Bobby Jindal: Focused on Policy As He Considers 2016
"Now a lot of people are too young to remember the stagflation of the 70s and how hard it was when Reagan came in to break the back of inflation and how hard it was with the high interest rates and what that did to the economy in the short term," Jindal added. "He did what he felt was necessary to grow the economy again. We are living on borrowed time. Whether you are an economic expert in economics or not, it is pretty simple. You can't keep living beyond your means. You can't just keep assuming that other countries will buy our debt. You can't assume that it is inevitable that the dollar is going to be the global reserve currency. You can't assume this is sustainable."
He said that leadership in DC is needed who will reduce the size of government, cut spending, balance the budget and start paying off the debt.
"We need a stronger dollar. We need a sustainable monetary policy. We don't have that today and my concern is that this President has never even proposed to balance the budget at any point. He does ten-year projections and at no point does it ever balance. They continue to kick the can down the road and the problem is only going to get worse, not better," Jindal stated.
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Jindal notes that a Republican majority is not enough as our current Congress has shown. Structural changes are needed. He touted a balanced budget amendment, term limits, prohibiting members of Congress from becoming lobbyists, and amending the Constitution so that a supermajority vote is needed to grow the budget faster than the economy and increase taxes.
Caffeinated Thoughts as a final question asked about Iran.
"Everyone who is running in 2016 needs to make it very clear to the Iranian regime tha tthey are negotiating with a lame-duck president and if this agreement is not sent to the Senate and Congress for ratification and approval it is not binding on the successor," Jindal stated.
Jindal endorsed the "open letter" to the Iranian leadership that U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) wrote that most of the Republican Senate caucus signed onto. In a released statement earlier this week Jindal called on all Republican candidates to do the same.
He said without legislative approval at most President Obama's deal with the Iranians is a two-year deal, not a ten-year deal or longer. "I'm very worried this President prefers a bad deal over no deal," Jindal said.
"A nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to Israel, to our European allies, and to the United States. After Iran you'll see Egypt, Turkey and Saudia Arabia all want nuclear capabilities. Some of those countries already have the ability to buy that capability from Pakistan. You will have multiple countries in the Middle East who have nuclear capabilities. Think about how dangerous that is for the world," Jindal added.
"The real enemy is radical Islamic terrorists… and a nuclear armed Iran," Jindal stated.
He said Congress needs to pass a bill that requires the Iran deal to come to Congress for approval and then pass additional sanctions.
"This is the first Commander-in-Chief who said 'I don't want more leverage at the table. I don't want any more power to negotiate,'" Jindal said. "Now think about that if you are ever in a business deal you always want to be across the table from someone who needs the deal more than you do."
He noted that President Obama's attitude toward Iran has "infected" his entire foreign policy and he has not received anything in return.
"So Iran has not reversed their hostile attitudes toward Israel. They continue to be hostile toward the United States." Jindal observed.
He said the administration's hostility is misplaced. He needs to be more assertive with Iran and stop criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and denigrating United States Senators.
You can watch the whole video of our exclusive interview here or below:
