The Republican dilemma

Wow.

On style points Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor from Louisiana, looked bad last night. Going up against Barack Obama, speech-to-speech, is a tough assignment.

But the substance of Jindal’s comments were more troubling than his clumsy delivery.

Jindal presides over a state where Federal stimulus spending — in the form of Hurricane Katrina spending — literally defines the economy.

Taxpayers across the U.S. have bailed his state out, in every sense of the word.

His party also supported epic deficits to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as vast expansions to Federal entitlement programs.

Yet now Jindal is suggesting that Federal spending in times of economic crisis is nothing more than pork.

You simply can’t have it both ways.

The truth is that Republicans have grown just as addicted to spending taxpayer money as Democrats.

It’s become a cliche to say that Democrats are tax-and-spenders, while the GOP is the party of borrow-and-spend. There’s a sad truth in that cliche.

And the same goes here in the North Country. Generally conservative leaders espouse small government — except when it comes to their towns and counties.

We want taxpayers in other parts of New York to subsidize our schools, our hospitals, our nursing homes, ourMedicaid services, our economic development projects, and our highways.

And yet we want to call ourselves fiscal conservatives.

This disconnect between philosophy and reality is THE Republian dilemma.

Until the GOP solves it, their leaders will continue to sound — well, like Bobby Jindal.