CLERE: What’s next? We find out today.

By ED CLERE
Local Columnist

June 23, 2009 01:51 pm

— STATEHOUSE — History awaits the Indiana General Assembly.
Let’s leave it waiting.
Don’t get me wrong. I was ready — and eager — to make history this year.
Unfortunately, we squandered our chance to make 2009 the year of local government reform and constitutional property tax caps.
Instead, 2009 may be remembered as the first time the General Assembly failed to pass a budget prior to the beginning of the state’s fiscal year, which starts a week from tomorrow.
Our problem isn’t that we don’t have a budget. It’s that we have three.
Gov. Mitch Daniels did as he was asked.
After the regular legislative session ended April 29 without a budget, the leaders of the four legislative caucuses agreed to a process for coming together on a spending plan. That process started with a recommended budget from the governor. It was a tough budget for tough times. It favored education and public safety while cutting everything else.
A special committee composed of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans was supposed to work from that budget and come up with a version with which everyone could live.
Upset over the governor’s budget, House Democrats walked out of the bipartisan committee and announced they would write their own budget.
They did, and it consumed the first week of the special session, which started June 11.
Last Thursday, it passed the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives 52-48, along party lines.
It then went to the Republican-controlled Senate, which immediately scrapped it and started over. The Senate version of the budget goes to the House today.
If, for some strange reason, a majority of the House concurs with the Senate version, the state has a budget.
If, on the other hand, we don’t have that agreement, a committee will be appointed to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions.
The differences may be irreconcilable.
The House Democrat budget fails every test of a responsible budget.
It uses federal stimulus funds for ongoing expenses and spends almost all of the stimulus money in one year, which is probably a big part of why the Democrats chose to write a one-year budget - a departure from Indiana’s longstanding practice of operating on a two-year budget.
In the second year, all the money is gone. Along with the state’s reserves and money that is supposed to go to teachers’ pensions.
The Senate budget is similar to the governor’s budget. It makes a lot of difficult choices, and it keeps us living within our means.
We have three budgets. We need one.
The House Democrat budget is a non-starter. Even if it were to pass the Senate — which is unimaginable — the governor would surely veto it. So we need to find a way to reach agreement.
The budgets proposed by the governor and the Senate can be modified. I’m open to that. But if we choose to spend a dollar, we have to find somewhere else where we are willing to cut a dollar.
It was that lack of discipline that made the House Democrat budget a non-starter. It spent more than we have.
For us to pass a budget in the next week, it’s probably going to take some House Democrats crossing over and putting responsible government ahead of politics.
That’s easy to say when you’re not the one who is under pressure to cross over. It has to be a whole lot harder for the handful of Democrats who appear to want to break party ranks but are — understandably — afraid of Speaker Pat Bauer’s wrath.
Will it happen? With the House divided 52-48, it would only take three Democrat votes to pass a budget.
If the House Democrats could find a way to improve upon the governor’s original plan — or offer an equally responsible alternative, as the Senate chose to do — I would be glad to support it.
Instead they chose to walk away from the agreed-upon, bipartisan process that could have led us to a much different place.
But we are where we are, and time is running out.
What happens if we don’t pass a budget?
That has been a topic of considerable discussion in the Statehouse.
The Senate has a back-up plan that would allow state spending to continue without a budget. Whether it would pass the House is an open question — one that I hope goes unanswered.
Regardless, the governor has made it clear that he would continue essential services with or without legislative authority.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
We still have enough time to pass a good budget. We already have two - the governor’s and the Senate’s —that would serve the state well.
The struggle to reach agreement on a budget has usurped time that could have been devoted to other priorities. If we end up with a responsible budget, that will be a little easier to take.
I’m still looking forward to progress on local government reform and constitutional property tax caps, just not this year.
But as with the budget, we had better not run out the clock.
History awaits.
Rep. Ed Clere represents District 72 in the Indiana House of Representatives. He may be reached by phone at 1-800-382-9841, by e-mail at h72@in.gov or by mail at the Statehouse, 200 W. Washington St., Room 401-7, Indianapolis, IN 46204.

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