Take back the buck, Mitch

In the grand old tradition of politics, Gov. Mitch Daniels is passing the buck. \nDaniels is being accused of backing off a campaign promise not to replace state employees with private contractors. \nAccording to a story by The Associated Press, Daniels' campaign distributed fliers, authorized by Daniels' campaign committee, that ran with the headline "State Workers Will Not Lose Their Jobs Due to Privatization" and read "The truth of the matter is, no state worker will lose his/her job due to privatization in a Daniels administration." \nBut since Daniels has taken office, his administration has presented initiatives to privatize jobs in prisons and state hospitals. Indiana Department of Corrections Commissioner J. David Donahue has said that a company hired to take over food service in prisons hired only 130 of 336 state employees. Daniels said that his administration is promoting the hiring of state workers by requiring that private vendors interview them. \nClearly, what was said a year ago isn't matching up with today's actions. Daniels' response to this whole fiasco is that he didn't approve the fliers.\n"I didn't see it before it went out and that's no excuse," the governor said. "Somebody made a statement broader than anything I had ever said."\nSo instead of the governor taking the responsibility for the fliers (which came out a year ago), he's blaming it on an inept staff. Letting the fire trickle down to low-level staffers is a cheap trick, and nobody is going to go easy on a politician that can't take responsibility for his own staff. If Mitch can't keep thorough tabs on his own staff, how can we trust him to keep up with the state?\nIt's too bad the integrity levels around the State House aren't shooting up the way the thermometer is. And while we understand Daniels isn't the first politician to back away from a campaign promise and he certainly won't be the last, we wish he would step up and take responsibility. We also understand that this wasn't a lofty promise. Daniels didn't announce on the flier that he was going to implement universal health care. But this is something that matters to the state. Joe Lawrence of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said the switches to private contractors hurts the entire state, not just the former employees, because the contractors don't provide the same level of service. \n"This is all part of a pattern from the administration that we've seen that goes to a lack of credibility and competence," he said. "They're just not being honest with the people of Indiana."\nIn a state the size of Indiana, every job matters -- and we need to be able to trust our government. So don't pass the buck, Mitch. You were elected on this premise, so stick to it whether the flier was your statement or not. Work to minimize the damage, and try to keep jobs for state employees.