Let us punt but not quit the effort

OK. Gov. Mitch Daniels called an audible last week, finally, recognizing that attempts to update Indiana’s inefficient welfare system through what became a $1.34 billion privatization deal headed by IBM failed.

But that doesn’t mean Daniels was wrong to try. And it certainly doesn’t mean efforts to improve the system’s efficiency, in terms of cutting tax dollars spent as well as improving its dealings with its customers, the state’s poor, should cease.

From what we’ve heard, read about and even experienced in our attempts to speak with humans at welfare offices over the past couple of years, finding humans on the other end of the telephone.

Nor should the failed attempt mean a death knell for Indiana’s privatization efforts. We think it’s been successful with the lease of the Indiana Toll Road, for instance, and Indianapolis has made great strides in privatization over the past decade or so.