Okay, let's do that. Mitch Daniels took office in 2005. In 2004, the last year before Daniels took office, Indiana had the 6th lowest per capita spending, and the 8th lowest spending to GDP ratio. That same year, Texas had the 4th lowest per capita spending and the 4th lowest spending to GDP ratio.
In 2010, Indiana had gone from the 6th lowest to the 10th lowest in per capita spending, and had gone from 8th lowest to 17th lowest in spending to GDP ratio. During the same time Texas remained at 4th lowest in both per capita spending and spending to GDP ratio. So while Texas spending remained fairly constant on a per capita and proportional basis, Indiana was spending a lot more per person and as a percentage of GDP.
Indiana also went from the 24th highest debt to GDP ratio to the 17th highest, and from the 26th highest to the 19th highest in per capita state debt during Daniel's administration. During that period, Texas went from 3rd lowest to 2nd lowest in both categories of debt.
So it appears that state debt and spending went up in Indiana under Daniels, while it went down or remained constant in Texas under Perry.
Here is a different take on Daniels and Indiana. Bear in mind that it matters what you start with: http://www.wpri.org/WIInterest/Vol20No1/Ruhl20.1.html
Here the NYT notes that Daniels held the growth in spending below the rate of inflation, something that Perry did not accomplish: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/business/economy/05leonhardt.html
I don’t want to be sidelined into a discussion of Daniels and Perry. Nevertheless, Daniels has done more to manage the fiscal situation responsibility in Indiana than Perry has in Texas. Again, if you really knew the inside game here you would see that Perry and the worthless Rs in Austin closed our roughly $17 billion budget gap by deferring payments into the next fiscal period, which is a move exactly out of the Arnold, Brown, and Davis playbook in CA. And the reason for the dishonest accounting tricks was exactly the same - no one wants to anger powerful taxeating constituencies.
Perry talks a hardcore conservative game, but the reality is something else. Other Texans will tell you the same thing. He is certainly conservative enough to be unelectable to statewide office in CA, but that doesn’t make him a hardcore conservative. We could do a lot worse than Perry, but there is no point in buying into an illusion.
You have overlooked one particularly delightful thing about our governor: “moderate” Rs (especially Eastern “country club” Rs) and liberals hate him - not so much because of his policies, but because in terms of background and culture he is everything that they loathe. I remember the look on Dan Rather’s face when he had to announce that Reagan had won. I would love to see Matthews’ face if he has to announce that Perry has won (if it were Bachmann, Matthews wouldn’t make it on camera because he would have had a stroke and would be frothing at the mouth while writhing on the floor.)