Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked
what sort of government the delegates had created. His reply to the
crowd: A republic, if you can keep it. Now America's most respected
governor explains just how close we've come to losing the republic, and
how we can restore it to greatness.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has been called the most presidential man
in America. He has brought more change to his state in a few years than
most see in decades.
During his tenure, Daniels turned a $700 million deficit into a billion
dollar surplus, balanced Indiana's budget even during the recession,
converted its once unattractive business climate into one of the
strongest for private sector job growth.
The Hoosier state is now a model of good and efficient governance. Its
public sector payroll is now the smallest per capita in the nation. And
yet services have improved across the board. Even its Bureau of Motor
Vehicles -- the ultimate symbol of dysfunctional bureaucracy - has been
rated the best in the country.
Daniels has done this by focusing on government's core responsibilities,
cutting taxes, empowering citizens, and performing what he calls an old
tribal ritual - spending less money than his state takes in, while
distinguishing between skepticism towards big government and hostility
towards all government.
Unfortunately few politicians have the discipline or courage to follow
his lead. And worse, many assume that Americans are too intimidated,
gullible or dim-witted to make wise decisions about their health care,
mortgages, the education of their kids, and other important issues. The
result has been a steady decline in freedom, as elite government experts
-- our benevolent betters, in Daniels' phrase -- try to regulate every
aspect of our lives.
Daniels bluntly calls our exploding national debt a survival-level
threat to the America we have known. He shows how our underperforming
public schools have produced a workforce unprepared to compete with
those of other countries and ignorant of the requirements of citizenship
in a free society. He lays out the risk of greatly diminished long term
prosperity and the loss of our position of world leadership. He warns
that we may lose the uniquely American promise of upward mobility for
all.
But, the good news is that it's not too late to save America. However,
real change can't be imposed from above. It has to be what he calls
change that believes in you -- a belief that Americans, properly
informed of the facts, will pull together to make the necessary changes
and that they are best- equipped to make the decisions governing their
own lives. As he puts it:
I urge great care not to drift into a loss of faith in the American
people. We must never yield to the self-fulfilling despair that these
problems are immutable, or insurmountable. Americans are still a people
born to liberty. Addressed as free-born, autonomous men and women of
God-given dignity, they will rise yet again to drive back a mortal
enemy.
