Mitch Daniels is the far-Right Governor who created the template for Walker in Wisconsin and Kasich in Ohio. I know the myth goes that the Tea Party took over the formerly moderate GOP in 2010 and that’s where the coordinated conservative multi-state strategy came from, but the truth is there’s no daylight between Walker and Kasich and Daniels and Daniels has been in office since 2005. The Tea Party Theory never really made any sense.
Daniels has been putting in place the identical conservative policies and practices that Walker and Kasich espouse, and he’s been doing that unimpeded since 2005. I look to Indiana to see what’s up next on the multi-state, anti-worker agenda.
Daniels ended public employee unions by executive order shortly after he was elected and he’s conducted a careful, low-key campaign to destroy unions in Indiana since that time.
Gov. Mitch Daniels says Indiana could see an economic boost from a contentious “right-to-work” proposal, but stopped short of saying he wants state legislators to approve it.
A legislative study committee voted 5-4 along party lines last week to support a proposal that would prohibit workers from being required to pay union representation fees. A bill on the issue sparked this year’s five-week walkout by House Democrats
The Republican governor told the Kokomo Tribune’s editorial board on Thursday that a “right-to-work” law would make the state more competitive.
“We know there is about a quarter of the opportunities that won’t look at us because of the lack of this law,” Daniels said.
While Daniels hasn’t publicly endorsed the proposal, his state commerce secretary testified in favor of it during a study committee meeting in July.
Daniels knows this is a politically perilous issue for Republicans- there are a significant number of private sector union members who vote Republican-so he’ll keep some distance between his carefully crafted brand and the policies he supports and actively, if not publicly, promotes. Daniels is a much better politician than Walker or Kasich.
Daniels is promising jobs (again) if he’s successful in ending private sector collective bargaining in Indiana, which is what he promised when he ended public sector collective bargaining in Indiana, way back in 2005.
These are the unemployment rates in Indiana and Ohio 8.9 versus 9.1
Daniels has had years and years to put in the far-Right “jobs” plan he created, and this is where Indiana is when compared to Ohio, in terms of unemployment: 8.9 versus 9.1
The ever-elusive job creators are apparently holding out for one more concession from Mr. Daniels. Well, not really “from” Mitch Daniels. Job creators are demanding one more concession from the people of Indiana. No jobs for Indiana unless there’s no organized labor in Indiana. Daniels has given them everything they demanded since 2005, and more, and he’s still chasing them down that hill. He just lowered the corporate income tax rate and they’re already back for more goodies. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t give them. They probably know that by now.
BGinCHI
Doghouse Riley is the best one on this beat, and has been following and annihilating Daniels for years now:
http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/
Always a good read over there.
JPL
GA is a right to work state and our unemployment rate is over ten percent. All the law guarantees is that you have the right to be fired.
kay
@JPL:
Mitch Daniels is going to steal all your jobs, as soon as he overturns child labor laws. I really don’t know what they offer next. There isn’t much left to give.
General Stuck
These fuckers won’t be satisfied until half the country is working in a sandal factory for 43 cents an hour, and the other half are being chased around by the cops with pepper spray. “Political Peril” has been penciled out of the wingnut handbook, and replaced with “You owe your soul to the company store”
BGinCHI
@kay: Does that make Mitch Daniels a Copperhead?
The Moar You Know
Huh. Wonder where all the jobs are? At this point Indiana should have a 0% unemployment rate.
Needless to say, voters are idiots.
Linnaeus
Neofeudalism, baby. Catch the wave!
Maude
@kay:
They can change the definition of child. How about the moment a child is born, he or she is old enough to work.
dr. luba
@Maude: I thought that the republican definition of a child begins at conception. If they could, they’d put blastocysts to work.
TooManyJens
When you’re dating, and there are people who won’t go out with you because you actually have standards, you generally recognize that you are better off without those people anyway. Just sayin’.
Maude
@dr. luba:
I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. I can see that I was wrong.
Hunter Gathers
@kay: Hey, his wife’s, shall we say, interesting past is keeping him from running for POTUS, so somebody’s got to pay. Besides, you can’t burnish your ‘centrist’ creds and get that semi-permanent panel spot on ‘Dancing Dave’s Weekly Televised Time Suck’ unless you stick it to the working class. Shows how tough you are.
Steve
As a general rule, economic policy at the state and local level seems to be much less about actually promoting economic growth and much more about enticing jobs away from some other place. While I don’t blame anyone for trying to get their piece of the pie, ultimately it should be obvious that we don’t gain anything as a nation if Indiana persuades some factory to relocate from Ohio. And since the way they make that happen is by participating in a race to the bottom in terms of wages, benefits, union rights, etc., it actually makes us worse off collectively.
All you ever hear about is that the federal government has too much power over the economy, but what we really should be debating is whether state governments are adding any value at all to the process.
singfoom
“We must destroy the
villagestate to save thevillagestate.”The idea that we need to just stop constraining the “job creators” has taken on a surrealist content for me at this point.
If they actually cared, they’d work on making sure that sustainable jobs that pay a living wage were being created, track the numbers on that, see what works and what doesn’t and support it.
But this isn’t about jobs. This about how to “empower” the “job creators” to
create jobsextract wealth from the lower classes. Fuckers.kay
@Maude:
How do conservatives see this ending, I wonder? There’s no limit to how much they can give job creators, really. I’m pretty sure Daniels is already into negative numbers, as far as taxes on business. I envision a conservative/libertarian utopia, where employees of job creators hand back a portion of their wages to job creators. Cut out the big government middleman.
Culture of Truth
Nice job creation there Mitch
jayjaybear
Wow…these legendary Job Creators are incredibly unreliable saviors, aren’t they? They’re not terribly bold and manly, like their press seems to suggest…they’re very timid, and cautious, like mice living next to a cattery. We have to luuuuure them out, entiiiiice them to come and Create those Jobs. Lord knows they’ve had a decade or more of those incredibly low taxes that their spokesmen in Congress claim they need to be secure enough to go ahead and Create Jobs. And yet…
Doug
Doghouse is awesome. I’d kill to be able to write like that guy.
I’ve covered this stuff on my own humble blog from time to time. If anyone’s interested, here are a couple of entries from January 11, 2005 (with the well-reasoned title, “Daniels to State Employees: Suck It!”) and January 12, 2005. I was new to blogging at the time and wasn’t very familiar with Gov. Daniels at the time, so they aren’t my most informative work.
Also, my recent take on the proposed “right to work (for less)” legislation. The way it’s structured, it impairs freedom to contract and restricts and employer’s ability to set the conditions of employment — normally these things are anathema to the sorts of people who typically support “right to work” legislation.
Hill Dweller
Daniels was Dubya’s budget director…
Villago Delenda Est
How low will he go?
This is like asking where the edge of the universe is.
Wayback machine to the fucking 12th century. To include pandemic disease.
There is no hell hot enough to adequately punish garbage like Daniels.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – but that didn’t take long. New to twitter (only 5 tweets so far)
@CainsSecretServ
Cains Secret Service #ThingsYouShouldStopDoingInYour30s: Consider taking a bullet for a pizza guy on a book tour. #CainSecretService
1 hour ago via web
Nellcote
In other jobs news, The Prez negotiates 2.8 billion in Boeing airliners to Indonesia. Chrysler announces 1,100 new jobs in Toledo, Ohio.
Maude
@kay:
They don’t thing at all about results of their actions. It’s like feel good actions and words and well, that’s all there is to it.
Bush thought, I use the term thought, loosely, that Iraq would take 3 months and the US would own all of the oil fields. That was the original plan. Go in, secure the oil fields, set up a puppet government and the US oil companies would be in business.
It didn’t work out that way. Bush doesn’t care at all that so many people were injured, destroyed or died. He does not care.
None of these Republican extremists care. They aren’t hurt by any of it.
BGinCHI
This also reminds me of proposals to universities in, I think, Ohio that said: we’ll give you less state funding but get rid of the state regulations that are holding you back.
Which is hilarious. As if universities were only being held back by regulations from offering excellent programs to students at reasonable prices. Money would just flow in without such regs.
What regs? This is so stupid I can only assume they are out of ideas.
Holden Pattern
@kay:
Like China, baby!
Citizen_X
Can we please stop referring to the rich as “job creators?” Most of them would just as soon destroy ten thousand jobs if there were a buck in it (ex: Mitt Romney).
kay
@Maude:
I don’t understand why Daniels is considered so great, among the far-Righties at the state level. Has anyone in that state actually benefitted from anything he’s done? When’s the big pay-off?
Redshift
Suppressing unions and regulations on business will produce tremendous growth, which is why Alabama always stands out as a model for the nation, right?
The only difference in economic statistics between “right-to-fire” states and union states is that people in non-union states are paid less. Wingnut governors know this, except for the ones who are stupid enough to believe their own bullshit.
kay
@Nellcote:
This is huge, and Kasich got booed when he showed up to take credit, so I’ll have to put it up :)
Maude
@kay:
Hey, if you ever figure that out, let me know. I get more confused by the day with these rotten Reps.
Redshift
@Citizen_X: I saw a comment (at Charlie Pierce’s place, I think) referring to the idea that there will be more jobs if we just do more for “job creators” as “job creationism.”
Love that.
fleeting expletive
I dreamed last night that I was at both an Occupy event and at a town hall meeting. When the douchy MoU’s and the politicians were present, my group would stand up, point our fingers at them and just go HAHAHAHAHA.
Charade you Are. Right?
El Cid
Where “Right to Work” came from.
Gex
@kay: Company housing and company stores for those who are lucky to be granted jobs.
Yutsano
He can go as low as he wants Kay. As long as he says the right things to the right white folk, he’ll still get re-elected. I’m certain he’s got a solid no browns/abortions/teh ghey profile in place. And as long as too many people vote cultural issues over economic interest, this shit will keep happening.
Jay C
This sounds kinda vague; especially coming from Mitch Daniels, who has been (still is, G*d-knows-why) touted by Righties as the archetypal green-eyeshade-and-arm-garters-style “hardnosed analyst” sort of GOP governor we all need: presumably Gov. Daniels has some hard figures and/or documentation to support his claim? Or is it just anecdotal chat he heard from friends-of-friends in the bar at the Country Club?
Schlemizel
This is all so simple – once you people realize that you have to compete on wages and benefits with the workers in China, India, Thailand and Nicaragua and accept those levels there will be plenty of jobs here in the US for all of us.
Who is going to buy the $180 Nikes or $500 iPads you are making for $7 a day will work itself out.
Schlemizel
@Maude:
There have been proposals by Republican State legislators in at least 3 different states that I am aware of looking to eliminate child labor laws. Make no mistake about these people, their intend is pure evil.
The Moar You Know
Again, voters are idiots.
Indiana gubernatorial election, 2004
Republican, Mitch Daniels 53.2
Democratic, Joe Kernan (Incumbent) 45.5
Libertarian, Kenn Gividen 1.3
Indiana gubernatorial election, 2008
Republican, Mitch Daniels (Incumbent) 57.8
Democratic, Jill Long Thompson 40.1
Libertarian, Andy Horning 2.1
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Neo-Confederates, gotta have a planter aristocracy they can
respectlick the boots of.punkdavid
@Redshift:
Job Creationism. This meme needs to spread. I saw that yesterday as well and posted it my facebook. I wrote it like this:
“JOB CREATIONISM: The faith-based economic theory that reduction in business regulations increases employment.”
Citizen_X
@Redshift: Heh heh. I’m using that one.
Schlemizel
@punkdavid:
Just went up on my FB page!
Quincy
This. I don’t think anything captured it better than that video of the Rick Perry interview where he’s asked about why he supports abstinence-only education when the results have been so terrible. He failed to understand the question. I honestly believe it never occurred to him that anyone would ever measure the results of any governmental policy. Abstinence-only education is the right principle, which makes it the right policy. Their goal is to implement their beliefs. They don’t spend any time thinking or caring about what the results might be, enshrining their principles is the end game. Every economic policy question is as much a matter of faith as any religious or social issue. Employers should not be restricted in any way. Will this create jobs? None of them have ever actually looked into it. They know its helpful to say for political reasons, but they believe the answer is self-evident, they could not possibly be wrong, and soon as they’ve implemented the policy their work is done and time to move on to the next thing.
The Ancient Randonneur
Vermont, you know, that great bastion of conservatism and the home of famous and much beloved conservative heart throb Senator Bernie Sanders, has a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 5.8% and it leads the nation in exports on a per capita basis.
Those liberals down in Dixie should just shut up and get a job! What next? They already seem bound and determined to force gun control on us!
Yutsano
@The Ancient Randonneur: And just passed a single-payer health care law. I would transfer to Andover just to live there now.
Tone In DC
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Ancient Randonneur, thanks for some tangible fact-based rebuttle to made up shit. I appreciate it, and really needed to read that after all the MSM/winger bullshit we all wade through day after day.
Silver Owl
Rather than trash the lives of the Indiana residents Daniels should be the one on his knees puffin on the peters of all the business executives he loves so much. Pretty much he’s whoring out the residents so he doesn’t have to actually do the physical whoring himself. Pimp is the term.
rikryah
if they are stupid enough to believe him, then no better for them
NobodySpecial
When Daniels has got done giving away everything to the plutocrats, his residents will be happy that we still file in from Illinois and buy their watermelons.
John of Indiana
And somewhere, Mike Pence is leering at the mirror and saying “Wait’ll they get a load of *ME*!”
He will create plenty of jobs with his religious police who go around every Sunday and Wednesday evening rousting out the slackers and getting them to church…
Daniels is term-limited, so unless he’s got his eye on something in DC, he’s done. More time to keep the missus from wandering off.
dollared
Can someone, anyone, explain why any union member votes for a Republican?
Yutsano
@dollared:
Guns, God, and gays. Pretty much cultural issues overriding their common sense.
DanielX
Late to the fair again….but I just can’t help myself. Anywhere but here in our fair state, Mitch Daniel’s record as W’s budget director would have disqualified him for political office. You know, that period when we went from a semi-balanced budget to the point where the economy went down faster than the media on Tim Tebow and the deficit took the E train to fucking Mars? I mean, isn’t helping to prevent that shit part of the budget director’s job?
But, Our (but not MY) Man Mitch gets a pass on that, just like he gets a pass on so much else. Mitch is pretty much a standard issue corporate Republican, which does cause one to wonder how and why so many Republican union members (yes, they exist here, amazingly enough) voted for him. Kind of thing that makes you want to scream at them: “Why are you voting for this guy? HE WANTS TO CUT YOUR THROAT!”
On the other hand, it’s kind of refreshing after having to put up with Evan Bayh as governor for all those years – at least Mitch is relatively straightforward by comparison. Truman was right – give people the choice between a real Republican and an imitation, they’ll pick the real thing. At least Daniels is up front about how he wants workers to get screwed. Next up, Mike Pence, who is much more Tea party oriented – if you like Scott Walker, you’re gonna just adore Mike Pence, who is another dyed-in-the-wool prick with ears.
DanielX
@Quincy: You are correct, sir! That is EXACTLY the point. Whether a policy actually works or not is immaterial to wingnuts as long as it’s ideologically correct. Or, more exactly, it’s okay if it doesn’t work as long as it’s ideologically correct, and it’s bad if it’s ideologically incorrect, even if it produces desirable ends. For example, Social Security – which does what it was designed to do, help keep the elderly from starving – is bad, because those people who held relatively low paying jobs when they were working should have saved 15% of their income for all those years instead of being dependent on guvmint handouts. Plus it forces wingnuts to pay taxes to be spent on other people, especially THOSE people (if you know who I’m talking about, and I think you do).
It’s kinda like that old rhyme about Prohibition, just modified accordingly.
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime,
It don’t prohibit worth a dime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we’re for it.
These folk are true believers. Facts and empirical evidence are meaningless to them when those things conflict with their beliefs. They believe those who don’t agree with them are not wrong or misguided, but evil. That’s why you see so much violent rhetoric coming from wingnuts. They believe what they choose to believe, they’re not going to change and they’re not going to stop – they will go on calling and donating money and stuffing envelopes, and if it results in a dictatorship a lot of them would say the country would be the better for it.