Treasurer Says Investments Solid, Long Thompson Misleading Voters

INDIANAPOLIS -- The state treasurer said Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson is misleading voters by claiming about $1 billion in state funds from the Indiana Toll Road lease have been invested in risky ways.

Long Thompson first raised the issue in Tuesday night's gubernatorial debate, saying about $1 billion of the $3.8 billion the state got from leasing the Indiana Toll Road had been invested unwisely. She said about 22 percent of Major Moves funds had been invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Unlike Gov. Daniels, the buck will always stop with me," she said during the debate. "I'm not willing to risk the future of any Hoosier taxpayer dollar by putting it into investments that are questionable, or in some cases, even risky."

But State Treasurer Richard Mourdock on Wednesday called her comments bizarre and unacceptable. He said Long Thompson should know that the law requires the treasurer, not the governor, to invest all state funds, and that the mortgage investments are rock solid because they're guaranteed by the federal government.

"It's only somebody desperate who would come out and make some comment to imply that what we've done in the state of Indiana is putting public funds at risk, when as I've just shown you … the investments that we make are safer than are in everyday pension funds," he said.

Mourdock said the state had made more than $300 million on the investments from July 2006 to this past June, or a rate of return of about 4.5 percent.