INDIANAPOLIS (WAVE) - He served under President Bush, then lead Hoosiers as the 49th Governor, seeing Indiana through some hard times and many good times.
After eight years as Governor, during his last year in office the biggest stories Mitch Daniels had to talk about involved family. All of his daughters wither gave birth, were expecting or planning to walk down the aisle.
"I say somebody should make a bad movie about us, Three Babies and a Wedding! Huh, does that sound like a movie guys?"
If there was a documentary about Daniels time in office, he's hoping for positive reviews, "I can look back over eight years and honestly say we got a lot of things done - big things."
Daniels cited the states jobs climate, consistently ranked in the top 3 for states, new roads and bridges without new taxes, lower property taxes and a two billion dollar state surplus.
And the man who considered a run for the White House this year says Washington needs to get its budget in order, "We can't do absolutely everything for absolutely everybody absolutely as much as they'd like all at the same time!"
Daniels blames the current administration for out of control spending, "I believe that were are in for a continued stretch of a lousy national economy. Somebody wrote that we need a recovery from President Obama's recovery and we do."
For Daniels, the biggest budget breaker from the White House is the President's health care plan.
Daniels explained, "Everything said about it in its behalf was untrue. Its gonna raise spending, not lower it. Its gonna raise debt not lower it. Raise health care costs, not lower it and a lot of people are already losing their health insurance they have and prefer and they were told that wouldn't happen."
Daniels says Indiana leads the way in showing government can do well with less, "We have the fewest state employees per capita per citizen in the country, yet we have the highest rating, 77 percent of Hoosiers say their state government is effective and doing a good job."
Now Daniels heads to another executive position, in a new field, academics as President of Purdue University.
He says it's a job he's brushing up for, "I tell all my friends I know there are some students on campus studying harder than me, but not a lot. I've been reading books, taking field trips, visiting with everybody in sight."
With the Governor's office in sight in his rear view mirror he says he has no regrets, "There's a season for everything and I feel like we've had eight great seasons!"
His current term as governor ends in January.
He will be followed by newly elected mike pence.
Copyright 2012 WAVE News. All rights reserved.
Governor Mitch Daniels
