Moving a bit too fast (12/18/06)

Gov. Mitch Daniels certainly isn't behaving like a lame duck. At least not yet.

But he's certainly behaving as if the clock is ticking.

In the governor's latest move, he's proposed privatizing the Hoosier Lottery in order to get big chunk of change to steer toward higher education in the form of scholarships and higher salaries for professors.

It's an idea that may or may not make sense.

But our guess is that it's simply not intellectually digestible for the next session of the Indiana General Assembly.

This is, after all, a group of lawmakers who dealt last time around with the governor's controversial move to privatize the Indiana Toll Road. Some of those legislators were against the idea, and others faced angry constituents unhappy with the concept.

Close on its heels has come the governor's move to privatize a chunk of the state's welfare system.

It's not entirely clear whether that will benefit welfare recipients or the state, and smart lawmakers will tell you the proposal deserves plenty of thought.

Now, with the dust barely settling from the first two, the governor launches his lottery privatization program.

Is it any wonder that leaders in his own party are calling for a time out?

Change is one thing, and it's an insult to Hoosiers to say they're opposed to change with a knee-jerk reaction.

But this is something else again.

This has all the earmarks of a desperation agenda, something to shove through because you'll never get a chance again.

It may not be the agenda of a lame duck, but it sure looks like the agenda of a one-term governor. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]