Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum Address Polk County Republicans (Video)

(Des Moines, IA) Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum spoke and took questions at the Polk County Republican Central Committee meeting on Tuesday night at the Northwest Community Center in Des Moines.

Jindal used his time to criticize Congressional Republicans for their lack of action.

“As we sit here today, I am actually angrier with the Republicans in DC than I am with the Democrats,” Jindal said.  “I want to give the Democrats a compliment, at least they are honest about what they believe.”

“I am angry at Republicans because they say one thing during an election and do another thing when they get elected. Too often it seems as though our choices are between honest socialists and lying conservatives. That is a heck of a choice by the way. I’m at the point where I think it’s time to fire them all, to force term limits down their throats so that they actually have to live under the same rules and laws that they pass for the rest of us,” Jindal stated.

“It is time to fire those folks, the Republican Party shouldn’t be the party of big government, but we also shouldn’t be the party of big business either,” Jindal added.

Jindal later reiterated his commitment to defund Planned Parenthood of all taxpayer money if elected President, and complained about the Senate’s inability pass a defunding measure.

He pointed out the Senate’s failure to stop the Iran deal.

“The Iranians conned President Obama, and President Obama conned Senate Republicans. The only people he can out negotiate are in the House and the Senate. They pass this awful Corker bill.  Instead of taking a 2/3 vote to approve the deal now it takes a 2/3 vote to disapprove this awful deal with Iran. Every Senate Republican except Tom Cotton voted for that bad bill, every one of them, including all the ones running for President. Rubio, Cruz, Graham and Paul they all voted for it,” Jindal said.

He asked why the Senate wouldn’t use the nuclear option – getting rid of the filibuster – to deal with the Iran deal.

“I asked Senator Graham during the debate, why would you not use the nuclear option today in order to stop the government of Iran, the regime of Iran from becoming a nuclear power? If there was ever a time… nowhere in the Constitution does it say you need 60 votes to stop a bad deal. Why not say, we’ve got more than 51 votes we are going to stop this? Because they don’t want to fight,” Jindal stated.

“I wish our Republicans had half of the courage, half the backbone, half the fight the Democrats have,” Jindal added.

He stated it’s time for Republicans to endorse and fight for the principles they say they believe in.

Watch Jindal’s full remarks and Q&A below:

Santorum went straight to Q&A saying we’ve heard enough speeches. Aside from the two presidential candidates there were 13 other speakers, limited to 1 or 2 minutes, that spoke during the meeting.

Discussing Obamacare Santorum pointed out what executive power can be used. “Can I repeal Obamacare? I can repeal every penny of Obamacare. I can repeal every tax, every fee, and every subsidy. I can’t repeal all of the language. The language will say employers have to provide insurance, but there will be no penalty because the fine will be gone. So the bill will be gutted, we’ll take the claws out of it, the teeth out of it, there will be no ability to harm anybody. In a sense it becomes a neutered piece of legislation,” Santorum said.

Later he was asked about what he would specifically cut to reduce the size of government.

“Number one, a 10 percent cut across the board in the federal workforce, that’s only a piece of the problem. The biggest problem that is happening right now is the explosion of contracted employees in Washington, people who are not federal employees, but federal contractors, people who are off the books so it doesn’t look like the federal government is getting any bigger. One of the things we can do is have a complete review of all federal contracts with the intent of eliminating them, and this is big money for big corporations. You have folks who are making millions if not billions of dollars through the federal contracting system,” Santorum stated.

“Number two, and this is very important, we haven’t had an appropriations bill pass, a defense appropriations bill hasn’t passed in seven years. That means the Defense Department has to operate on contracts that are seven years old. They can’t bring in new contracts. They have to use existing contractors and run anything new through those who had contracts the last time we had an appropriations bill. It is the most inefficient… it is a disaster in the Defense Department. One of the things we have to do to make any of the changes we have to pass, instead of doing these continuing resolutions, we have to pass a budget, and we have to pass these bills, and in doing so you can do reforms within the department,” Santorum added.

“One department that I would shrink is the Department of Education. We went from 2 percent of education spending when I came to Congress, the federal government was responsible for 2 percent of education spending, it’s now eleven. Does anyone think schools have gotten better over the last 20 years? We need to get rid of that spending, No Child Left Behind, Common Core, all of these things can be taken out of Washington, DC. Shrink the Department of Education and put the money back where it belongs to the states. In fact, get rid of the money and the states and local governments deal with it,” Santorum said.

Santorum also said that the Department of Transportation is another agency that needs to be shrunk.  He also shared that he would gut the State Department and rebuild it as it is filled with internationalists who do not put U.S. interests first.

Watch Santorum’s remarks below: