While congressional Republicans are railing against earmarks, Indiana governor and possible GOP presidential candidate Mitch Daniels thinks the issue is overblown.
“Let me just say: I think we pay too much attention to it,” said Daniels in an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “The fiscal problems facing this country won’t be fixed by earmarks, and it’s a little bit of a distraction to spend as much time as we do [talking about it].”
Daniels, a fiscal hawk and former director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush, drew fire from some conservatives last year when he said the next president would need a “truce” on social issues to concentrate on fixing America’s budget crisis.
“I believe that there’s zero-sum relationship between government growth and freedom,” Daniels said in an interview with the New York Times earlier this month. “I think that the promotion and protection of liberty is the center of our project in this country. My preference is for confining government to those things it clearly must do.”
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