Mitch Daniels in Speech at 2011 CPAC conference
On Budget & Economy:
Our "raisin' debt": survival-level threat of red ink
In our nation, in our time, the friends of freedom have an assignment, as great as those of the 1860s, or the 1940s, or the long twilight of the Cold War. As in those days, the American project is menaced by a survival-level threat. We face an enemy,
lethal to liberty, and even more implacable than those America has defeated before.I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence. It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink. No enterprise,
small or large, public or private, can remain self-governing, let alone successful, so deeply in hock to others as we are about to be.
If a foreign power advanced an army to the border of our land, everyone in this room would drop everything and look
for a way to help. That is what those of us here, and every possible ally we can persuade to join us, are now called to do. It is our generational assignment. It is the mission of our era. Forgive the pun when I call it our "raisin' debt."
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Education:
Parents choose best public school, traditional or charter
We have broadened the right of parents to select the best place for their children's education to include every public school, traditional or charter, regardless of geography, tuition-free. 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, you're as entitled to that option as any wealthy family; here's a voucher, go sign up.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Energy & Oil:
Drill and frack and lease and license
It's time we treat domestic energy production as the economic necessity it is and the job creator it can be. Drill, and frack, and lease, and license, unleash in every way the jobs potential in the enormous energy resources we have been denying
ourselves. And help our fellow citizens to understand that a poorer country will not be a greener country, but its opposite. It is freedom and its fruits that enable the steady progress we have made in preserving and protecting God's kingdom.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Government Reform:
Government should enable private life to flourish
We Hoosiers believe that government works for the benefit of private life, and not the other way around. We see government's mission as fostering and enabling the important realms--our businesses, service clubs, Little Leagues, churches--to flourish. Our
first thought is always for those on life's first rung, and how we might increase their chances of climbing.Every day, we work to lower the costs and barriers to free men and women creating wealth for each other. We build roads, and bridges, and new
sources of homegrown energy at record rates, in order to have the strongest possible backbone to which people of enterprise can attach their investments and build their dreams. When business leaders ask me what they can do for Indiana, I always
reply: "Make money. Go make money. That's the first act of 'corporate citizenship.' If you do that, you'll have to hire someone else, and you'll have enough profit to help one of those non-profits we're so proud of." We place our trust in average people.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Government Reform:
At OMB, first loud critic of Congressional earmarks
Our morbidly obese federal government needs not just behavior modification but bariatric surgery. The perverse presumption that places the burden of proof on the challenger of spending must be inverted, back to the rule that applies elsewhere in
life: "Prove to me why we should."Lost to history is the fact that, in my OMB assignment, I was the first loud critic of Congressional earmarks. I was also the first to get absolutely nowhere in reducing them: first to rail and first to fail.
They are a pernicious practice and should be stopped. But, in the cause of national solvency, they are a trifle. Talking much more about them, or "waste, fraud, and abuse," trivializes what needs to
be done, and misleads our fellow citizens to believe that easy answers are available to us. In this room, we all know how hard the answers are, how much change is required.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Homeland Security:
No free pass for national defense in budget cuts
Nothing, not even the first and most important mission of government, our national defense, can get a free pass. I served in two administrations that practiced and validated the policy of peace through strength. It has served America and the world with
irrefutable success. But if our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we won't have much strength and, eventually, we won't 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."I personally favor restoring impoundment power to the presidency, at least on an emergency basis.
Having had this authority the last six years, and used it shall we say with vigor, I can testify to its effectiveness, and to this finding: You'd be amazed how much government you'll never miss.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Tax Reform:
Wrong ever to take an unnecessary dollar from a free citizen
We Hoosiers hold to some quaint notions. Some might say we "cling" to them, though not out of fear or ignorance. We believe in paying our bills. We have kept our state in the black throughout the recent unpleasantness, while cutting rather than raising
taxes, by practicing an old tribal ritual--we spend less money than we take in.We believe it wrong ever to take a dollar from a free citizen without a very necessary public purpose, because each such taking diminishes the freedom to spend that dollar
as its owner would prefer. When we do find it necessary, we feel a profound duty to use that dollar as carefully and effectively as possible, else we should never have taken it at all.
We say that anytime budgets are balanced and an ample savings
account has been set aside, government should just stop collecting taxes. Better to leave that money in the pockets of those who earned it, than to let it burn a hole, as it always does, in the pockets of government.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
On Technology:
Untie Gulliver: privatize roads & build without fed rulebook
It's time we untie Gulliver. The regulatory rainforest through which our enterprises must hack their way is blighting the future of millions of Americans. Today's EPA should be renamed the "Employment Prevention Agency." After a two-year orgy of new
regulation, President Obama's recent executive order was a wonderment, as though the number one producer of rap music had suddenly expressed alarm about obscenity.
In Indiana, where our privatization of a toll road generated billions for reinvestment in infrastructure, we can build in 1/2 the time at 2/3 the cost when we use our own money only and are free from the federal rulebook. A moratorium on new regulation
is a minimal suggestion; better yet, move at least temporarily to a self-certification regime that lets America build, and expand, and explore now and settle up later in those few instances where someone colors outside the lines.
Source: 2011 Conservative Political Action Conf. Keynote
Feb 10, 2011
Page last updated: Dec 03, 2018