Mitch Daniels, Architect of US Debt Crisis

Exclusive: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is the new Republican darling of the Washington establishment, which hails him as a “fiscal conservative” who would be “serious” about addressing the nation’s staggering debt problem. But his many admirers forget to mention what Daniels did in creating the debt crisis as George W. Bush’s budget director, notes Robert Parry.

Robert Parry

May 14, 2011

To hear Official Washington tell it, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is the new “serious” Republican presidential contender. He’s praised as a “fiscal conservative” who isn’t obsessed with the Right’s divisive social agenda nor marred by the crazy “birther” conspiracy theories.

Mentioned only in passing is a key fact that – in a saner world – would disqualify him from holding any government office: Mitch Daniels was President George W. Bush’s original budget director in 2001.

In other words, the “fiscal conservative” Daniels oversaw the federal budget as it was making its precipitous dive from a $236 billion surplus – then on a trajectory to eliminate the entire federal debt in a decade – to a $400 billion deficit by the time he left in June 2003.