I was genuinely impressed with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s congressional address. Unlike many other Republicans, he was gracious and he took the time to explain why limited government is more sensible than big government. He was completely in command of the issues, unlike a certain GOP presidential candidate, and he used humor and stories effectively. He gave concrete examples — i.e., Hurricane Katrina, and the way bureaucrats tried to stop a boat rescue operation — about why individualism is better than bureaucracy.

Here is the entire speech text.

Here is my favorite excerpt, in which he carefully explains the Republican approach compared to the Democratic approach:

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us. Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina, we have our doubts. During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, ‘Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.’ And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: ‘Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

Let me tell you a story.

There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens. We are grateful for the support we have received from across the nation for the ongoing recovery efforts. This spirit got Louisiana through the hurricanes - and this spirit will get our nation through the storms we face today.

To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you - the American people. Because we believe that Americans can do anything.

That is why Republicans put forward plans to create jobs by lowering income tax rates for working families … cutting taxes for small businesses … strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers … and stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for home-buyers. These plans would cost less and create more jobs.

Jindal is a true rising star — not because of his personal story as the son of Indian immigrants, but because of his ability to explain the Republican message in an understandable and intelligent manner.

The president said, “But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.”

Unfortunately, his ideology focuses mainly on what government can do, not on freeing individuals to live their own lives.

It’s hard not to contrast President Barack Obama’s charming personality with his atrocious policies and muddled thinking about economics. He’s right now pitching some kind of government lending pool, and is championing a bank bailout, but he promises not to help speculators or those greedy people who bought houses they can’t afford. Actually, speculators will do far more to get the nation out of its housing slump than all the government regulators and tax dollars combined. Speculators are the ones who put their own money on the line to buy up these empty and foreclosed houses, while the government tries to artificially reinflate the housing bubble with cheap credit and direct subsidies.

Don’t worry, the president argues, he and his administration will carefully monitor all the spending in the massive stimulus plan. CEOs won’t be able to pad their paychecks, he promises. But I assume government officials can continue to pad their lifestyles as they typically do. Those corporate-welfare whores who take government money can hardly complain when their new bosses in the government tell them how they can spend the money. But it’s fairly dangerous to let the government start meddling in private business decisions.

I am reminded of one of those email mass mailings I received in which a professor explains to his student the way the stimulus package works. He asks the student to take water from the shallow end and dump it into the deep end. Isn’t that what the government is doing by taking money from one pocket and putting it into another pocket?

The president just offered an absurd straw man, as he criticized those who say that the government has “no role” in assuring prosperity. Libertarians don’t say that. We say the government has the role to maintain the rule of law and provide for the national defense and some other carefully detailed functions. Those functions are important and are crucial to allowing a free people to become prosperous. But government is not the creator of wealth. Here we see that President Obama has an unhealthy faith in government. In fairness, Republicans talk about limiting government but have proved themselves to also be believers in government. Still, Obama has a quaint faith in public works and government programs. This comes through clearly in his congressional address.

I can’t stand the way he throws around the term “we,” when he actually means “the government.” Yes, we will invest in this and we will invest in that. We will make more efficient cars, when in reality private companies will make these cars and government will do little more than impede them. He says that we cannot walk away from the car industry, but why not? I don’t care if my cars come from Detroit, Seoul or Veracruz. Someone, I’m sure, will make cars that I want to buy. President Obama assured us that this won’t be cheap, and on that point he no doubt is right. He is pushing hard for more health-care reform, which will be expensive in terms of money and lives.

Nothing here will be cheap, and nothing here will advance the cause of limited government and freedom. On those points, we can be certain.

Ever wonder what else you could buy with a trillion dollars, besides a big bundle of government waste? The FRC blog runs down the possibilities:

If you stack up $1,000 bills, $1 trillion would need a pile that is 80 miles high.

…

You could buy a thousand Queen Mary 2 with accommodations for 2,620 passengers

With a population of approximately 300 million people, you could give away $1 trillion by giving every man, woman and child in the U.S. $ 3,400 each.

We could buy everyone on Earth an iPod.

Maybe that’s why Apple stock has been rising the past week.

Ever wondered just how much the federal government is spending on that no-fly list? The one that keeps preventing five year olds from getting on planes? Turns out the tab runs into nine digits:

As will be analyzed below, it is estimated that the costs of the no-fly list, since 2002, range from approximately $300 million (a conservative estimate) to $966 million (an estimate on the high end). Using those figures as low and high potentials, a reasonable estimate is that the U.S. government has spent over $500 million on the project since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Using annual data, this article suggests that the list costs taxpayers somewhere between $50 million and $161 million a year, with a reasonable compromise of those figures at approximately $100 million. Clearly the no-fly list is a program that is not without substantial cost. It represents, at least financially, a large part of the government’s protection of air travel. 4 In order to begin to analyze whether or not the benefits are worth the costs, both must be identified and analyzed. It is that task to which the article will now turn.

See the full study here.

[BB link via Robert Fort]

This child is completely out of his mind, thanks to drugs. Curse you, drugs, you’ve claimed another victim.

[via BoingBoing]

Cato will be running the ad below in the NY Times, Washington Post and Roll Call this week with signatures of 250 economists, including Nobel laureates, who are opposed to the stimulus, according to Chris Moody. I like it.

Pete Eyre of Bureaucrash had a chilling encounter with the police in Arlington. Watch the video:

Anthony Randazzo points out some of the dozens of new spending programs the stimulus bill will create. Here’s a couple of my favorites from his list.

• After School Feeding Program ($726 Million) [previously known as dinner]
• Youth Summer Jobs Program Grants ($1.2 Billion) [Adventureland?]
• Federal Government Vehicle Fleet Replacement* ($600 Million) [stimulus spending? Doesn't this sound rather routine?]
• Washington, D.C. National Mall Revitalization* ($200 Million) [from what? The destruction caused by the Inauguration?]