If the Governors of Ohio and Kentucky want tips on how to balance their budget, they might pick up the phone and call Mitch Daniels of Indiana.
"We’ve got over a billion dollars – about a month’s operations – in a savings account now," the Republican leader said Thursday before touring the Dearborn County Fair in Lawrenceburg.
That’s been done without an over-reliance on gaming receipts from casinos, video slots and the lottery, according to Daniels.
Ohio is cutting $2.4 billion from its budget. Gambling backers have enough signatures on petitions to put an issue on the November ballot to build casinos in Cincinnati and other Ohio cities.
Kentucky’s General Assembly last week quashed a measure that would have allowed video slots at horse tracks. Leaders of Turfway Park in Florence say that might mean the track will close at the end of the 2010 racing season.
That leaves Indiana and its billion dollar reserve. How did the Hoosier state do it?
"We have a quaint, little custom in Indiana," Governor Daniels said. "We don’t spend money we don’t have."
When Daniels began his first term in 2005, the state was nearly broke. He cut per person spending every year and still was able to enact the biggest tax cut in Hoosier history.
"We didn’t do that, though, until we balanced our budget, paid back debts to schools and localities and put some money in a savings account," Daniels said while visiting the 4-H and FFA livestock exhibits.
Indiana has had casino gambling for 16 years and Daniels says gaming now accounts for seven-percent of the state’s annual revenue.
That might increase with Thursday’s opening of the new Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg. It replaces the Argosy Casino riverboat. Hollywood owners invested $150 million in the project.
"I think we’ll see an increase in business," said Mayor Bill Cunningham. "This will be the closest thing you can get to Las Vegas – believe me – without flying out there."
However, Daniels doesn’t want the state to become too dependant on gambling revenue, since he says it’s flattened out in recent years.
There have been calls by Democrat leaders in the Indiana Legislature to raise taxes and dip into the reserve fund.
Governor Daniels says that will not happen on his watch. "Absolutely not! There’s no need for it," he stated.
