Matt Tully has a column looking into what effect Daniels will have on the November election. The Democrats main themes going into November will probably be along the lines of: “Daniels is selling off Indiana and he doesn’t care what you think about it,” trying to hammer home the idea that Gov. Daniels has a privatization fetish and doesn’t really like to listen to dissenting opinion.
The Republicans’ response? “Democrats are the party of ‘no,’ in fact, it’s an angry ‘no.'” Angry about selling out the State? Heaven forefend. They should really back off so as not to bruise Speaker Bosma’s delicate sensibilities.
More seriously, with the Republicans firmly in control of the Governor’s office and the Senate through at least 2008, the most useful function the Democrats can serve is as a brake against any bad ideas the Republicans might have. I’m sure Speaker Bosma would criticize the brakes on a vehicle, “all they do is stop; sometimes they even squeal, it would be best if we just disconnected them altogether.”
Yes, the Democrats did a good job of stopping any progress in Indiana during their sixteen years by not doing anything. Saying “No” is perhaps what they’re best suited to do.
Yawn. And it was Clinton’s fault.
“NO” to the sale of our assets.
“NO” to the selling out of our state employees
“NO” to a party that savaged their own members (Garton and Budak) for standing up for their own beliefs.
Finally, “NO” to running government “like a business”. These corporate CEO’s like Daniels who run on a platform of running government as they ran their corporations have got to go. Judging by the way rank and file workers are being shafted in the corporate world, we need real people in office who know what it is like to work for a living.
…running government as they ran they ran their corporations…
People like Daniels aren’t running things as a business would. In the real world, if you treat your customers like dirt, they leave. In the state government, there is no “competition,” so they are free to mistreat us as much as they want and we have to stick out. Just look at the BMV mess. No business would dare operate the way Daniels has managed that organization.
True, if you ran a customer-driven business like this, it would fold. But in the corporate stratosphere, with it’s “golden parachutes”, incentive packages and fuzzy math, such antics are more and more commonplace. IPALCO, NISOURCE, CONSECO, DELPHI, ENRON, WORLDCOM: is there much difference between the way they do/did business and the attitudes we see more and more in government?
Well, that rules out most of the Ivy Tech employed senior members of Indiana’s legislature.
Bob Garton stood up for the belief that he & his fellow legislators should have a very generous retirement package funded by the taxpayers. As you might expect, the taxpayers found Garton out of touch & voted him out of office. What, you’d prefer a party that kept their longtime leaders out of loyalty?
To me, running government like a business means breaking even is the rule, not the exception. As an under-30 taxpayer, I’ll be the one paying the future bill for the deficits of today. So I’m very happy with Mitch Daniels’ efforts to balance the budget of the state of Indiana. (Now Mitch needs to pay the local governments back what they are owed, and the folks in the Legislature need to give localities the ability to charge what taxes they see fit.)
Hey Joe,
Enjoy your little lying scumbag “My Man Bitch” now. He won’t be around after Nov 08. All this piece of manure can do is criticize Democrats and take pot shots at St. Joe county. A county that he and his cronies in Elkhart and down state personally screwed out of getting central time which was and is what the people wanted. Of course they didn’t want DST either but that was shoved down our throats by your repub heroes. MMB doesn’t even have the kahunas to show up in S. Bend for a town hall meeting to explain why he broke the law to deny the county what they wanted-A truly pathetic piece of lying filth. Dustin and Mark hit it right on the head. Hopefully the voters will get their heads out of their American Idol loving asses and dump this “bait and switch” liar ASAP.
ps It’s too bad we don’t have recalls in Indiana.
ps It’s too bad we don’t have recalls in Indiana.
…or a flame-proof comment system. I understand you’re upset, but DUDE! :)
Actually I thought I was taking it a little easy. Seriously though the last 6 years of totalitarian rule have been a nightmare for many-perhaps most of us. Whether it’s our poor(literaly and figuratively) kids dying in Iraq or my perhaps selfish pet peeve the eastern time zone and all the devious special interests groups,MMB and his Brokeback Mountain buddy Norman Mineta at the DOT that were able to scam us out of our rightful time zone, there are just so many things that need to be addressed harshly. The way I look at it these guys have peed on us so the least I can do is retort in kind. I just hope the voters will remember come November and do the same thing. Sorry I may have upset some folks but I don’t think I’m the real enemy here.
Jason,
Well, it’s Joe who waltzed in here with a spiteful and productive comment, so I can’t cast a stone at chuckcentral for blasting back.
I imagine Doug gets the last word if things get out of hand. :)
My informal commenting policy is to be as permissive as possible. I’d draw the line at personal attacks on other commenters. Harsh invective directed at political figures, I don’t really have a problem with unless it becomes too much of a distraction from otherwise productive discussion.
I made a spiteful comment? Where?
And, for the record, I voted for O’Bannon the first time around, figuring O’Bannon would be better than Goldsmith.