Tracy Warner has a good blog entry following up on an editorial in the Journal Gazette on the subject of disclosing the losing Toll Road bids. Both state that current law requires disclosure of the losing bids. It’s been a few months since I read IC 5-23 governing public-private agreements, so I’ll take their word for it. The Toll Road sale enabling legislation, HB 1008, doesn’t require disclosure of losing bids until closing on the bid has taken place.

Chuck Schalliol has this disingenuous explanation for the provision:

“If I am bidder No. 2 or 3 or 4, and I know what the lower bid is, I could come back and say I’ll walk away from my $75 million letter of credit and bid $1 more than the next lowest bidder,” he told members of the Senate Finance Committee last week.

I presume he means that he could do this if he was the highest bidder. But that’s what bid bonds are for. You could really put stiff penalties in place through the bidding process for this kind of shennanigan. That’s like free money to the State if someone walks away from the deal in that fashion and has to cough up a ton of money as a result.

The bottom line is that the Indiana Coalition for Open Government is right:

The Indiana Coalition for Open Government has protested the legislation’s provisions: “Under the proposed HB 1008, the losing bids will not be available until the final contract is signed and the state receives its check – considerably too late in the process for citizens, media or other bidders to question provisions in the selected bid.”

This whole process has been bass ackward. Solicitation for bids first, followed by a request for authority to do what they requested bids for, with the whole process done in secret. Meanwhile, the Governor has misrepresented what the terms of the proposed lease actually are (no requirement specifying at least $4.4 billion in maintenance, no enforcement mechanism for maintenance standards, only a 90% Buy Indiana “goal” rather than a requirement.) All of this the Governor is trying to ram through the legislature with heavy pork for waivering Republicans in affected counties.

A 75 year lease of a major piece of Indiana’s transportation infrastructure is too big a decision to be made in this slipshod fashion. It needs to be conducted under the full glare of public scrutiny under a well-considered process.  This may well be a good deal for Indiana — I certainly have my doubts, but I could be wrong.  But the Governor’s efforts to cut corners has made the current process unreliable. We should not be asked to have faith in the Governor. To make this decision, we should have a sound process in place that inspires confidence in the outcome.

The Indy Star is reporting that “an employee in the House speaker’s office has been isolated after opening an envelope filled with an unidentified powder.” (The original headline on the RSS Feed was “State House Locked Down” while the current another headline reads “Powder spooks Statehouse” and yet another headline reads “Statehouse closed while powder threat checked.”)

The Indianapolis Fire Department and Marion
County Health Department responded to a call to the office of Speaker Brian C. Bosma shortly before noon. An envelope addressed to Bosma, with no return address, was opened by an employee of his staff, said House Republican spokesman Tony Samuel.

She immediately washed her hands, he said, and was avoiding contact with others. The employee, who Samuel declined to identify, was not suffering from any health problems after opening the envelope.

The Indianapolis Fire Department or Marion County Health Department is expected to test the substance this afternoon, Samuel said. The Department of Homeland Security and the Indiana State Police were notified. Bosma left the office after the incident, his staff said.

Spookie. And difficult to track down, apparently. Judging from the fact that nobody every tracked down the person who sent the anthrax to Tom Daschle’s office in October 2001.

Update Rep. Dvorak has a story here.

Over at Indiana Barrister, Abdul notes that toll road tolls have not gone up in the past 20 years. He characterizes this as the folks in Northern Indiana “basically driving for free.” Perhaps I’m missing something special about the Toll Road, but shouldn’t the bonds on building that road have been retired by now and the tolls eliminated? Is there a principled reason for imposing a tax on that road that we do not impose on the rest of Indiana’s roads?

I can see the reasoning for imposing tolls to pay for construction of the road in the first place if the road simply would not have been built any other way. But once the construction bonds were paid, the tolls should have stopped. I seem to recall hearing that when construction was started that promises were made for an end to tolls once the bonds were paid. At most, it seems to me that tolls should be set at a level sufficient to pay for maintenance of the road and no more.

But, road funding being what it is, I would not be surprised if there is a twist of which I am unaware. I’d be happy to know what that is.

Bruce Smith, writing for the Indy Star, has an article entitled ‘Major Moves’ endorsed.

Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, said the investors “will give us a check for $3.85 billion, and we don’t give them anything back. This is like the state has a big ‘easy’ button.”

I’m a little disturbed that Rep. Torr thinks of policy choices in terms of Staples advertisements, but for legislators in Central and Southern Indiana thinking purely in terms of their regions’ self-interest, he’s right. This is an easy decision. The lion’s share of taxes for this $3.85 billion will be paid by motorists in northern Indiana. Residents of central and southern Indiana will pay almost nothing. In exchange, they’ll get road money for their districts. It’s a bad policy choice for Indiana generally and Northern Indiana specifically, but in terms of regional self-interest, it’s something for nothing for citizens of central and southern Indiana. What they have to watch out for, of course, is the time when residents of other parts of the state see an opportunity to exploit the resources of their part of the state.

This is kind of funny. According to Roll Call, the first vote in the election for House Republican Majority leader showed more votes than there were Republicans. Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Bart is bar tending for Big Tony in his “gentleman’s club,” and everybody at the poker table has 5 Aces.

Ohio Republican John Boehner was elected House Majority Leader. Just what they need — because nothing gets rid of the stink of corruption like an Ohio Republican.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has an article reporting that Maize AgriProducts Inc. has announced the selection of Benton County as the location for a 50-million gallon per year ethanol plant. That’s the latest of some serious ethanol activity in the Lafayette area of the state.

Groundbreaking ceremonies were held last month in Linden by ASAlliances Biofuels LLC for a plant that will process 40 million bushels of corn yearly. Last October, The Andersons Inc. announced it has selected Clymers, in Cass County, for an ethanol plant that also is expected to process 40 million bushels of corn annually.

AT&T is now the defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The suit stems from revelations that President Bush has authorized warrantless wiretap surveillance of American citizens, apparently in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

According to the EFF:

This surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President at least as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

In the largest “fishing expedition” ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to “data-mine” the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be “linked” to “suspicious activities,” suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

The EFF further explains its lawsuit against AT&T by stating that the government is not acting alone, but rather its surveillance of American citizens required the collaboration of major telecommunications companies, including AT&T (formerly known as SBC Communications).

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers’ communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit’s class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte “Daytona” database of caller information — one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

Should be interesting to watch.

I didn’t listen to the State of the Union, primarily because it’s a waste of time to listen to George Bush. For example, if I would have listened to George Bush in 2001, I would have thought we needed tax cuts because surpluses were too high and, even with the tax cuts, we would have the national debt halfway paid down.

My budget has funded a responsible increase in our ongoing operations.  It has funded our nation’s important priorities.  It has protected Social Security and Medicare.  And our surpluses are big enough that there is still money left over.

Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt.  I listened, and I agree.  We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years.  At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire.  That is more debt, repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history.

We should also prepare for the unexpected, for the uncertainties of the future.  We should approach our nation’s budget as any prudent family would, with a contingency fund for emergencies or additional spending needs.  For example, after a strategic review, we may need to increase defense spending.  We may need to increase spending for our farmers or additional money to reform Medicare.  And so, my budget sets aside almost a trillion dollars over 10 years for additional needs.  That is one trillion additional reasons you can feel comfortable supporting this budget.

We have increased our budget at a responsible 4 percent.  We have funded our priorities.  We paid down all the available debt.  We have prepared for contingencies.  And we still have money left over.

. . .

   Unrestrained government spending is a dangerous road to deficits, so we must take a different path.  The other choice is to let the American people spend their own money to meet their own needs.

. . .

The people of America have been overcharged and, on their behalf, I am here asking for a refund.

If I had listened to George Bush’s speech in 2002, I would have believed that, even though spending had to be increased to meet security needs, the deficit that had to be run would “be small and short term.”  Oh, and this time tax cuts would be just the thing to grow the economy and reduce deficits. Tax cuts are magic! They reduce surpluses AND deficits.

If I had listened to George Bush’s speech in 2003, I would have believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, including 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent; 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; 25,000 liters of anthrax; and that he had attempted to purchase significant quantities of uranium from Africa and aluminum tubes suitable for production of nuclear weapons.

If I had listened to George Bush’s speech in 2004, I would have believed that the deficit (not the debt, mind you) would be cut in half (not eliminated) in the next 5 years. On the other hand, I would have learned to nevermind the silliness of the 2003 speech, instead all of those dire chemical agents and portents of nuclear doom were really just “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.” I also would have been puzzled by the fact that Mr. Bush unveiled a mission to Mars less than a week before the State of the Union, then somehow failed to mention it in the State of the Union address.

It’s probably too soon to know what I would have believed about George Bush’s 2005 speech but shouldn’t have. My suspicion — more deficit reduction and hydrogen cars.

The biggest outrages came in 2001 in the form of broken promises to pay down the National Debt (not merely reduce deficits) and in 2003 in the form of outrageously puffed up claims about the threat posed to the United States by Iraq.

A column by Joe Flower in Hospitals and Health Networks Online laying out “eight solid, conservative, good-for-business reasons” for single-payer healthcare.

1. Transaction costs. 25-30% of healthcare dollars are spent paying keyboarders to parse out who owes what; meanwhile insurers randomly and routinely deny payments for legitimate covered services.

2. Employer funding. Why should employers pay for health care? There is no compelling, rational connection between employers and health care justifying putting the burden on employers.

3. The basic idea of insurance. The idea of insurance is to manage risk. The larger your pool, the more manageable the risk. With our current system, insurers can cherry-pick the healthiest and wealthiest, taking their premiums, leaving hospitals (and government) to pick up the tab for the sickest and poorest without much in the way of compensating premiums.

4. Value. “Costs and charges vary widely and
nonsensically, with no demonstrable connection to mortality rates or
other outcome measures. A single-payer system would at least be a
system, and might be able to get a handle on the wastelands of
profligacy hidden in those statistical variations.”

5. Risk cost of receivables. I don’t know what that phrase means, but the explanation makes sense. Trying to recover debts through liens, bankruptcy, and collection agencies is cruel, but more than that, it’s inefficient. Providing for everyone upfront is more cost effective.

6. Service quality. Service quality under our current system stinks. People think that “single payer” will lead to Soviet-style bureaucracy with obscure and arbitrary rules. Guess what? That’s what we have now. Mr. Flower suggests that single payer will lead to greater transparency, real competition, and better service quality.

7. Efficiency. Under the current system, we have people using emergency rooms to treat colds.

8. Patriotism. It’s hard to love a country that makes people choose between food, rent, and fuel oil versus cancer treatement, for example.