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Mitch Daniels Quotes

Powerful Mitch Daniels for Daily Growth

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.'

- Mitch Daniels

Strength, Financial, Nation, Foreign

Our first thought is always for those on life's first rung, and how we might increase their chances of climbing.

- Mitch Daniels

Thought, Always, Might, Rung

We must display a heart for every American, and a special passion for those still on the first rung of life's ladder.

- Mitch Daniels

American, Still, Display, Rung

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.

- Mitch Daniels

Taxes, Been, Balanced, Anytime

Our morbidly obese federal government needs not just behavior modification but bariatric surgery.

- Mitch Daniels

Government, Needs, Federal, Obese

In fact, it works the other way: A government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class and those who hope to join it.

- Mitch Daniels

Fact, Big, Other, Bossy

The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.

- Mitch Daniels

Reward, Public, Increasingly, Refrain

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. We can debate its origins endlessly and search for villains on ideological grounds, but the reality is pure arithmetic.

- Mitch Daniels

Nation, Villains, Endlessly, Menace

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.

- Mitch Daniels

Your Child, Here, Entitled, Intend

The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing.

- Mitch Daniels

Change, Nothing, Social, Mislead

We don't have a prayer of defeating the Red Threat of our generation without a long boom of almost unprecedented duration.

- Mitch Daniels

Generation, Boom, Almost, Duration

Among the weeds choking out growth and good government are the hundreds of boards, commissions, and advisory committees that have sprouted over the years. They devour time, money, and energy far beyond any real contribution they make.

- Mitch Daniels

Good, Beyond, Boards, Committees

The failure of national economic policy is costing us more than jobs; it has begun to weaken that uniquely American spirit of risk-taking, large ambition, and optimism about the future. We must rally them now to bold departures that rebuild our national morale as well as our material prosperity.

- Mitch Daniels

Optimism, About, Risk-Taking, Costing

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.'

- Mitch Daniels

Hire, Act, Leaders, Profit

If freedom's best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come.

- Mitch Daniels

Big, Big Change, Fundamental, Attracts

The true enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who defend an imploding status quo.

- Mitch Daniels

Enemies, Social, Quo, Medicare

Every citizen who stops smoking, or loses a few pounds, or starts managing his chronic disease with real diligence, is caulking a crack for the benefit of us all.

- Mitch Daniels

Real, Citizen, Disease, Chronic

All great enterprises have a pearl of faith at their core, and this must be ours: that Americans are still a people born to liberty. That they retain the capacity for self-government. That, addressed as free-born, autonomous men and women of God-given dignity, they will rise yet again to drive back a mortal enemy.

- Mitch Daniels

Faith, Independence, Retain, God-Given

We designed both our state employee health plans and the one we created for low-income Hoosiers as Health Savings Accounts, and now in the tens of thousands these citizens are proving that they are fully capable of making smart, consumerist choices about their own health care.

- Mitch Daniels

Own, About, Tens, Accounts

I certainly believe in limited government but protecting children against injury abuse is certainly inside my sphere of things that the government should do.

- Mitch Daniels

Abuse, Protecting, Certainly, Sphere

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.

- Mitch Daniels

Some, Rather, Less Money, Cling

We see government's mission as fostering and enabling the important realms - our businesses, service clubs, Little Leagues, churches - to flourish.

- Mitch Daniels

Enabling, Fostering, Leagues, Businesses

Our educational results lag behind other states, and other nations, but worse still, behind the potential of the kids and the devoted teachers in our classrooms.

- Mitch Daniels

Behind, Other, Still, Classrooms

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.'

- Mitch Daniels

Back, Prove, Rule, Inverted

All great enterprises have a pearl of faith at their core, and this must be ours: that Americans are still a people born to liberty.

- Mitch Daniels

Faith, Born, Still, Enterprises

The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy. It borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.

- Mitch Daniels

Small, Nation, Private, Thrive

Finally, 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.

- Mitch Daniels

Treat, Energy Production, Unleash

We are tasked to rebuild not just a damaged economy, and a debt-ridden balance sheet, but to do so by drawing forth the best that is in our fellow citizens. If we would summon the best from Americans, we must assume the best about them. If we don't believe in Americans, who will?

- Mitch Daniels

Best, About, Summon, Assume

The president's grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars.

- Mitch Daniels

Rather, Sincerely, Held, Middle Class

There is nothing inconsistent about having a conservative outlook and being vigorous.

- Mitch Daniels

Conservative, About, Having, Vigorous

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