Last Friday marked the end of a dramatic and contentious legislative session in Indiana.

House Minority Leader (and DLCC board member) Pat Bauer, who led 39 members of his caucus in a nearly five week-long session boycott to protest and mitigate some of the extreme measures being pushed by Gov. Mitch Daniels and his GOP cronies in the legislature, shared some comments on how things turned out. 

The damage done by single-party rule this session will be severe and lasting.

It will be felt in the pocket books of Hoosiers, in the classrooms where our children are taught, and in the courtrooms of this state, where many will go in the months ahead to try to overturn some of the most onerous policies that are being signed into law.

Two of the GOP’s signature 'accomplishments' from this session are cutting taxes on corporations by 25 percent while also cutting benefits for out-of-work Hoosiers by 25 percent. 

But perhaps the greatest tragedy of this session will be the price paid by those children who will not be among the privileged few able to attend charter schools or use taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools.

The children who are left out of these programs will see larger class sizes, fewer programs that will enable them to expand and enrich their individual talents, and fewer people to help them find those talents.

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ voucher scheme will become the most expansive in the country. According to Nate Schnellenberger, president of Indiana’s largest teachers union, 

[Daniels] says that his motivation is to improve student achievement, but so many of these reform measures are not aimed at improving student achievement. He wouldn't be siphoning public money from public schools if he was concerned about those students who remain at public schools. 

Assistant House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath also shared his thoughts on the outcomes of the session, calling the budget just passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature “the meanest in memory.” 

This budget exemplifies the upside-down priorities of this Legislature. Schools are slashed. The mentally disabled are cut off from services. Efforts to cut gas prices for the middle class are ignored. Yet Indiana's richest corporations still get a 25-percent tax cut. 

There are incredible claims that this budget does not cut funding for our schools. Not only does it extend the hundreds of millions in education cuts made by the Governor over the past two years, but it also piles additional cuts on most kids. And at the same time, uncalculated taxpayer millions are set aside to pay for sending public school kids to private schools. 

This is not reform. It is giving up.

When moving numbers on a piece of paper, I fear some have forgotten that behind every number is a living, breathing person. The problem is not the principle of shared sacrifice. The problem is that everyone is sacrificing except the corporate chieftains in Indianapolis-- and that is wrong. We keep asking the middle class to do with less. This is not the right time for corporate board rooms to get more.

While the Democrats’ stand against the Indiana GOP’s extreme right-wing agenda somewhat diminished the harm done to working families and reduced the size and scope of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ voucher scheme, the huge (and oddly similar in scope) cuts to both corporate tax rates and unemployment benefits clearly demonstrate the Republicans’ priorities.