The Associated Press writes about homeless people taking advantage of the surge in foreclosures. With more empty houses sitting around, it makes sense that homeless people would sneak in and squat in these houses.

Short term, it makes sense for lenders to foreclose on houses, and it makes sense for the homeless to squat in abandoned homes. Long term, it probably leads to an overall decline in value. Though, I guess this hurts the lenders more than it hurts the homeless who, presumably, don’t have a lot to lose in any case. But, it seems that we have a significant disconnect in resource allocation.

It’s just lose-lose for the lenders. They have property that’s not returning revenue on their investment. There is no one living in it, so the potential for destruction (by the homeless, the weather, rampaging bands of teenagers, whatever) increases. I would think that empty houses in the neighborhood result in a decline in surrounding home values. Seems like there ought to be a way to lease these homes to people without homes at a price that at least mitigates the lender’s losses if not eliminating them entirely. As a financial investment, you probably don’t want to lend to the sorts of people who are squatting in them right now, even if they could come up with the rent money — mentally ill drug abusers tend not to have the most pride in ownership. But, there has to be a non-trivial segment of the population that is responsible but simply can’t afford the mortgage on these kinds of property who would show some pride in ownership, pay a chunk of the rent, and keep squatters away. Just a thought.

Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore, this one is for you! Oh, and I suppose those other Presidents get to bask in your shared glory.

Actually, I was just looking at a list of the Presidents, and there is quite a lot of mediocrity in the second half of the 19th century. From the Founding until the 1840s, we did pretty well for ourselves: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams (better Sec’y of State than President), and Jackson.

After that, we start in with Van Buren who wasn’t awful but wasn’t great, and he was followed by Harrison, Tyler, Polk (a brief respite of effectiveness with Polk), and then a string of nothingness: Taylor, Filmore, Pierce and Buchanan. Just in time to save the Union, those guys are succeeded by an inexperienced but wonderfully articulate politician from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln. And then, back to the dregs — Johnson, Grant (good general, lousy President), Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland (good enough to be elected twice, but not consecutively), Harrison, Cleveland (redux), and big Bill McKinley.

Then we’re into the 20th Century. Teddy Roosevelt gets into office despite the best efforts of the GOP machinery of the time. They stuck him in the Vice President’s office hoping that’d make him disappear. Unfortunately, McKinley went and got himself assassinated, and TR got to work with that boundless energy of his.

We then went to Taft and Wilson, back to a bit of the dregs with Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Twelve years with another Roosevelt followed up with eight years of Truman got that taste out of our mouth. Then there was the serviceable Eisenhower administration for another eight years. Once again, he seems to have been a better general than President, but he was a much, much better President than Grant. (Disclaimer: Ike seems to be a distant relative of mine). Then we had the martyr-Presidency of JFK and the remarkably able, if sometimes misguided, LBJ. (For my part, I’m thinking of the Gulf of Tonkin as opposed to the Great Society with that “misguided” remark). And then we finish up the most recent decades of the Union with Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. I won’t comment much on those guys in this context since they seem more like “current events” than “history.” After all, we had guys like Cheney and Rumsfeld cutting their teeth under Nixon and Ford before coming back to haunt us under Bush II: Electric Boogaloo.

Benjamin Lanka, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article about lax enforcement for giving the homestead property tax credit. The exemption is supposed to apply only to primary residences, but there isn’t much in the way of enforcement to make sure that people aren’t taking the credit for their lake house while they also take the exemption for property elsewhere in the state.

The reason to cheat the system is obvious: It saves homeowners a lot of money. A $200,000 home near Fox Lake in Steuben County would be billed $1,642.58 with a homestead exemption, but $2,371.68 without the benefit. In Wayne Township in Fort Wayne, an owner of a $100,000 house would pay $1,097.74 with the exemption, but would have to pay $2,537.72 without it.

The article contrasts Indiana’s haphazard enforcement against double dippers with Florida’s system which apparently has strong enforcement mechanisms and clear penalties.

But county officials said they have had difficulty working with the state on the problem. Bill Borne, Adams County auditor, said that county enforcement efforts have even been curtailed by the state.

Some auditors asked for Indiana voter identification or driver’s license to grant the exemption, but Borne said some legislators complained about the tactics, saying the exemptions should be easier to get.

“It’s a different philosophy. ‘If you file, you have to just give it to them when they come in,’ ” he said. “That’s not fair.”

Apparently we make it harder to vote in Indiana than we do to claim a second homestead exemption for your lake house.

Orange County Circuit Court Judge Blanton, sitting as a special judge in Harrison County, has apparently held that Indiana’s prohibition on robocalls does not apply to those with a political message.

Specifically, (according to Inside Indiana Business):

Blanton has ruled that Indiana’s autodialer law does not apply to political messages. Judge Blanton says a political message delivered during a political campaign is not the selling of a tangible product, and therefore, the law does not apply.

I haven’t read the judge’s opinion, but as described, I don’t think it holds water. The statute does a few things — it specifies types of messages to which the statute does not apply — e.g. messages from schools to students or parents. Significantly, political messages are not in this list of exempt messages. Secondly, it defines commercial telephone solicitations and imposes restrictions on commercial telephone solicitations above and beyond the restrictions it places on solicitations via robocall generally. There is nothing in the text of the law itself that strongly suggests an allowance for robocalls to be used to spread political messages. There are at least two provisions that suggest that the regulation extends beyond commercial messages. So, unless there is something a bit more nuanced than reported about the judge’s decision, I’m going to predict this one gets overturned on appeal.

Annie Goeller and Michele Holtkamp-Frye are reporting for the Johnson County Daily Journal that there a residency challenge has been filed against Sen. Waltz (R-Greenwood). Unfortunately, the article is behind a subscription wall.

Sen. Brent Waltz’s opponent in this year’s Republican primary [Mike Beeles] is challenging whether Waltz lives in the condominium he rents and instead argues that he lives with his parents in their White River Township home, which is outside Senate District 36.

Waltz denies the allegations, saying that his neighbors haven’t seen him because he gets home late and leaves early; and that his electric bill is only $17 per month because he keeps his thermostat low. A Duke Energy employee said that $17 per month is about the cost to keep a refrigerator running.

In his challenge, Beeles said he knows the condominium is vacant by looking into the windows, the mailbox says the unit is vacant and that the senator lives at his parents’ Center Grove area home.

Beeles is challenging Waltz on the issue because many people seem to know that Waltz doesn’t live in the district, yet no one has ever confronted him on the issue, he said.

“It’s illegal,” Beeles said. “If I have to follow the rules, he has to too.”

On the one hand, the reported facts make Waltz’s story sound fishy. On the other hand, who wants to side with creepy, stalker guy?

NCAA says IU coach Kelvin Sampson lied to them.

At the heart of the allegations is that Sampson continued to violate telephone recruiting restrictions imposed on him from violations while he was at Oklahoma, and that he “repeatedly” lied about it to IU and NCAA investigators. A former chairman of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions, which is expected to hear IU’s case June 14, said the charges are serious.

Word has it that Bob Knight is between jobs.

Also in the news, state representative John Elrod was working on his 7th District campaign while on the floor of the Indiana House and apparently used a House staffer to work on the campaign. I can’t get too worked up about this, personally. But, I heard too many Republicans carry on about Al Gore and Buddhist monks to begrudge the state Democrats from knocking him around over this.

Hoosiers lose to the Badgers on a buzzer beater.

Corporal punishment?

Anyone else notice the tendency of some bloggers to anthropomorphize their blog? — By which I mean something like if I would write, “Masson’s Blog wonders if anyone else has noticed the tendency of some bloggers to anthropomorphize their blog?”

To me, it seems to be a stylistic tendency drawn from editorial pages where the editors write in the name of the newspaper. “The New York Times endorses . . .” And, I suppose on blogs where one or more writers is/are writing on behalf of the entire organization after some sort of collaboration, that makes sense. And, I certainly have nothing against bloggers using pseudonyms. But, individual bloggers writing as if they were an organization seems a little off somehow.

Not a big deal by any means. Just something that occasionally distracts me while I’m reading various blogs.

Abraham Lincoln was born 199 years ago, on Feb. 12, 1809. What would he say if he were alive today? Probably something like, “HELP! HELP! IT’S HOT IN HERE! I CAN’T BREATHE!” Sorry. I couldn’t resist.

I have a bit of hero worship with respect to Lincoln. I went so far as to name my first born son after him. (His first name is “Lincoln,” but his walking around nickname is “Cole”). His presence at the helm of the Union was, to put it mildly, fortuitous. He was a gifted politician and a deep thinker with a common touch who loved his country dearly. A buddy of mine who wasn’t an overly zealous student and went to a parochial school used to joke that, when he was stumped in a literature class, he could usually get through it by describing one figure or another as the book’s “Christ figure.” Well, Lincoln is America’s Christ figure. With extraordinary gifts and appealing humility, Mr. Lincoln saved the country from itself and was killed for his efforts.

I know that, upon close review, Lincoln had his warts like we all do. But history has dimmed the negatives and enhanced the positives, and I’m o.k. with that. After all, a boy needs his heroes. So far, I have Abraham Lincoln and my grandpa. I’m not prepared to go looking for faults in either one of them.

Happy birthday Mr. Lincoln!

Just passing along word I received from a tax professional on the subject of the recent property tax rebates.

#Whatever you paid in property taxes for 2007 (without considering the rebate) is the amount you itemize on your 2007 tax return.

#The 2008 rebate check will be “other income” in the year 2008 if you itemize your taxes (and assuming your county actually issues the rebate in the year 2008).

#There is apparently still an issue with respect to Indiana taxes on which there has not been a clear opinion.

I am not a tax professional. I very well may have garbled the information that was conveyed to me. By way of disclaimer, I encourage you to regard everything I write here as lies, damned lies, and/or statistics; but certainly not legal advice.