Mitch Daniels Sweetheart Dealmaking

8:58 pm EST November 14th, 2007 | News | Comments Off

You’ll remember Mitch Daniels as the OMB director for Bush who oversaw the change of Bill Clinton’s surplus into George Bush’s deficit. We’ll he’s moved on to be governor of Indiana and has transplanted the administration’s policy of paying back their big money backers with the money of taxpayers.

Scott Jones, serial entrepreneur, has received an additional $8 million in funding from Mort Meyerson, formerly of Perot Systems and EDS, for his startup ChaCha. You’d think with such wealthy backers, Jones wouldn’t have to tap the public till. But no: ChaCha was recently granted $2 million from Indiana’s 21st Century Technology Fund administered by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation to build new, innovative features. What are these innovations that will debut next year, and how did the already well-funded startup receive this state-funded aid?

The services that ChaCha is adding to its search engine is search via text and voice over telephone devices. Hardly a novel concept. It’s essentially 411 with operators searching Goo — sorry, ChaCha for results. So why did the cash-strapped state provide the millionaire with a couple more million?

It certainly doesn’t hurt that close friend Governor Mitch Daniels, whom Jones has helped raise a million dollars for his reelection bid, is the Chairman of the Board for the IEDC.