Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article on the 9th district candidates’ positions on immigration in the Lousiville Courier Journal. She describes Sodrel as being focused on closing the border; Hill as focused on penalizing illegal employment; and Schansberg as favoring a combination.

The rest of the article shows that all three candidates favor a mix. Sodrel says he now realizes that putting up a fence won’t do the trick and there has to be a mix. Hill says he also favors securing the border on top of penalizing employers who hire non-citizens illegally.

This quote from Schansberg included in the article makes some sense:

Schansberg said business and government must work together to stem illegal immigration. But he cautions that the benefits of border security and business fines “are likely to be oversold and the cost likely to be underestimated.”

“The key to this debate is realism,” Schansberg said. “Whatever we decide, we’re not going to deport 11 million people. We might agree that would be ideal in an ideal world, but it’s not going to happen at any reasonable expense.”

Just a thought, but I think fair trade legislation might also make some sense in combatting illegal immigration. Forcing foreign nations to meet our labor and environmental standards might: a) take the pressure off our employers to rush to the bottom in terms of wages and working conditions to compete; and b) force improvement in foreign working conditions for companies that want to sell goods to the U.S.

House Minority Leader, Pat Bauer has proposed that the Secretary of State’s Office should assume responsibility over the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

The Indy Star, not known for agreeing with Bauer on much of anything, disagrees with him on this as well. The Star suggests that adding a new level of bureaucracy won’t help anything and suggest that perhaps privatizing BMV services could help.

As to laying blame and providing accountability:

Hoosiers, however, know whom to blame.

Gov. Mitch Daniels has made it clear that he’s ultimately responsible for the BMV fiasco. He has admitted that the conversion to a new computer system, designed to ensure the accuracy of BMV records, went badly. He’s openly stated, “No excuses made.”

. . .

Hoosiers have someone to hold accountable for fixing the BMV. It isn’t Secretary of State Todd Rokita or even BMV Commissioner Joel Silverman. It’s Mitch Daniels.

I never quite know what to make of top level elected officials “accepting responsibility” for these sorts of things. For mid-level workers, accepting responsibility might mean being fired, demoted, or otherwise penalized. For Daniels, I’m not sure what penalty he’s accepting. Obviously he shouldn’t be kicked out of office before his term ends because of this. I’m reasonably sure he won’t apologize on the campaign trail or otherwise suggest that voters ought to penalize him for the BMV snafus. So, what does it mean for him to “accept responsibility?”

None of which, of course, addresses whether the Secretary of State’s Office assuming responsibility for the BMV is a good idea. The only reason it makes some sense is because the legislature recently tied our right to vote to our ability to procure a driver’s license or state ID. Other than that, there does not seem to be a compelling link between the two.

The Indiana Legislative Services Agency’s former executive director, Phil “Satch” Sachtleben has been named Ball State University’s associate vice president for governmental affairs. He has been the director at LSA since 1997. Prior to that, he served at LSA in various capacities, including as a staff attorney and as director of the Office of Bill Drafting and Research.

Ruth’s Blog has an informative entry entitled “An energy plan we can all back.” There is a bi-partisan effort to encourage a “renewable electricity standard.” Don Lehe (R-Brookston) and Dale Grubb (D-Covington) introduced a bill that called for 10% of Indiana’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2016. (I believe this is referring to HB 1379-2006 introduced by Rep. Lehe, but I don’t see Rep. Grubb’s name on the bill or in the legislative action.) This was endorsed by Senator Lugar and Rep. Visclosky. That bill is set for review by the Regulatory Flexibility Committee.

The Indiana Coalition for Renewable Energy and Economic Development is urging Governor Daniels to include a Renewable Energy Standard in his energy plan which will apparently be released on Friday.

The editorial boards of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and the Marion Chronicle Tribune have advice for the Governor and General Assembly with respect to taxation today. The Chronicle Tribune opposes the cigarette tax increase proposed by the Governor. The editors feel that it’s wrong to tax a behavior simply because it’s undesirable. The government should ban the behavior if it’s bad enough but taxing the behavior is apparently beyond the pale. The Chronicle Tribune opines that if we’re going to have taxes (conceding, almost reluctantly, that some are necessary), the money from them should be used for something related to the thing being taxed. They mention the gas tax as a means of paying for roads, which makes sense. But then they go too far. “Otherwise, [if the money from taxes is used for something unrelated to the thing being taxed], it’s just the government going after our wallets.” (You can tell where the hearts of the editorial board are by the taxes they list as other taxes that just go after our wallets: property taxes, capital gains taxes, and estate taxes. Not income taxes and sales taxes.)

That’s just silly. I don’t enjoy paying taxes, but it’s not government “just going after our wallets.” Governments provide necessary services. Without government, as Hobbes pointed out, the condition of humanity is that of war of all against all.

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Freedom isn’t free, as they say, and taxes are one of the prices. Not just use taxes or reasonable facsimiles thereof; but general taxes as well. The cigarette tax I can take or leave. It’s palatable for politicians for the pernicious reasons cited by the Chronicle Tribune: it taxes an unsavory behavior of a minority of the populace. On the other hand, I’m not pure of heart. I really dislike smoking and if the tax imposed either reduces smoking or reduces the need for taxes on me, then I’ll win to a small degree one way or another.

Meanwhile, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette’s editorial advises against temporarily suspending the state sales tax on certain goods, characterizing such a suspension as “political gimmickry” rather than sound fiscal planning. Noting that a temporary suspension could potentially help some Hoosiers with back-to-school expenses, the FWJG opines that “goods that are not taxable one weekend should not be taxable the next.” Instead, if lawmakers really want to address the back-to-school costs, they will provide textbooks for either no charge or a sharply reduced fee.

As part of its discussion the editorial says that a strong case may be made for exempting such things as gasoline and clothing from sales taxes as goods that fulfill basic needs. Unprepared food and prescriptions already enjoy such an exemption. However, any such decision should not be made on impulse. If lawmakers want to exempt gasoline from the sales tax, they would be forced to find a way to make up for the lost $300 million in revenue.

House Minority leader Pat Bauer has proposed a repeal of the gas tax sales tax on gas in light of high gas prices. I can’t agree with him on this one, but a modification might be appropriate. The current tax is 6 cents on the dollar.

Bauer said rising gasoline prices since Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels took office in January 2005 have generated $152 million more in gas sales taxes through July than the state would have gotten had prices remained the same. Bauer, D-South Bend, said gasoline was an essential commodity and Indiana should not be profiting from what he called price gouging by the oil industry.

“People are hurting, the middle class and poor people need relief to get to work,” Bauer said. “We don’t need to take partnership in this gouging.”

Unlike privatizing the toll road, I think gas taxes are an appropriate method of funding road construction and maintenance. Letting oil companies squeeze the State out of this method of funding roads would be bad policy. However, it would seem reasonable to set the tax at some number of cents per gallon rather than cents per dollar. I think there is going to be a correlation between gallons consumed, miles driven, and road construction and maintenance needed. I suspect the correlation between gallons consumed and necessary road maintenance is going to be closer than that between dollars spent and necessary road maintenance. Price of gasoline is going to be more variable than fuel economy.

So the legislature would probably be well advised to convert the tax from $0.06 per dollar to $0.0X per gallon where “X” reflects the average impact of the use of a gallon of gas on our roads.
Update This is something of a “nevermind” moment. As has been pointed out in the comments, Bauer’s remarks were directed at the sales tax on gas which is the standard 6% and were not directed at the excise tax which is, per the article if I’d bothered to read closely, 18 cents per gallon for the state and 18.4 cents per gallon for the federal government.