The good:
-Mitch believes in privatization. He’s privatized roads in the state at tremendous cost savings to the taxpayers and he also privatized welfare, which didn’t work out as well.
-He’s willing to admit when he’s made a mistake, like he did on when he transfered the welfare office to IBM.
-He’s great at streamlining government and making it more effective. Through cuts in government spending, he balanced the state’s budget—a $600m deficit to a $300m surplus in one year. One of his signature accomplishments was overhauling the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Ten years ago, the Indiana BMV was rated worst in the country; now it is one of the top-rated.
-He’s very knowledgeable and knows policy details. He won’t get out-debated.
-He’s been a big champion of lower spending and lower taxes. He recently campaigned, successfully, for a constitutional amendment that limits Indiana’s property tax to 1% of a home’s value.
-He’s prudent. Two years ago, the Democrats, who at that time controlled the state legislature, were pushing to spend all of Indiana’s rainy-day fund. Daniels successfully fought the Ds on this issue and, because of that, the state is in much better shape than it otherwise would be, despite relatively high unemployment.
-He has executive experience. He worked in the White House as the Director of Bush’s OMB and has won two terms as Indiana’s governor.
-He can win elections. He beat an incumbent governor to win office in his first term and won a second term by 20 points in a state that Obama carried.
The bad:
He’s made some goofs as governor.
-When he was first elected, he pushed for a temporary income tax increase on people making more than $100,000. This idea was quickly snuffed out by the Republican-legislature. (The good—Daniels learns his lessons; since then, he has been in favor of tax decreases)
-The person that he appointed to run the overhaul of Indiana’s BMV turned out to have some skeletons in his closet. The BMV was much improved, but it didn’t look like Mitch did his due diligence on this guy.
-Some people don’t like the fact that he privatized some roads by leasing them to companies based overseas.
-Although not a national issue, some people don’t like that he implemented Daylight Saving Time in Indiana.
-He has typically not taken positions on social issues.
The Either Good or Bad:
Daniels has said that the Republican presidential candidate should ignore social issues and focus on economic issues until the economy improves. Some people believe that this is a prudent way to win the presidency, while others believe that it is “selling out.”
Seems the good out ways the bad
I think that’s a very fair and balanced and substantive summary. I would add that as Director of OMB under President Bush, he earned the nickname “Mitch the Knife” for trimming budgets and spending proposals. Most of Bush’s problems with over-spending came after Daniels left OMB.
I also think it’s worth qualifying a couple of things in your and earlier posts:
Mitch isn’t against conservative social issues, he just believes that the primary focus needs to be on economic issues while this country remains in such miserable share with high unemployment and stagnant growth and structural deficits as far as the eye can see.
My guess is that he would be very good at re-establishing Federal Responsibility: making States be accountable for the problems they bring upon themselves. He would be very much against any kind of bailout of California, NY, ILL, etc. after what he put Indiana through to get its fiscal house in order.
Finally, on his being open to the VAT, I think he said that within the context of an overall reform of the tax code. I know that may sound foolish and providing an opening to the tax-and-spend loving Dems, so I guess he can be criticized for providing that opening.
I hope this helps to fill out your excellent summary but please feel free to edit/correct anything I’m suggesting here. JMHO.