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What the National GOP should learn from Mitch Daniels

07 Nov

In the wake a fairly healthy shellacking of all things GOP, perhaps the national party should take note that, despite a flurry on new voters likely making party line votes1 and turning Indiana blue for the first time since 1964, Mitch Daniels was re-elected by a larger popular margin than Obama managed to achieve (18% vs. 7%).  Mitch isn’t the most charasmatic politician on the planet.  He certainly can’t conjure the rhetorical flourish that makes people believe he can “make the oceans cease to rise, and the earth begin to heal”.  In fact, over the course of his first term, he managed to tick off just about everyone at one point or another.  He began by angering his base with the suggestion of raising taxes temporarily, and quickly moved on to angering many in the north by earning interest on leasing the toll road rather than continuing to loose money operating it.  Yet, in the end, an astonishing percentage of Hoosiers decided they’ld like him to lead the state for another 4 years.  Why was this?  I’ll sum it up for you in two words:  competent governance.

The current administration in Washington came to power by shrewdly playing the political game.  Love him or hate him, you have to admit: Karl Rove’s got game.  However, political success and governing success are two very different things.  The administration chose to continue to play the political game throughout their eight years, always sticking to an ideallogically driven political agenda, even when facts on the ground changed and policy change was warranted from a governing perspective.  As a result, so called conservatives presided over some of the largest expansions of the federal goverment since the Great Society.

In stark contrast, Mitch inherited a terribly managed state goverment and managed to nicely turn the ship of state onto a better course in just four years.  Not by playing political games, but by adopting innovative and fiscally responsible policies and producing results.  In the end, those results hold much more sway with the voters than who scored more points playing the game.

  1. Based, completely, on my anecdotal evidence watching a flood of new youngsters at my precinct go in and out of the booth in 30 seconds ↩
 
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Posted in Politics

 

Problems in Education: It isn’t about money

03 Aug

While catching up on last week’s news, I ran across this op-ed piece in the New York Times by David Brooks.  He laments our dwindling lead in competitivenes and fingers our inability to maintain the education gap we enjoyed for much of the last century as the culprit:

America’s edge boosted productivity and growth. But the happy era ended around 1970 when America’s educational progress slowed to a crawl. Between 1975 and 1990, educational attainments stagnated completely. Since then, progress has been modest. America’s lead over its economic rivals has been entirely forfeited, with many nations surging ahead in school attainment.

Since then, we’ve been trying to buy are way out of the problem, as inflation adjusted, per pupil spending has steadily marched up.  This, unfortunately, is doomed to fail:

In “Schools, Skills and Synapses,” Heckman probes the sources of that decline. It’s not falling school quality, he argues. Nor is it primarily a shortage of funding or rising college tuition costs. Instead, Heckman directs attention at family environments, which have deteriorated over the past 40 years.

Heckman points out that big gaps in educational attainment are present at age 5. Some children are bathed in an atmosphere that promotes human capital development and, increasingly, more are not. By 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t.

This is a societal problem which will require much more creative solutions than just raising my property taxes.  Although, in the end, that will probably happen too.

 
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Posted in Economics, Politics

 

Credit where credit is due: my man Mitch

21 Jul

I’m not much for talking politics, and, Lord knows, I’m loathe to say nice things about politicians.  However, this story from the IBJ news feed is worth comment:

Standard & Poor’s Rating Service has raised Indiana’s credit rating to its highest-ever, allowing schools and other agencies to borrow money at lower interest rates.

Standard & Poor’s pushed the rating to “AAA” from “AA+,” where it had stood since 2006.

The was due in part to property tax reform, low-overall state debt levels, a stable and diversifying economy, and relatively conservative biennial budget.

The new rate reflects the state’s “continued strong management that has led to the property tax reform that has realigned state and local spending and is not expected to impact the state’s long-term financial performance,” S&P said.

He had me wondering at first with his proclivity for building new roads, but Mitch came in and did exactly what he said he was going to do:  Move this state out of the malaise it sat in for 16+ years.  He did so innovative ideas and determination to stick to his vision even when it’s not popular.  That is what I call leadership.

Meanwhile, his opponents are still sputtering about having to change their clocks.

 
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Posted in Politics