Chuck Todd Bashes Mitch Daniels for Indiana Having Same Unemployment Rate as Nation

Chuck Todd on Sunday bashed Republican governor Mitch Daniels for his state having a 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

The substitute host of NBC's "Meet the Press" must not be aware that this is lower than most of Indiana's neighbors and is basically the same as the national rate (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHUCK TODD, SUBSTITUTE HOST: Let's talk about your record as governor of Indiana. I want to put up a basic thing here on jobs. When you took office, the unemployment rate was 5.4 percent. Now it's 9.1 percent. When you took office, nearly three million Indianan--Hoosiers were employed, now it's 2.8. I say this--so it's a loss of 144,000 jobs.

I say this because you have made a huge effort to pay down the state's debt, to really pinch the budget down. But that has--job creation hasn't come with it. And we've heard arguments among Republicans here in Washington and across these statehouses that you shrink government, it will create jobs. When did--we're not seeing evidence of that in Indiana.

GOV. DANIELS: You could put up that same graphic for probably 48 or 49 states in America. A national, catastrophic recession will do that to you. Before that recession started, we were at essentially full employment.

I guess Todd forgot about the supposedly worst recession since the Great Depression that started in December 2007. Also slipping his mind was that the national unemployment rate is 8.9 percent basically the same as Indiana's.

More importantly, as far as the Midwest is concerned, Indiana's doing pretty well. Here are the unemployment rates for Indiana's neighbors:

• Illinois - 9.0
• Kentucky - 10.4
• Michigan - 10.7
• Ohio - 9.4

Put in that context, Indiana looks pretty darned good.

Of course, Todd didn't share this with his viewers. Think he would have if Daniels was a Democrat?

Equally absurd was Todd's comment, "[We've] heard arguments among Republicans here in Washington and across these statehouses that you shrink government, it will create jobs. When did--we're not seeing evidence of that in Indiana."

As this state with its tight budget has basically the same unemployment rate as the nation as a whole, doesn't that disprove the Left's view that profligate government spending such as what President Obama and the Democrats have done will create jobs?

Which would you rather have - an 8.9 percent unemployment rate with exploding debt or a 9.1 percent unemployment rate with a balanced budget?

I wish Daniels would have thought to ask his liberal interrogator this.