A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

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Reward Good Behavior

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If you reward good behavior, you’ll get more of it. That’s not terribly insightful, I know; but a lot of our policy approaches seem more inclined to demand good behavior rather than create any sort of positive incentive for it. Punishing bad behavior – now that we can get behind. Jails and criminal penalties are not, traditionally, tough sells.

Rewarding good behavior seems to offend our sense of justice at times. “They should be doing that anyway!”

I suppose tax breaks are a sort of positive incentive for good behavior from people who have money. It’s tougher to craft positive incentives for good behavior from people without money.

Not a lot of substance to this post, I suppose. Just an observation that, for some reason, the stick is a more popular policy tool than the carrot.

Ritz Lawsuit Out – Attorney General must represent State Officials

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State Impact (among many others) is reporting that the trial court judge has granted (pdf) a motion (pdf) to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Glenda Ritz against the State Board of Education.

As I understand it, the lawsuit is an open door law complaint against the State Board of Education related to a letter the Board sent the General Assembly asking it to have the Legislative Services Agency help with the calculation of the A-F grades. If the letter is official action of the Board, taken without a public meeting, then it probably violates the Open Door Law. The judge, in granting the Attorney General’s motion, did not reach the substance of the complaint. Basically, the judge ruled that Secretary Ritz did not have standing, because her attorneys could not represent her without the Attorney General’s permission.

Seems to me like there is a fairly easy work around here. Ritz in her private capacity (or an affected member of the public) could file an open door suit themselves. Of course, they’d have to pay their own lawyers or get them to work pro bono.

About those Health Care Outcome Metrics

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Proponents of health care reform in the United States often cite the fact that we spend a lot more than other countries and get the same or worse results. One of the metrics used to support the notion that we get the same or worse results is life expectancy in the U.S. compared to other countries. Opponents of health care reform complain that life expectancy isn’t a good metric to use when analyzing our health care system because we have more murders, more accidents, and report miscarriages differently.

Aaron Carroll addresses those critiques of the metrics. Turns out, even if you pull that stuff out of the mix, we still aren’t doing that great. Also, an AEI sponsored study made the argument that, if you look at our population 65 and older, our health care system compares favorably to other countries. But, of course, our 65 year olds get Medicare. Not exactly an argument against socialized medicine.

Road User Fees: Mileage versus Fuel Consumption

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We don’t have a true “user fee” for roads, but our funding policy tries to approximate one. One source of funds for road maintenance is a tax on fuel consumption; the more or less reasonable idea being that the more fuel you’re using, the more wear and tear you are placing on the roads. As fuel efficiency increases, that revenue declines. The Joint Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Assessment and Solutions was introduced to the concept of a “vehicle mileage tax” (VMT). (See minutes of October 16, 2013 (pdf).)

If fuel efficiency was increasing more or less uniformly for all motorists, the response would be to increase tax per gallon. Sure, you’re “raising taxes” which is scary; but not really. In that situation, you’re just recognizing that you have to increase the ratio to continue to impose the same tax. Just because your vehicle is getting better gas mileage doesn’t mean that it’s doing any less damage-per-mile to the road. But, where there is a disparity in fuel efficiency, altering the ratio would be a tax increase for the less fuel efficient vehicles.

The VMT, on the other hand, would tie the funding to the number of miles traveled by the vehicle. Concerns with that would have to do with making sure some allowance is made for the fact that heavier, more fuel consuming vehicles, cause more wear and tear on the roads; with accommodating a reluctance to GPS or similar technology being imposed by the government for purposes of taxation; and with desires to maintain incentives for people to acquire more fuel efficient vehicles.

Report of the Interim Committee on Unemployment Insurance

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The Unemployment Insurance Oversight Committee is one of the General Assembly’s interim study committees — a legislative committee that meets when the General Assembly is not in session and studies matters of concern to the legislature. The Committee’s report is available here (pdf).

A recurring topic around here (after almost 9 years of this blog, sometimes they all feel like recurring topics) has been this rhetoric about how Indiana has been a fiscally responsible budget balancer, the federal government is awful and fiscally irresponsible, and why don’t we have another tax cut? A rejoinder has been, “hey, didn’t we borrow piles of money from the feds for our Unemployment Insurance program?” The committee received information relevant to that debate.

According to testimony provided to the Committee:

As of August 2013, Indiana’s unemployment rate was 8.1%, the 26th consecutive month Indiana’s rate has exceeded the national rate.

The federal government is charging Indiana 2.57% per month year on the Unemployment Insurance loan. Because of the state’s outstanding loan by the federal government, Indiana employers are paying an additional $63 per employee in 2013 and, in 2014, will pay an additional $84 per employee. The loan is scheduled to be outstanding until 2017.

There was also discussion about use of debit cards for unemployment benefits; use of direct deposit for such benefits; and, something that caught my eye, the concept of a “work sharing” program. Work Sharing would allow an employer to reduce hours and wages of an entire group or location instead of firing people; the employer would pay the employees for hours actually worked and the employee would additionally receive some unemployment benefits to offset the reduction. The devil would really be in the details there; I could see it being kind of good or kind of awful.

Tully on Constitutional Marriage Equality Ban

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Matt Tully has a good column on the proposed anti-marriage equality amendment to the Indiana Constitution and the dilemma faced by Republican leaders in the Indiana General Assembly. Much of it has been said before, but I suppose these things will have to be repeated quite a lot in the next year until the public discourse over the proposed amendment solidifies. But, briefly:

1. It’s the wrong thing to do. Same sex partners should have the same right to marry and/or civil unions that heterosexual partners have.

2. There is already a statute in place banning same sex marriages in Indiana. No need to make it double extra illegal through a Constitutional Amendment that serves only to make it more difficult for Hoosiers of tomorrow to make their own decision on the matter.

3. The second sentence of the proposed amendment is impenetrable – probably intended as a ban on civil unions, but who the hell knows.

4. For Republicans, it creates a rift between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives.

5. It’s not a real problem that needs addressed – compared to more real world challenges Hoosiers face.

6. It makes us look backward. (More so, I would contend, than declining to observe Daylight Saving Time — see, I knew I could work DST into a blog post.)

Corporate Religion

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Cases are coming down the line analyzing whether businesses purchasing insurance plans and providing them to employees as compensation can, based on religious objections, get out of the Obamacare mandate that the plans include birth control. (See, e.g.).

Sometimes, the business in question is a corporation, and a question that has to be addressed is whether a corporation can be said to have bona fide religious beliefs. And, of course they cannot. The corporate form is a government construct designed to shield individuals from personal responsibility for their actions in order to encourage economic activity. [Insert standard rant about how libertarians can be anti-government and pro-personal responsibility and tolerate the existence of the corporate form.] Because the corporation, as an entity, is entirely a government created legal fiction; it does not legally have any qualities not provided for under the law — moral belief is not such a quality.

Then, the question becomes, when do the moral beliefs of individual owners become relevant to the legal rights of the corporation? That’s a closer question; but I’d suggest that if the corporate form shields an individual owner from a creditor of the corporation; that shield also forms a barrier to the owner’s moral concerns. If it’s a shield, it’s a barrier — you can’t let the Holy Ghost through one direction without individual liability coming through the other way.

Filed Under: Law

Healthy Indiana Plan Eligibility Restrictions & Obamacare

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I was reading the September 16, 2013, minutes (pdf) of the General Assembly’s Health Finance Commission (because isn’t that what everyone does when they wake up in the morning?) and saw discussion of the Healthy Indiana Plan as it relates to the federal Medicaid expansion.

I seem to be missing something. The minutes suggest that Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) eligibility is being restricted to facilitate access to the health care exchange subsidies. My understanding was that those subsidies did not kick in until a person exceeded the Medicaid expansion threshold (133% of the poverty line or thereabouts). But, according to the minutes, access to HIP is being reduced from the current level down to 100% of the poverty line. This means that 10,500 currently eligible for HIP will no longer be eligible.

The other interesting piece of information about HIP is that it appears to be capped at 45,000 participants; and the reason for that limit has to do with the Budget Agency’s interpretation of the funding mechanism from the cigarette tax. Commission members seemed to believe that there was a surplus of cigarette tax funds and asked FSSA Secretary Minott to follow up on that.

Ender’s Game: Creating the Innocent Killer

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I stumbled across this 2004 essay by John Kessel entitled “Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention and Morality.” Ender’s Game is a 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card which is the basis for a movie coming out this week.

I always enjoyed the book. Over the years, I’ve come to enjoy the author less and less based on his strident and, what I regard as backward, social positions.

In any event, Kessel points what a great adolescent revenge fantasy the book is. I’m sure that was part of the appeal for me. The child, Ender, is picked on in spite of — in fact, because of — how unique and special he is. Kessel further describes how relentlessly Card stacks the deck in favor of Ender’s righteousness and the against the two dimensional malice of his tormentors. Ender strikes out against his tormentors with extreme violence but, because his intentions are pure, he is an innocent killer.

Described as an adolescent revenge fantasy, I was reminded of the works of Ayn Rand. The superior individual is oppressed and held back by ordinary people.

But, Kessel’s main point was to challenge Card’s position that the morality of an act is entirely based on the intention of the actor. He suggests that intent is an important factor, but not the only factor.

Not discussed by either (at least in Kessel’s piece) is the reasonableness of the intent. If intentions are good, but completely divorced from reality, I think the action can still be immoral. I’m not convinced that killing is inherently moral or immoral. I think it can be a moral act if your intent was, for example, to save the life of an innocent. But, if the innocent was never in any real danger and you just somehow were unable or refused to process the information allowing you to accurately assess the danger, then your good intention does not make an otherwise immoral act a moral one.

Playing into this refusal or inability to assess the context of one’s actions is the fact that the antagonists in Ender’s Game and Ayn Rand are generally two-dimensional caricatures. Political discourse is also, of course, well populated with straw men of this stature. In the real world, antagonists are more nuanced. Everyone is the protagonist in their own story; and almost no one is the bad guy in their own internal narrative. There is usually a frame through which the “bad” guys can plausibly see themselves as good guys. Failure or inability to consider that frame can taint the otherwise good intentions upon which claims of morality are based.

MDA Fundraiser – Please Contribute

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I am participating in a local fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. It’s one of those hokey “lock up / bail” deals. While I’m not a huge fan of the format, the cause is a good one. So, if you have $5 – $10 to spare, I’d certainly appreciate it if you could kick in a contribution. Contribution website is here.

Briefly, Muscular Dystrophy is “a group of muscle diseases that weaken the musculoskeletal system and hamper locomotion. Muscular dystrophies are characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue.”

When I mentioned participating in this fundraiser, a friend asked if I had a loved one affected by the disease. Fortunately, the answer to that is “no.” I received a call asking if I would participate, so I said “yes.”

We now return you to your regular, non-fundraising programming.