GOP leaders announced Thursday that they had chosen Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to deliver their party's rebuttal to Obama's State of the Union Address next week.
A statement accompanying the decision commended Daniels, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush, for his record of fiscal management in the Hoosier State.
"Governor Daniels, now in his eighth and final year as Indiana's chief executive, has compiled a solid record of effective government and fiscal responsibility, making him well-suited to outline Republicans' better solutions to the challenges Americans are facing in this struggling economy," the announcement read, according to The Hill.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joined in with the compliments.
"As governor, he has turned deficits into surplus, reformed government from top to bottom, and created a better environment for private-sector job creation," Boehner said.
"An eloquent spokesman for limited government, Gov. Daniels knows that President Obama's three-year experiment in big government has made our economy worse and our future more uncertain, and he knows that Americans want a government that's simpler, streamlined and secure," McConnell said.
Last year, Daniels had a different agenda for the day of the Obama's address. He admitted to reporters at the time that he had spent the night watching a college basketball game and hadn't tuned in to hear the president's remarks.
Obama will address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Jan. 24.