David Brooks Sings the Praises for Mitch Daniels

David Brooks thinks that Mitch Daniels would be a great president, or at least this is what he said in his column today. Brooks' case centers on the outstanding job that Daniels has done as governor of Indiana. Brooks is especially impressed with the extent to which Daniels has improved the state's fiscal situation.

While that may be interesting to some, most people are probably most concerned about jobs. (Remember the recession?) If we compare job growth in Indiana with job growth (or more accurately loss) with its mostly Democratically governed neighbors, it doesn't look especially good.

Indiana lost 6.5 percent of its jobs between December of 2004 (the month before Daniels took office) and December of 2010. This beats Michigan's 13.0 percent and Ohio's 7.7 percent, but is worse than Illinois' loss of 5.2 percent of its jobs. It's also worse than the loss of 3.3 percent of jobs in Wisconsin and 0.2 percent of jobs in Iowa.

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written by izzatzo, February 25, 2011 7:27 AM

I suppose that Daniels campaign slogan can be "better than Michigan."

Exactly. Moral relativism trumps absolute values any day. For example, just as the world was made safer by the Boy Monarch without Saddam Hussein, Daniels has made Indiana more energy independent with the Duke Power scandal. Costs are irrelevant. Only benefits count.

Under the everything-is-relative standard, Daniels also plans to increase speed limits on local roads to 90mph to reduce the opportunity cost of time and privatize food regulation to reduce starvation by those who refuse to eat from fear of regulation and uncertainty.

Vote for Mitch Daniels, Moral Relativist, as the next President.

Mitch took Clinton's budget surpluses and turned them into Deficits
written by Paul, February 25, 2011 2:55 PM

During Daniels' 29-month tenure as W's Director of OMB, the projected federal budget surplus of $236 billion declined to a $400 billion deficit.

Only 29 months! That has to be some kind of record. David Brooks doesn't talk about that.

Opposed Chrysler Deal
written by bakho, February 25, 2011 8:49 PM

Daniels opposed the Chrysler Deal that would have increased unemployment even more and made Indiana worse off.

Daniels wants to privatize everything, starting with education.

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written by MarkJ, February 26, 2011 1:23 AM

This is the same Mr. Daniels that declared an end to collective bargaining for public workers after he was sworn in as governor.

This is the same Mr. Daniels that cut funding of medical care for disadvantaged Hoosiers in his first term of office.

This is the same Mr. Daniels that counts jobs promised by companies as those that currently employ Hoosiers.

This is the same Mr. Daniels that robbed Hoosiers of billions of dollars of revenue by selling the Indiana Toll Road for seventy five years.

This is the same Mr. Daniels that claims a balanced budget even though Indiana owes 2 billion dollars to the Federal government.

This can't be the same Mr. Daniels that Mr. Brooks wrote about.

David Brooks Sings the Praises for Mitch Daniels

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