What?s the alternative to using new taxes, gimmicks, and uncertain federal money to prop up a bloated state budget? Bloomberg Business Week offers us one example this week: the administration of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels:
“Government’s the last great monopoly, overcharging and underserving its customers. It’s not a business but can be more businesslike,” says Daniels during a diner stop for a Styrofoam cup of black coffee. Daniels has tried to turn his administration into a case study of how a private-sector mentality can transform public policy.
Later we read about some instructive examples:
An executive order giving state workers collective bargaining rights? Ditched. Daniels sold the state toll road to a Spanish-Australian consortium for a head-turning $3.9 billion before the recession (there’s self-financed road construction everywhere, itself a lure to business) and put most of the state on the Eastern time zone, ending a history of multiple time zones that drove businesses crazy.
