BATON ROUGE – With less than two weeks remaining to address the financial disaster left in Bobby Jindal’s wake, State Treasurer and perennial candidate John Kennedy wasted over an hour of the legislature’s time with disingenuous testimony that amounted to little more than a stump speech for his senate race. Diverting wildly from the substance of the questions put to him, he chose instead to parrot empty campaign rhetoric. As common sense and basic math dictate, the state of Louisiana cannot cut its way out of the disaster Kennedy helped Jindal create.

After sixteen years of aiding and abetting the very financial recklessness that left our state facing a $2.9 budget deficit, Kennedy is now abusing his platform before the special session to grandstand and drum up attention for yet another failed bid for higher office. Jindal’s true heir in every sense, Kennedy is ignoring the catastrophic realities of the budget disaster and wasting the legislature’s time, and taxpayers’ money, spinning fictions and outright distortions of the grim facts. Leaders on both sides of the isle were exasperated with the stunt, and impatient to move on to real dialogue.

“Contrary to the bill of goods John Kennedy is trying to sell us, Louisiana voters aren’t fools,” said Stephen Handwerk, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party. “The last thing we need is another career politician refusing to be honest about the mess we’re in, wasting time before the legislature with campaign speeches and empty catch-phrases. That’s not leadership, and it’s not governing. It’s politics, and we don’t have time for it anymore.”

 

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