Quotes by Mitch Daniels

"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?"

"We are taking challenges and turning them into opportunities by developing homegrown, local energy production to become independent from foreign sources."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves."

"We believe that government works for the benefit of private life, and not the other way around."

"Our main task is not to see that people of great wealth add to it, but that those without much money have a greater chance to earn some."

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

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

"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."

"Every successful enterprise has a very clear strategic purpose."

"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."

"Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb."

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

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

"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."

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others."

"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."

"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.'"