The Blade’s Response to the State of the Union Address

The transcript of what Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said can be found here. When the Blade claims Obama’s policies were pro-poverty, what he seems to be saying that in the face of insufficient aggregate demand, the right policy should have been austerity - cutting government spending. Talk about Herbert Hoover economics!

Governor Daniels also expressed concerns about the size of the Federal deficit. Folks give this governor too much credit for the fiscal shape of Indiana, which they assert has been dramatically improved by his policies. Lest we forget, however, that a source of revenues for Indiana was the one time sale of toll rights to the private sector. Sacrificing future toll revenues to collect cash that has a lower present value is not a long-term solution to a government’s fiscal follies.

Of course, we get this rhetoric:

There is a second item on our national must-do list: we must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century respectively, it’s not surprising that they need some repairs.

By repairs – does he mean the Paul Ryan plan to effectively eliminate Medicare?

Finally, we get this canard:

Contrary to the President’s constant disparagement of people in business, it’s one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew.

Rebuttal outsourced to Paul Krugman.