A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

FWJG: On Gambling

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The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an article on the State’s reliance on gambling revenue to subsidize taxes. The editorial commends the state on funding a treatment program with some of the proceeds but notes that the necessity of such a program is caused or exacerbated by the State’s legalization of gambling.

For my part, I think if the State is in for a penny, it should go in for a pound. Why be content to merely take a rake off the casino profits — why not have the State run the casinos directly and take the whole pie, reducing taxes accordingly? Normally you don’t want state run businesses — you want the private sector to be as innovative and efficient as possible. But I don’t think those policy goals really apply to gambling. I don’t think, as a State, we ought to be particularly enthusiastic about a booming gambling business that draws in more and more customers and convinces them to spend more and more of their money.  So, I don’t think the normal free-market concerns about state-run businessess apply to gambling even though I’ll concede that private businesses would almost certainly deliver a better product more efficiently.

As for the moral concern, I’m reminded of the joke that ends with the punchline, “We’ve established what you are, ma’am; now we’re just haggling over the price.” We’re not somehow morally superior because the State doesn’t run the casinos and other gambling concerns directly. We’re just suckers for letting private business keep the lion’s share of the profit on this particular enterprise.

I should note that this analysis assumes that gambling is morally tainted activity but that we’re willing to allow it because of its value in defraying our tax burden. If it’s morally equivalent to other services, then obviously the State has no business creating a monopoly for itself; but then, if that were true, the State would have no business taxing gambling concerns more heavily than other service providers.

State run casinos would just be a way to make some citizens happier to pay higher taxes. Give them some razzle dazzle and some minimal chance of making  a profit and the citizens will gladly put a little  extra money in the State’s coffers.  Charge an extra $20 on their property taxes, and they’ll be reaching for the torches and pitchforks. It’s not, apparently, that these particular citizens mind being parted from their money; they just want a little entertainment for their dollar.

You say goodbye, I say hello

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Sylvia Smith, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article on the trend of former members of Congress becoming lobbyist once they leave office. She reports that, of the 30 legislators who have left Congress through retirement, death, or election defeat, 10 of them became part of Washington’s lobbying business. 5 of them remain active in the industry.

Trails: INDOT awards money

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The Indiana Department of Transportation issued 11 press releases on June 23 announcing a little over $20 million in funding, mostly for trails.

Indianapolis: $4.8 million
Fort Wayne: $4 million
The Region: $3.5 million
South Bend: $2.8 million
Evansville: $1.5 million
Louisville: $1.4 million

About $1 million apiece was awarded for projects in Monroe County, Dubois County, and Lebanon to Lafayette. Dearborn County and  Richmond bring up the rear of the announcements at $673,000 and $600,000 respectively.

The awards generated several stories:

    • State workers’ Internet access restricted (Updated)

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    Elisabeth Beardsey, writing for the Louisville Courier Journal, reports that the State began limiting state workers’ Internet access yesterday. Governor Daniels supports the decision to filter what had previously been unfettered Internet access.

    Blogs have not yet been banned, but listening to Internet radio at work and watching videos unrelated to work will be blocked. Obviously pornography is not permitted and some employees have been fired or disciplined after evidence was found that child pornography was viewed from work computers.

    Update TPM Muckraker has been covering Kentucky’s implementation of Internet access restrictions and was alerted to Indiana’s implementation of filtering technology.

    During my conversation with the guy from Kentucky’s state tech office, he mentioned that the state of Indiana had just implemented their own filtering technology up there.

    Hmm. So have they chosen to block state employees from viewing blogs? I called up Mark Cotterill, General Counsel of Indiana’s Office of Technology.

    No. “I don’t see us going there.” Why? “We treat our state employees as professionals.”

    So what have they chosen to block? Two categories: general pornography and child pornography.

    “Our process is just different,” he said. Yep.

    Grandstanding on Immigration

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    The Evansville Courier Press has a good editorial on the Republican strategy of grandstanding on immigration. They note that House Republicans have torpedoed the immigration bill supported by the likes of President Bush and Senator McCain and, instead, will spend the summer holding as many hearings as they can on immigration where they can hold forth on what an urgent and unmitigated evil we face.

    The Courier Press puts it nicely:

    The delay so that House Republicans can spend a month grandstanding on the issue means there’s a real likelihood there will be no bill at all this year, either before the lawmakers knock off to campaign for the November elections or in a lame-duck session afterward.

    If that happens, everything goes back to square one in the new Congress.

    The Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. If immigration is truly the urgent national problem that they say it is, failure to even try to deal with it, in the words of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., “would be to me a sign of inability to govern.”

    Prosecutor’s election in Carroll County

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    There has been a somewhat interesting development in the Carroll County Prosecutor’s race. Perennial candidate and occasional Prosecutor Jim Huffer has decided to run against the Republican candidate, Tricia Thompson.

    Huffer and current Prosecutor Rob Ives had see-sawed back and forth as Caroll County prosecutor. Huffer had run against Ives four times, winning twice in non-consecutive elections. In 2004, Huffer was convicted of a misdemeanor drunken driving charge and had apparently decided not to run for office this time around. That changed, apparently because Tricia Thompson, a deputy prosecutor, defeated Ives in the Republican primary.

    So, it looks like the wild and woolly world of Carroll County prosecutorial elections will continue.

    Bayh signs on to Net Neutrality

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    Well, good for Sen. Bayh. According to Talking Points Memo, the good Senator has signed on to support Net Neutrality. I’m not particularly familiar with the details, but at it’s heart, it’s a requirement that network providers can’t discriminate between the bits that pass through their networks so as to provide better service to favored people, content, or businesses.

    Telecomm companies seem to be arguing that if they could only charge for preferential treatment of bits traveling along their wires, then services for customers would blossom and innovation would explode. I think I heard this one before during the Telecomm Act of 1996, and I don’t think the predictions quite panned out. (How much competition do you see in local telephone service? How much has your cable bill gone down?) So, I’m skeptical of the telecomm claims.

    I think Senator Bayh is on the side of the angels on this issue.

    Tippecanoe Politics on IN-41

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    Tippecanoe Politics has a good analysis of the race in Indiana’s 41st House District, located around Crawfordsville. The district is currently represented by Republican Dr. Tim Brown. His challenger is James Stytle. The jist is that it’s a heavily Republican district and if the well-liked and well-known Judge Ray Kirtley couldn’t unseat Rep. Brown in 2004, Stytle has a seriously uphill battle on his hands even if the political landscape is more favorable to Democrats in 2006 than it was in 2004.