Jindal: Obama Promoting 'Government Greed'

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Tuesday accused President Obama of promoting “government greed” in his State of the Union address at the expense of allowing the private sector to grow the American economy.

“Tonight you heard the president double down on the last four years. You heard him double down on taking more money out of the economy to grow the government economy not the private sector economy,” Jindal told NBC’s Brian Williams. “We have seen Wall Street greed. Now we’re seeing government greed.”

Jindal, who recently admonished fellow Republicans to "stop being the stupid party," said that he believes there are areas where the two parties are likely to find common ground if given the opportunity.

“I think there’s an opportunity for bipartisan action on, for example, tax reform,” said Jindal. “I think there is an opportunity to act together across party lines if the president’s willing to lead, if he’s willing to get away from the liberal ideology.”

Nevertheless, Jindal said that the president’s speech gave him pause. “He almost echoed Bill Clinton. He didn’t quite say it this way: The era of big government’s over. We don’t need new government programs,” recalled Jindal. “And then he listed a bunch of new government programs.”

The governor urged Republicans to stand up for an alternative vision of how to grow the private sector.

“There is one city doing very, very well in the president’s economy,” he added. “That’s Washington, D.C. We as a Republican Party need to be about education reform, energy reform. We need to be about simplifying the tax code, taking out the loopholes, taking out the special breaks.”