regarding the state budget, which was finally passed last night, the indy star ed board asks, "why did it take so long?"

of course, one of the easiest and most obvious answers to this question is because the governor was more concerned about defeating the democratic budget proposal than about actually getting a budget passed.

after all, let's not forget why we went to special session in the first place. senate republicans and house democrats had reached a compromise on a budget back in april. governor daniels had even led republicans to believe that he'd support that agreement, but at the last minute he moved the goalposts and announced he wouldn't support the plan without more cuts. the plan subsequently fell apart.

if the governor hadn't pulled the old switcheroo back then, the budget would've passed and there would've been no special session. of course, that would've been bad for mitch, because almost none of his proposals had passed. the special session gave him a second chance and getting some of his policies passed—and in the end, it worked. ¶

It was instructive last night listening as the local teevee political reporters actually began talking about what was in the bill, rather than chiming the hours of the doomsday clock. Channel 6 got one more chance to run its price-tag graphic with "what the special session was costing us" without ever once having mentioned who'd ordered the damn thing in the first place. ¶