The Republic
IF politics is indeed the art of compromise, leaders in the General Assembly and Gov. Mitch Daniels' office have a lot to learn.
Tuesday evening the assembly finally adopted and Daniels signed a two-year budget plan that ironically involved compromise on both sides.
The problem is that it was a compromise that could have been fashioned much earlier, thus saving the state a considerable amount of money spent on a special session and sparing thousands of Hoosiers the emotional trauma caused by the prospect of a government shutdown.
In the end leaders of both sides described the final version as tainted with defects but one that the majority of them could live with. It can be argued that the legislators came to a meeting of the minds for fear of the prospect that state government (with some exceptions) would have been shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday had there not been a resolution.
Thousands of state workers would have been deprived of their paychecks, and state parks would have been closed in the middle of the tourist season.
This kind of political brinksmanship is clearly dangerous. It should never have gotten to this point, and Hoosier voters have cause to ask why the compromise couldn't have been made in the regular legislative session.
Republicans such as Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, were happy with the fiscal impact of the final version. Walker said that it forces the state to "live within its means" and not impose any general tax increases on Hoosiers. Democrats said they were able to get more money for K-12 education.
It appears that a major sticking point for some Democratic legislators was the absence of additional funding in individual districts.
Especially galling to some representatives from the northwest quadrant of the state was the deletion of some of their projects, while Indianapolis Capital Improvements Board got funding to help ease its $20 million budget deficit.
Such deadlocks are not uncommon, although it's been 16 years since the state last went through this exercise where a budget was adopted within hours of the government being shut down.
With each party controlling one of the legislative assemblies, disagreements are certain to arise, but they have been worked out in the past, and they could have been worked out much earlier this time.