Redstate

Isn't he running for President?

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

I have to admit, I was somewhat surprised that a conservative who believes in tax cuts as opposed to tax increases would have much to say about Mitch Daniels. At best, Daniel's record as governor is mixed. Here is what Grover Norquist had to say about Daniels.

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Grover G. Norquist: Challenge of governing means avoiding tax increases

One would think that a candidate who served as the top budget aide to George W. Bush who passed four tax cuts in four years would have learned the lesson the current Bush learned from watching his father -- never, ever raise taxes. When Bush senior agreed to Democrats' tax increases in exchange for budget cuts, he found that the money was just spent, and all efforts to rein in government were undermined.

But if you supported Gov. Mitch Daniels -- the former budget director to George W. Bush -- because you thought he would oppose new taxes, you got burned.

There are two types of politicians: those who govern, and those who raise taxes in order to avoid the difficulties of governing. Sadly, Mitch Daniels has proved to be the latter.

Governing means making tough choices between competing groups. It means deciding which programs are working and which ones aren't -- and eliminating those that aren't working. It means doing more with less, and raising productivity.

Instead of governing, Mitch Daniels has decided to paper over Indiana's problems with increases in income taxes, business taxes, and local taxes he plans to take from the wallets of hard-working Indiana families.

When taxes are raised, the possibility of reforming state spending is pushed aside. As long as more money is flowing into broken or outdated programs, where is the incentive to improve efficiency?

Examples abound of politicians who have made the tough decision to govern. In 2003, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas closed a $10 billion overspending problem without raising taxes. That same year, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota eliminated a $4.3 billion overspending problem without raising taxes. Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and former Gov. Craig Benson of New Hampshire accomplished similar feats. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, facing an overwhelmingly hostile Democrat legislature, has forced the legislature to make some reforms only because he firmly took taxes off the table.

In addition to the example set by these governors, any chief executive who wants to govern rather than raise taxes has many resources to draw from. The Reason Foundation in California, and the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, Cato Institute and Citizens Against Government Waste in Washington, are all ready to help governors or legislators who want to pare back their budgets. For example, Geoffrey Segal of the Reason Foundation just identified $800 million of budget savings in Colorado to help that state avoid tax increases. Dan Clifton and Paul Prososki of Americans for Tax Reform Foundation found enough savings in the Georgia budget in 2003 to avoid tax increases, and are doing the same now in Minnesota to help Gov. Pawlenty continue his exemplary record. And Tracie Sharp heads the State Policy Network, the umbrella group of more than 40 state-based think tanks that work together to share best practices for state government reform and budget cutting.

Gov. Daniels decided to raise taxes without making any efforts to consult various think tanks to find alternative solutions.

Perhaps Mitch Daniels planned to raise taxes all along. When running for office last year, Daniels ran as a fiscal conservative. But when I asked him to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, he refused. That refusal was a telling act.

Since 1986, signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge has been the single most important way for a candidate or official to demonstrate that he stands with the families and businesses who pay taxes, and not with the big-spending interests who feed on taxpayers. President Bush has signed the pledge, as have 46 U.S. senators, 222 Congressmen, six governors and over 1,220 state legislators.

Instead of joining that distinguished group, Daniels decided to join another -- those governors who promised not to raise taxes, but refused to sign the pledge. Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama, Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio, Gov. Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada and former Gov. Jim McGreevey of New Jersey all claimed to oppose taxes, all refused to sign the pledge, and then all raised taxes once they won office.

Only eight days into his term as governor, Mitch Daniels decided to give up on governing and give in to spending special interests. He has decided it is better to raise taxes on families, small businesses, and manufacturers, and to give local governments the dangerous power to raise new taxes, than to slow the growth of government, eliminate wasteful programs, or leave the state's rainy day funds less than overflowing.

What's more, Gov. Daniels has alienated his base and endangered the careers of the 27 Indiana legislators who have signed the pledge. They would have been steadfast allies if he had chosen to govern, but instead he has asked them to choose between joining in his higher tax and spending policies and keeping their commitments to their voters.

Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.

Governor Daniels has not raised income, business or local taxes as alleged. He's balanced Indiana's budget through fiscal responsibility and a restructuring of state government that conservatives can appreciate.

You can check out his record at http://www.mymanmitch.com/aimhigheraccomplishments.asp.

He originally proposed a 25 cent increase, and a he signed a bill with a 44 cent increase. His administration came in after the GOP had been out of power for 16 years. Some of the early part of his administration was shaky with respect to some missteps in some of the plans to centralize and shrink state government. They centralized unemployment offices to Indianapolis thinking the workers in the other parts of the state would just commute to the jobs there. It did not happen, and there was a large backlog problem with processing unemployment checks. He wanted to shut down vehicle license branches, but made a surprise announcement of their intentions on the day after the legislative session had ended. He is a conservative, but he does not show a lot of skills with respect to being diplomatic. I think he can get re-elected, but I don't know who will be running for the Democrats.

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=20614
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070603/LOCAL/706030...

"We should scrap this “comprehensive” immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway."
Fred Thompson

he is fairly unpopular in some parts of Indiana, and I think his policies played some role in why Chocola was not re-elected. I really miss him as a Congressman!

"Why the hell... isn't he running for President?"

You can't have him just yet. He's only had three years to undo sixteen years of damage that Evan Bayh and his successors did to Indiana. They ran the state into one heck of a ditch by letting the state coast on autopilot for so long, and we're still getting out of it.

"The locals are fond of their bumber stickers that read "Ditch Mitch" or "Not my man Mitch" or have the Calvin character urinating on the word "Mitch"."

I've never seen one of the Calvin things before. I don't see a lot of the "Ditch Mitch" stuff either, but if you cross the river and drive in Louisville, you'll see plenty. Those Jefferson County liberals sure hate Mitch McConnell.

"Would love to read some of the "anti-mitch blogs" the NYT's mentions but does not cite, live search turns up nothing."

There are more Democrat and Libertarian blogs in Indiana than Republican ones, sadly (despite mighty efforts to the contrary). The most anti-Daniels is probably Taking Down Words (the de facto Democratic Party blog; it is run by the party's communications director). The rest all march to that one's tune. You can find links to the others on its blogroll.

"It Sounds Like You're Right Why else would Indiana, *Indiana* for Pete's sake! have a Democrat-controlled statehouse?"

Lower house only. The Republicans are only about one seat from having a supermajority in the Senate that would render the Democrat opposition there completely irrelevant. As it is, only one (or maybe two) Senate Democrats are necessary to make the legally-required quorum to conduct business.

They have the House (and five of nine Congressional districts) because they got lucky in 2000.

Frank O'Bannon, then governor, was facing defeat in his reelection bid, and used $45 million of the state's money to bribe people to vote for him by waiving the state's sales tax on gasoline for several months. This waiver was incredibly illegal; O'Bannon claimed that gas being $1.18 a gallon necessitated the "state of emergency" that would grant him that authority.

But O'Bannon's gas tax bribe (which exhausted the state's dwindling budget surplus) had terrible side effects. He had sufficient coattails to give the Democrats a slim majority in the House.

Because 2000 was a census year, the Democrats got to draw the new district maps in 2001. They drew maps guaranteed to elect 52 House Democrats and to lean Democrat in 5 of 9 Congressional districts. The lone concession they made was to redraw the Senate districts for both parties as incredibly incumbent-friendly, which entrenched the GOP majority there.

This was a MASSIVE blow to state Republicans, because even in 2006 we got heavy majorities in terms of actual vote counts in the Congress and state legislature races.

2004 was such a banner Republican year in Indiana that the Democrats lost their gerrymandered majority (largely over their opposition to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage), but they regained it in 2006.

Ironically, they gained 3 legislature seats in 2006, but lost one. Mahern, their strategist that drew the maps in 2001, lost his seat to an unexpectedly strong and vigorous Republican challenger. His margin of defeat was all of eight votes.

"We've already seen part of the backlash in the 2006 Congressional elections, when western Indiana went blue."

Western Indiana went blue because John Hostettler bought into the spin about his opponent and decided to not actually campaign to be reelected.

Hostettler, who voted against the Iraq War and was always against the sorts of corrupt practices that got the Republicans thrown out, should have had a picture-perfect reelection campaign since he was with the voters from the start on everything that they were upset at Republicans over last year.

Now, up north, Chris Chocola lost that race because he got linked to Mitch Daniels' unpopular decisions about Daylight Savings Time and the toll road lease. Down south, Mike Sodrel nearly survived but was done in by a Libertarian spoiler and some minor campaign slip-ups.

"I think Mitch has done good things for the state, but he makes a poor political leader. I'll be surprised if he's re-elected."

You'd be hard pressed to find a governor anywhere in America that is less partisan, I would agree.

He'll have more money than God going into his reelection, though. They don't call it the Big Green Machine for nothing.

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http://hoosierpundit.blogspot.com/

I lived in Indiana for 30 years before moving to WA in 2004. Hoosiers, in my experience, are more "change-averse" than the national average...so it's not at all surprising that DST is a significant political issue there.

As for privatization projects, such as the Indiana Toll Road, Mitch has been consistently singing this tune since at least the early 1990s, when he spearheaded the "managed competition" strategies of then-newly-elected Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith. I worked with both Goldsmith and Daniels on those projects, so I know about this first hand.

Goldsmith was another card-carrying change-agent who also ran afoul of Hoosier's limited collective imagination. He ran for Governor in 1996 and lost to the dull-but-unthreatening Frank O’Bannon.

Bellinghamster