Indiana Finds $320 Million Lost By Mourdock

I guess here in Indiana we have a good news bad news story. The good news is the state found $320 million of tax revenue that had been accumulating since 2007. The bad news is we have an incompetent government that would do MF Global proud. " Christmas came early," Gov. Mitch Daniels said. Oh really? For whom? Dick Lugar and Bob Thomas? Senator Lugar is about to be challenged by in the Republican primary by Fort Wayne businessman Bob Thomas. Senator Lugar is, or probably was, facing a challenge from the man who lost the $320 million, the state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Losing money seems to be a thing with Mourdock. He gained national recognition during the Chrysler bailout when he fought, rightly, for the bondholder's rights glossing over the fact the he had wrongly purchased the bad paper. Ironically Mourdock owes his national Tea Party gravitas not to his achievements but rather to his ineptitude. Now we are supposed to be ecstatic that money Poor Richard lost turned up. For the record, if the Hoosier state had to rely on Mourdock and state auditor, Tim Berry, to keep track of its finances it would have been better off to have invested in some Quickens software. The money was found by the Indiana Department of Revenue.

We in the Tea Party have a natural distrust of government. Maybe most of us don't go as far as Thomas Paine and refer to it as a "badge of lost innocence" but we are skeptical of its ability to pursue the commonweal under the best of circumstances and with the best of intentions. We are mindful that to err is human and Mourdock has certainly driven that point home.