Indiana Democrats fled the state for five weeks to protest, among other things, a bill that would revamp education in the state, a top priority of Mitch Daniels. Having won some concessions, they returned. And as part of the deal, yesterday Indiana passed the education bill, which still includes a very wide-reaching school voucher program.

In the end, the deal to a avert a government shutdown and keep funding going for the rest of the fiscal year amounted to a $38.5 billion cut in appropriations from the 2010 baseline. There was a time last December, with the McCaskill-Sessions compromise, promoted by the very conservative Republican ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, when Republicans agreed to a 2011 budget appropriation $20 billion ABOVE the 2010 baseline. If mixed in with the tax cut deal, that level could have been put in place. Therefore, this deal inked late last night cut $58.5 billion from the level of McCaskill-Sessions. This equals all of the tax advantages that didn’t extend current law, outside of the business expensing provisions, in the December 2010 tax cut deal. The entire stimulus is gone.

I’m in the plane en route to Madison, Wisconsin (thank you, Gogo In-Flight Internet!), but perhaps I should just rent a car and travel across the Midwest. Because labor fights are occurring across the region.