The Indiana General Assembly failed miserably.

Of all the proposals legislators tackled over the past four months, they were legally required to adopt only one: a state budget.

They didn’t.

So now, after bemoaning the sorry state of Indiana finances, lawmakers will have to return for a special session that will cost taxpayers an estimated $75,000 a week.

Legislators spent a lot of time over a constitutionally questionable attempt to restrict abortions. Republican lawmakers time and again declared their desire to vote on the questionable effort to place property tax caps in the constitution, a vote that will likely take place next year with the delay causing no practical difference. Key legislators spent much effort trying to bail out a single, unelected Indianapolis board running a deficit, without taking action in the end.

But as they traditionally do in almost every budget-writing “long” session, lawmakers waited until the last minute to get serious about the budget. And the version that went before the House failed with bipartisan opposition.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said the “legislature did its job, but we didn’t get a budget passed,” an oxymoron that perhaps indicates lawmakers don’t understand that they failed to take the only step they had to make in the 60 business days of the session.

Indeed, Kenley was part of the problem. He insisted on taking $100 million out of education funding to give the state a surplus of $1.4 billion rather than $1.3 billion, making the budget bill unacceptable to House Democrats. Yet the Senate raised spending on university buildings from $400 million in an earlier proposal to $600 million.

House Republicans, meanwhile, criticized the budget as too expensive, yet its leaders were insisting that it include an unlimited number of new charter schools plus $5 million for private schools – a controversial measure not debated during the session.

Lawmakers should have overcome their differences and worked out compromises palatable to both parties and to Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Perhaps in the next budget year, 2011, the General Assembly should confine its agenda to one bill: the budget bill. If the long session isn’t long enough for lawmakers to walk and chew gum at the same time, let them confine their attention to the one issue they have to address.