Keep Indiana competitive

Republicans lost control of the Indiana House on Tuesday.

Was it something they had done or failed to do? Or were Republicans in Indiana, like Republicans elsewhere across the nation, victims of a national voter revolt, a wider repudiation of the Bush administration and its war in Iraq?

On Wednesday, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced an ambitious legislative agenda he will push during the 2007 session.

Call it wishful thinking. Call it denial.

But, most of all, call it a bold and tactical move on Daniels' part.

By outlining an ambitious agenda in the face of legislative setback, Daniels provides Hoosiers the opportunity to study the consequences of the Tuesday election that will likely return Patrick Bauer to a House leadership post.

Bauer's return to the post should in turn provide evidence that not all change is necessarily for the better. Indiana residents will get a feel for whether some of the progress of the past two years millions of dollars in new economic development creating thousands of new jobs, the first balanced state budget in years, major road building and capital improvements, and more will now be slowed or even reversed.

Bauer is the pol, after all, who, as a past committee chair, derailed past efforts at creating all-day kindergarten, a deserving goal of Daniels' in the upcoming session.

Bauer, in a fit of populist pandering, more recently sought to fight high gasoline prices by vowing to roll back the very gasoline taxes used to maintain and build Hoosier highways.

In another attack of populism, he has promised to roll back clocks and the progress that has come with uniform daylight-saving time by turning this legislatively settled issue over to a referendum vote -a waste of time and money.

For Indiana's sake, we hope the momentum is maintained on education and economic development. We hope the governor can provide health insurance as promised for low-income residents and that numerous duplicative boards and commissions can be consolidated.

Perhaps two years out of power have taught Bauer and his Democratic Party that mere obstructionism is not policy and that Indiana needs to turn its energies toward being competitive in a tough and unforgiving global economy.

We'll see.