A “Sober” State of the State
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels spelled out a State of the State tonight which he called sobering, but also held opportunities.
In the 30-minute speech Daniels advocated education, a balanced budget and government reform. The speech did not directly refer to Indiana’s jobs situation, however in a pre-State of the State briefing, administration officials said the speech inherently endorsed job creation by calling for making the tax caps permanent and directing more money to the classroom; both would contribute to Indiana’s economic climate.
The Governor reiterated previous themes of no tax increases, preserving the surplus and government reform.
Daniels pointed out that 39 cents of every education dollar is spent outside the classroom and he pointed to certain examples of non-instructional programs such as Clark County Schools which offered their school boards health insurance for one dollar a year.
He also advocated more school discipline and clearer immunity for teachers who have to restore order in the classroom.
The Governor did try to balance a tone of cooperation, but also there was some challenging of lawmakers. He said the budget was full of “hard decisions and unwelcome choices” and that tough times called for separating the “winners from the whiners and the brave from the weak of will” but that lawmakers would “approach those decisions in a spirit of compromise and shared responsibility.” He reminded lawmakers that they worked together to solve past problems, but he also alluded a couple times in his speech to his November victory at the polls where he received nearly 60-percent of the vote.
And with the national economy as a backdrop, Daniels told lawmakers that Indiana was in much better shape than most of the rest of the county and that other states were looking at Indiana as an example.
This is going to be an interesting session, to say the least. As I pointed out in an earlier post, Democrats and the Daniels’ administration got into a somewhat testy exchange in the House Ways and Means Committee. With very little cash to play with, projected revenues falling short and a national economy that won’t be getting better anytime soon, as sober as the Governor’s assessment was, I think it will take a quite a few drinks for these guys to work out their differences.
