activists.  Governors Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Bobby Jindal (R-LA)  each signed obviously unconstitutional laws claiming to nullify the Affordable Care Act.  A few right-wing politicians have even embraced the views of Tom Woods, a pseudo-historian and co-founder of a neo-Confederate hate group who once wrote that “[t]he real watershed from which we can trace many of the destructive trends that continue to ravage our civilization today, was the defeat of the Confederate States of America in 1865.”

The only problem for these would-be John C. Calhouns is that the Constitution expressly rejects nullification, but that hasn’t stopped them from dreaming up increasingly creative theories for how states can ignore the Constitution’s express command.  As Dave Weigel reports, the latest such theory comes from former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz. The Constitution permits states with the consent of Congress to form contracts with each other — a power that Cruz somehow interprets to allow the states to bypass Congress and the President altogether:

Interstate compacts are an effective way to regulate areas of mutual concern among two or more States. In areas of overlapping state and federal jurisdiction, or where state legislation is preempted by an enumerated federal power, the Constitution requires congressional consent (Art. I, sec. 10). The Supreme Court has held that such congressional consent trumps prior federal law and may even subordinate federal agencies to agencies created by the interstate compact. Although Congress has generally consented to interstate compacts through regular legislation signed by the President, congressional consent does not necessarily require presidential signature; the Supreme Court has suggested that congressional consent may even be inferred from acquiescence. . . .

We propose an interstate compact to create an alternative state-based regulation of health care. The compact would provide that member States are free to choose their preferred model for health care policy; that they may opt out of Obamacare entirely . . . .

Cruz is actually a pretty good lawyer, so it is deeply embarrassing that he would sign his name to proposal that is so riddled with errors.  Contrary to Cruz’ implication, an interstate compact cannot be used to bypass the President’s veto power.  As Article I of the Constitution provides:

Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.

Likewise, the claim that “congressional consent may even be inferred from acquiescence” is simply false.  Under the Supreme Court’s decision in College Sav. Bank v. Fla. Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., “[s]tates cannot form an interstate compact without first obtaining the express consent of Congress.”  (There is some very old precedent suggesting that Congress’ consent may be implied when it specifically references a compact in a law that carries that compact into effect, but such a law goes a lot further than mere “acquiescence.”)

Ultimately, it’s hard to read Cruz’ claim to the contrary as anything other than another example of conservatives trying to ignore the actual Constitution and replace it with the one that they want.

Govs. Haley Barbour (R-MS) and Bobby Jindal (R-LA)

And Christie is evidently not the only stimulus-critic who feels no guilt about building up his state courtesy of the Recovery Act. Today, the Treasury Department released a full list of Build America Bond projects, as issuances under the program surpassed $150 billion, and look who’s on the list:

– Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX): Perry said that, when it came to the stimulus, “this was pretty simple for us…We can take care of ourselves.” But he used $2 billion in Build America Bonds for highway improvements and another $182 million for “public improvements.”

– Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS): “A lot of this is just crazy,” Barbour said of the stimulus. “I’m better off not to get it.” But that didn’t stop him from using $98 million in Build America Bonds for recreational facility improvements.

– Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN): “It hasn’t worked,” Daniels said of the stimulus. “You have to be a blind zealot to say that this thing has done any good.” The Indiana Financial Authority issued $192 million in Build America Bonds, while the Indiana Bond Bank issued another $54 million.

– Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA): Jindal has called the Recovery Act “a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that has not stimulated.” Louisiana has issued $181 million in Build America Bonds for highway improvements.

These totals leave out the slew of local school districts and local governments in these states that also took advantage of the Build America Bonds program to make critical investments in state infrastructure. As The American Prospect’s Tim Fernholz explained, Build America Bonds “is one of the most successful programs of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, spurring productive investment, job creation, and creating a more progressive and democratic method of local finance.”

Of course, stimulus hypocrisy is nothing new for the GOP; ThinkProgress has identified 114 Republicans who voted against the Recovery Act, while touting its benefits back home.

Cross-posted at The Wonk Room.

Govs. Haley Barbour (R-MS) and Bobby Jindal (R-LA)

And Christie is evidently not the only stimulus-critic who feels no guilt about building up his state courtesy of the Recovery Act. Today, the Treasury Department released a full list of Build America Bond projects, as issuances under the program surpassed $150 billion, and look who’s on the list:

– Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX): Perry said that, when it came to the stimulus, “this was pretty simple for us…We can take care of ourselves.” But he used $2 billion in Build America Bonds for highway improvements and another $182 million for “public improvements.”

– Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS): “A lot of this is just crazy,” Barbour said of the stimulus. “I’m better off not to get it.” But that didn’t stop him from using $98 million in Build America Bonds for recreational facility improvements.

– Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN): “It hasn’t worked,” Daniels said of the stimulus. “You have to be a blind zealot to say that this thing has done any good.” The Indiana Financial Authority issued $192 million in Build America Bonds, while the Indiana Bond Bank issued another $54 million.

– Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA): Jindal has called the Recovery Act “a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that has not stimulated.” Louisiana has issued $181 million in Build America Bonds for highway improvements.

These totals leave out the slew of local school districts and local governments in these states that also took advantage of the Build America Bonds program to make critical investments in state infrastructure. As The American Prospect’s Tim Fernholz explained, Build America Bonds “is one of the most successful programs of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, spurring productive investment, job creation, and creating a more progressive and democratic method of local finance.”

Of course, stimulus hypocrisy is nothing new for the GOP: ThinkProgress has identified 114 Republicans who voted against the Recovery Act, while touting its benefits back home.

“Voters can make up their own minds,” Jindal said.

The Republican governor said he does not get involved in federal races.

However, Jindal was a special guest at a 2008 fundraiser for Baton Rouge Rep. Bill Cassidy’s campaign.

The governor also endorsed Woody Jenkins in his failed bid for Congress.

Last week, the Louisiana Democratic Party produced a five-and-a-half minute video documenting Vitter’s prostitution scandals. (HT: Political Wire)

Concealed handguns won’t be allowed in Roman Catholic churches, despite a new state law allowing them.

“We don’t think it is appropriate to have guns in churches,” Danny Loar, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops — the church’s public policy arm in Louisiana, said Monday. …

Bishops discussed the issue when reviewing bills, Loar said.

“The bishops decided that, if the bill became law, the bishops would let their pastors know that this would not be permissible in Catholic churches,” Loar said.

The previous law let only law enforcement officials carry concealed weapons into churches.

Local faith leaders began speaking out against the proposal even before it became law. In June, Catholic Archbishop Gregory Aymond said, “Church is supposed to be a place of sanctuary. The idea of guns there — I’m pretty skeptical.”

And, even though the bill’s principal champion, state Rep. Henry Burns (R), claimed that the new policy would make houses of worship in “declining neighborhoods” safer, local clergy deny that concealed weapons would be any help. “We’ve been here 29 years, and there’s never been a time that a gun would have solved anything,” said John Pierre, a church elder in “a gritty Central City neighborhood.” Reverend John Raphael, whose congregants “had to duck for cover when gunfire suddenly broke out nearby” after one Sunday service, still “said an armed presence in the sanctuary is incompatible with what a church is supposed to be.”

(h/t TPM)

- William Tomasko

As experts warned, Bobby Jindal’s “obvious” response to the BP oil disaster is failing. Since the beginning of May, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has pushed a crash effort to build artificial “barrier islands” from dredged sand to prevent BP’s toxic oil from reaching Louisiana’s fragile coastline. He and other Louisiana politicians excoriated the federal government for waiting until June 3 to authorize the $360 million project, even though “categorically, across the board, every coastal scientist” questioned its wisdom. In mid-May, Jindal justified the barrier-island construction by saying it was the “obvious” thing to do:

It makes so much sense. It’s so obvious. We gotta do it.

“We know it works, we have seen it work, but if they need to see it work, they need to do that quickly,” argued Jindal. On May 27, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) attacked President Barack Obama, calling his administration’s caution “absolutely outrageous“:

Here the president doesn’t seem to have a clue. His decision on the emergency dredging barrier island plan is a thinly veiled ‘no.’ Approving two percent of the request and kicking the rest months down the road is outrageous, absolutely outrageous.

In fact, the first artificial island project is already showing serious signs of erosion, with heavy equipment sinking into the ocean. Photographs released by Louisiana scientist Leonard Bahr and the US Army Corps of Engineers show that the artificial island E-4, intended to reach an 18-mile length, is struggling to survive at 1,100 feet:

Berm E-4, June 25	Berm E-4, July 7
Berm E-4, July 8

“You don’t want to destroy the village to save the village,” Tom Strickland, the U.S. Interior Department’s assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, explaining on June 23 the federal government’s decision to only provisionally approve the construction of forty miles of sand berms along the Chandeleur Islands. Strickland estimated the berms would last “probably no more than 90 days.”

Jindal is pressing for the federal government to approve the emergency construction of 125 miles of sand berms, arguing the 0.2 miles constructed are “are doing what they were intended to do.”

[State Rep. Henry] Burns’ bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.

The pastor or head of the religious institution must announce verbally or in weekly newsletters or bulletins that there will be individuals armed on the property as members of he security force. Those chosen have to undergo eight hours of tactical training each year. [...]

The bill also allows a house of worship to hire off-duty police or security guards to protect congregants.

Burns said that he proposed the bill so that religious institutions in “declining neighborhoods” can have extra protection against crime. “I was born and raised with Mayberry, riding my bicycle any time of the day or night,” said Burns. “But we live in different times.” To be clear, however, houses of worship can authorize any person to receive a concealed handgun permit after eight hours of training — whether or not the purpose is to help them fight crime.

Last year, Ken Pagano, pastor of the New Bethel Church in Louisville, KY, invited his congregation to bring their firearms to church. “God and guns were part of the foundation of this country,” said Pagano, adding, “I don’t see any contradiction in this. Not every Christian denomination is pacifist.”

Last year, state Rep. Ernest Wooten’s (R) bill allowing concealed weapons on college campuses failed to make it through the legislature. “It is not a gun bill, it is a rights bill,” said Wooten at the time.

CALLER: You know it’s absolutely despicable the way our president is acting on this oil slick. And it boils down that the governor is a Republican and Obama is a Democrat and he’s not gonna help in any way to make him, to help Louisiana. … So as far as I’m concerned the blood is on his hands. [...]

KING: I appreciate Larry’s statement and I agree with his analysis of it. As I watch the reluctance on the part of the White House to cooperate with Bobby Jindal. I’d like to think it’s being done out of policy perspective, but there is a political component. And to delay these skimmers all this time, and to refuse to wave the Jones Act, well essentially they passed that hot potato around, and nobody asked for it.

Listen here:

Not only is it absurd to suggest that the President is purposely refusing to give federal assistance to a state in an economic and environmental crisis because that state’s governor is of the opposite political party, but also, King’s accusation is based on a falsehood. In fact, Obama did not “refuse to wave the Jones Act,” as McClatchy reported this week:

Maritime law experts, government officials and independent researchers say that the claim is false. The Jones Act isn’t an impediment at all, they say, and it hasn’t blocked anything. “Totally not true,” said Mark Ruge, counsel to the Maritime Cabotage Task Force, a coalition of U.S. shipbuilders, operators and labor unions. “It is simply an urban myth that the Jones Act is the problem.”

Indeed, FactCheck.org has also weighed in, noting that “the Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts. … Reports claiming that the federal government has refused help are not only incorrect — foreign assistance has been utilized — but are also misleading.”

Earlier in the interview, King complained about the “professional hyperventilators out there that are monitoring everything that I and others say” and said, “My approach is to just go forward, make sure that what I say is based on solid, well informed, broad, in-depth truth.” “I just try to give well-grounded, well-informed truth,” King reiterated. It doesn’t seem like he’s off to a good start. (HT: Iowa Independent)

In an interview with ThinkProgress this morning, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said Jindal’s call for more dilling in the wake of the disaster would make this his “last term in office,” if he was a West Coast governor:

TP: So I’m curious about your response is to Republicans, conservatives, such as Governor Jindal whose state is clearly being ravaged by the Deepwater Horizon spill, but is still calling for more drilling tomorrow. [...]

MERKLEY: Well I can tell you, if he were governor on the West Coast, it’d be his last term in office. Becasue the senators all came together on the West Coast unanimously — all six, California, Oregon, and Washington — and said that drilling is not in the best interests of our states. … So we don’t want drilling at 30 miles, we don’t want it at 50 miles, we don’t want it at 100 miles, because that oil may end up both foul our commercial fisheries, our ecosystems, and our coastlines, and it’s not a risk worth taking.

Watch it:

Merkley and the five other senators representing the West Coast came together last month to propose legislation that would permanently ban new drilling in the Pacific. They want to restore a moratorium on new leases for offshore drilling in federal waters that was in place from 1981 to 2008. The West Coast has experienced the dangers of massive oil spills first hand. In one of the biggest spills in American history, 200,000 gallons of oil gushed from a well off of Santa Barbara, California for 11 days in 1969. This “environmental nightmare” prompted the congressional moratorium that Merkley and the other senators are trying to reinstate.

ThinkProgress spoke with Merkley before an event at the Center for American Progress on the need to reduce our dependence on oil.

Georgia’s insurance commissioner John Oxendine, a Republican who is also running for Governor, already announced that the state won’t participate in the high-risk pool requirements, thus inviting the federal government to directly contract for the provision of services within the state. And now, Kansas has also made the “preliminary decision” to opt out of the measure and bring about the very kind of federal intrusion that Republicans seek to avoid:

“From our standpoint, we just want to do what’s right for Kansas,” said John Meetz, a government affairs liaison at the Kansas Insurance Department. “We’re not looking at it as a political decision.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Insurance Commissioner James J. Donelon have made a preliminary decision to opt out of the program, Donelon said Monday.

He is a Republican and one of the dozen elected insurance commissioners in the country. But he said Louisiana’s decision was based largely on the concern that the states will be stuck with the bill. “On the surface, it appears to me to be a no-brainer,” Donelon said. “We can’t afford this.”

Jindal’s decision to invite the federal government into Louisiana — rather than using the new federal funds to improve the state’s existing high risk pool program — seems to contradict strong opposition to federal overreach into state health care policy. “I encourage those in Washington, D.C. to pick up a U.S. Constitution and read it,” Jindal has said of the bill. “If the 10th Amendment of the Constitution means anything, we need to stand up for the fact that the federal government can’t force Americans to buy a certain product as a requirement to be an American. If the federal government can do this, what can’t they do? Where does it stop?”

Apparently, it starts with Louisiana residents enrolling in a federal high risk pool program.

What the left wants to do is say we’re the party of no […] So here’s what I want to ask you to encourage every candidate that you know, every incumbent you know, every staff person you know, every consultant you know. I think we should decide we’re going to be the Party of Yes.

Gingrich can expect an uphill battle as he attempts to re-frame the GOP as anything other than the party of obstructionism, given that the right wing seems most excited about the prospect of stopping anything Obama wants to do. After Gingrich delivered the call, it didn’t take long for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to double down on their party’s obstructionism, touting the nickname “The Party of Hell No.”

Think Progress compiled a video illustrating the Republican confusion. Watch it:

With Republicans saying no to Wall Street reform, no to an extension of unemployment benefits, and preemptively saying no to the next Supreme Court appointee, it seems the GOP could resolve its internal conundrum by sticking to calling themselves “The Party of Hell No.”

Speaker Pelosi likes to call the Republicans the ‘Party of No.’ Some of us, we don’t like the way that sounds. It hurts our feelings. … Speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday the Republicans need to be the ‘Party of Yes,’ and he is right.

Yet in the very next breath, Jindal exclaimed that the GOP isn’t just the “party of No,” but instead “the party of Hell No when it comes to this health care!” The irony appeared to be lost on the crowd. Watch it:

Jindal, who was widely mocked for delivering an “amateurish” response to President Obama’s address before Congress in 2009, had his share of awkward moments today. For example, at one point, Jindal told the audience, “we do have ideas; some of those ideas are even good ideas.” Is Jindal tacitly acknowledging that the GOP also has many bad ideas?

Jindal isn’t the only conservative who is offering confused talking points. Speaking at a rally with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) earlier this week, Sarah Palin offered similar discombobulated thoughts. Palin called the “Party of No” label a “mistaken concept” right before saying there is nothing “wrong with being the Party of No” in the face of Obama’s agenda.

“Certainly we need to replace it. Nobody is arguing for the status quo when it comes to health care,” Jindal added, before offering three “bipartisan” proposals to improve the status quo:

JINDAL: Republicans have offered good, bipartisan ideas, things like making insurance portable across state lines, across jobs. Internet posting of prices and outcomes. Refundable tax credits to make health care more affordable. What we don’t need is this massive expansion of Medicaid…Here in my state of Louisiana, there is legislation in our legislature in a bipartisan basis, for example, to help young adults continue their family coverage. We’re not saying we want to go back to what health care was like before this bill passed. we are saying, however, is that we suggested bipartisan reforms.

Jindal first introduced his bipartisan solutions last year, when at least 9 of his 10 proposals were already part of health reform in one way or another. Now, all three of his ideas are in law. Americans can buy health care across state lines if their state forms a compact with other states, hospitals are required to post prices and outcomes online and individuals and families between 133% and 400% of the federal poverty line will receive credits to purchase coverage from the exchanges.

Incidentally, Jindal also supports the so-called Louisiana purchase provision, which increases the federal government’s contribution to Louisiana’s Medicaid program (it was about to fall because the state’s post-hurricane economic surge temporarily “boosted per-capita income that’s used to measure Medicaid payments”). Jindal personally lobbied in support of the increase in funding and on November 20th issued a statement in which he said, “the (health care) bill is awful, but it’s unfair to criticize Sen. Landrieu or the rest of our delegation for fighting to correct this.”

He is now proposing repealing all of these provisions and replacing them with very similar reforms. Only in Louisiana…