Quotes by Mitch Daniels

“Among the weeds choking out growth and good government are the hundreds of boards, commissions, and advisory committees that have sprouted over the years. They devour time, money, and energy far beyond any real contribution they make.”

“And overhanging all our difficulties is the simple, brute fact that our states public finances are in ruin. We have outspent our income year after year.”

“So tonight I propose one more step that I would rather not propose. I ask the most fortunate among us, those citizens earning over $100,000 per year, for one year, to pay an additional one percent on the income they receive.”

“The state of our state needs serious attention.”

“Government does not create jobs, it only creates the conditions that make jobs more or less likely.”

“We stand to gain up to several thousand more jobs at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center, ... and the commission listened to our recommendations for Crane and saved half of the jobs that were recommended for transfer elsewhere.”

“A straight answer now is that I dont believe it would be a responsible step, ... The state is still coming out of bankruptcy, and it would not provide dramatic relief to any individual.”

“I think that the Board of Education ought to revisit this issue,”

“If they dont act, I would ask the legislature to review it again.”

“I dont want to go around beating up on small business people around Indiana who I think are just scrambling to try to serve their customers, ... If we ever see any credible evidence of somebody abusing the system, then well act. But, Ive been looking at it every day and the Attorney General doesnt report it and I dont see it.”

When business leaders ask me what they can do for Indiana, I always reply: Make money. Go make money. Thats the first act of corporate citizenship. If you do that, youll have to hire someone else, and youll have enough profit to help one of those non-profits were so proud of.

The failure of national economic policy is costing us more than jobs; it has begun to weaken that uniquely American spirit of risk-taking, large ambition, and optimism about the future. We must rally them now to bold departures that rebuild our national morale as well as our material prosperity.

If our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we wont have much strength and, eventually, we wont have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years, we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not, as our military friends say, a robust strategy.

And before our current legislature adjourns, we intend to become the first state of full and true choice by saying to every low and middle-income Hoosier family, if you think a non-government school is the right one for your child, youre as entitled to that option as any wealthy family; heres a voucher, go sign up.

The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.