A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Senate Bill 0264 – Certificate of salvage title. Passed 47-3. This is a good bill, I think. It tightens up the law concerning how damaged a vehicle must be before a salvage title must be obtained. Basically, if the cost of repair exceeds 70% of the fair market value, an insurance company or self-insured business has to get a salvage title. The computation of the repair has to include the costs of parts and labor and exclude the cost of reinstalling airbags, tires, sound systems, and sales tax on the parts and material. Before this, instead of the 70% mark for insurance companies, the law said a salvage title was necessary only where repairs were “economically impractical.”

Senate Bill 0241 Indiana Abraham Lincoln bicentennial commission. Establishes the Indiana Abraham Lincoln bicentennial commission. Passed 50 – 0.

My fiscally conservative side says this is the kind of waste that governments don’t need to tax us for. But, in the face of honoring Honest Abe, that side doesn’t last very long. I mean basically, he was the country’s Christ figure. He was an obscure political figure who came out of the American wilderness, displaying the characteristics of the quintessential American. He was hard-working, self-educated and quick with homespun humor. He was hard willed when he needed to be but compassionate whenever he could be. He led us through our greatest struggle, and he died for it. If you want to stretch it a bit, America was reborn out of his death. I’m sure there were less attractive aspects of the man. But I don’t want to know about them. I get goosebumps every time I get to go to his memorial. I need a few heroes, and he’s one of them.

Senate Bill 0140 – Use of charity gaming proceeds. Prohibits the department of state revenue (department) from adopting a rule requiring a qualified organization to use a minimum percentage of its gross receipts from allowable events for its lawful purposes. Eliminates the department’s authority to set by rule the allowable expenditures of a qualified organization with respect to an allowable event. Sets forth the expenses that may be subtracted from gross receipts to determine a qualified organization’s net proceeds from an allowable event. Voids certain rules adopted by the department regarding the use of charity gaming proceeds.

I’ve read this bill a few times. I’ve read 45 IAC 18-3-7 & 8 (PDF document) which it repeals. And I just don’t understand it. Apparently the Senate did because it passed 43-6. There is evidently something about the term “lawful purposes” that is escaping me. It seems to me that all revenues received by a charity (from gaming proceeds or not) would have to be used for its lawful purposes. So that the Dept. of Revenue setting a minimum percentage to be used for lawful purposes would be boggling and the legislature doing anything but repealing the IAC provisions would be unnecessary. Just reporting my ignorance, I guess.

Update: The Palladium-Item has a brief note about the passage of the bill. It doesn’t sound like they understand it any better than I did:

A charitable gaming bill authored by Sen. Allen Paul (R-Richmond) passed through the Indiana Senate this week by a vote of 43-6.

The bill basically prohibits the Department of Revenue from making specific rules requiring charitable gaming establishments to give part of their revenues to charitable organizations. Currently, rules state that those establishments must give a minimum percentage of their revenue to charity.

Paul said in a press release that passing the bill would weed out the dependence charitable institutions have to gaming proceeds.

The bill now goes to the Indiana House of Representatives where Rep. Tom Saunders (R-Lewisville) will sponsor it.

Senate Bill 0125
Commercial vehicle insurance. Specifies that the law requiring an insurer to make available uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist coverage does not apply to the issuance of commercial vehicle liability policies. Passed the Senate 49-1.

Senate Bill 0111 Memorial Day celebration funding. IC 10-18-8-1 is currently structured by enumerating 27 veterans groups and saying that the county council can give up to $500 to any of the organizations for the purpose of Memorial Day celebrations. SB 111 modifies that for situations in which one of the groups coordinates the Memorial Day celebration. In such a case, the council can appropriate a sum the organizations would collectively be entitled to receive jointly. I think it’s possible to read the amendment to justify appropriation of $13,500 (27 x $500) even in a county where not all 27 groups exist. (I can also see a reading that restricts the appropriation to $500 x number of groups in the county). Anyway, nobody wants to be against veterans. So that bill passed 50 – 0.

Senate Bill 0067 – Wireless enhanced 911. Specifies that a commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) provider may be reimbursed from the wireless emergency telephone system fund for costs incurred before July 1, 2005, to implement wireless enhanced 911 service. Allows part of the wireless enhanced 911 fee to be used to reimburse public safety answering points and the wireless enhanced 911 advisory board (board) for certain wireless enhanced 911 services required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) but not specified in the 1996 FCC order concerning wireless enhanced 911. Provides that after all CMRS providers have been reimbursed for expenses incurred before July 1, 2005, the board may reduce or reallocate the part of the fee used to reimburse CMRS providers. Prohibits the board from reimbursing a CMRS provider for expenses submitted after December 31, 2005. Repeals an obsolete reference to pseudo-automatic number identification.

Seems like I had a hand in drafting the original wireless enhanced 911 legislation, but it’s all pretty opaque to me. Anyway, the amendment passed the Senate 48 – 0.

The South Bend Tribune is reporting that the Republican National Committee is trying to strong-arm media outlets into not airing a commercial from Moveon.Org. The article, entitled SouthBendTribune.com: RNC asks stations to kill ‘false TV ad’ reports that the RNC accuses MoveOn.org of submitting advertisements that “maliciously” make reference to Bush’s Social Security cuts of up to 46%. The last two paragraphs of the RNC’s article said:

As an FCC licensee, you have a responsibility to exercise independent editorial judgment to oversee and protect the integrity of the American marketplace of ideas, and to avoid broadcasting deliberate misrepresentations of the facts. Such obligations must be taken seriously and I urge you to decline to broadcast this advertisement.

“This letter places you on notice that the information contained in the above-cited advertisement is false and misleading. Your station should act responsibly and refrain from airing this advertisement.

Also, according to the article:

Jim Behling, general manager for WNDU-TV, said he is neither afraid nor cowed by getting a letter from a lawyer at the RNC, but may pull the spot if he determines that it is inaccurate. The ad contract calls for the spot to end its run on Sunday, according to Behling.

“It’s about what’s fair,” said Behling, adding, “If we made the wrong decision based on insufficient information, then we have to correct ourselves.”

Behling said he has reviewed documentation supplied by MoveOn.org in support of the ad, and said the 46 percent figure seems to apply to people who will retire in 2075, and therefore haven’t yet been born.

He said he plans to ask MoveOn.org if the 46 percent “applies to anybody living today” and, if not, may decide to pull the spot.

You know, this would be fine if stations such as WNDU were able to question the numbers Bush puts forth in his State of the Union speech and elsewhere. To take an example mentioned in the Washington Post:

To conclude that Social Security is careening toward a crisis in 2042, President Bush is relying on projections that an aging society will drag down economic growth. Yet his proposal to establish personal accounts is counting on strong investment gains in financial markets that would be coping with the same demographic head wind.

So, the end result, if this double standard is applied, is that Bush gets his cooked Social Security numbers out and MoveOn.org doesn’t get theirs out. Now, I don’t know whose numbers are right and whose are wrong. But, I do remember that the Bush administration told me that Iraq would cost $1.7 billion to reconstruct. That number was horribly, horribly wrong. And, as the President says, “Fool me once, shame on . . . me. I won’t get fooled again.”

With respect to Moveon.Org’s numbers, the article reports:

According to supporting documents supplied to the stations by MoveOn.org, the plan which serves as the model for the president’s proposal would cut benefits because it changes the basis on which benefits would be calculated from wage levels to consumer price levels.

Based on Social Security Administration data, a worker born in 1977 who earned average wages and retired in 2042 would see benefits 26 percent lower than under the current benefit structure, $14,432 a year instead of $19,423 in 2004 dollars. An individual who retired in 2075 would receive monthly benefits 46 percent lower than under the current structure, the documents said.

Tom Matzzie, Washington, D.C., director of MoveOn.org, said in a statement issued Friday that the information referred to in the spot is based on an analysis performed by the chief actuary at the Social Security Administration, and said his organization stands by the ad.

I hope none of our Indiana media outlets caves to the RNC’s bullyboy tactics. Weary as we may become of it, the remedy to political speech is more political speech. Let the RNC take out opposing ads that dissect any numbers from MoveOn.org with which they may disagree or feel are misleading and lay out the case for why their numbers are more honest.

Introduced Version, House Bill 1393 passed the House Roads & Transportation Committee 6-4. It raises the speed limit on the Indiana Toll Road from 65 to 70. The South Bend Tribune has a story. Insurance industry says it will lead to more wrecks. Rep. Stutzman responds creatively that a higher speed limit will be safer:

Stutzman said truckers are avoiding costly tolls by using U.S. 6 and U.S. 20, which lack the design standards to carry them as safely as the Toll Road. Higher speeds on the Toll Road might be an incentive to get them off other highways “and onto the Toll Road where they belong.”

There is also the tried and true: “higher limits would match the speed at which most Hoosier motorists drive.” “People drive at the speed they feel comfortable,” Rep. David Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, said.

I don’t think higher speeds will make us any safer. I don’t happen to think they will make us significantly less safe. I hope higher speed limits pass for all rural Interstates. I don’t think singling out the Indiana Toll Road makes a lot of sense.

The Indy Star has an article on Republicans and taxes entitled, GOP’s Espich shelves proposal for restaurant tax. The article discusses the fact that the GOP controlled General Assembly is considering a number of new taxes. It also notes that the GOP has benefitted hugely from an anti-tax campaign message over the years. Here is the problem: Sometimes we need government to do stuff. And doing that stuff costs money. Government gets money from taxes. Ergo, sometimes we need taxes. So, dogmatic opposition against taxes just for the sake of being against taxes is short sighted and irresponsible. The responsbile action is to decide whether the government is doing something we need it to do. If it is, then pay for it. If it isn’t, then cut the program.

In any event, it seems to me that federal taxes are the taxes that are out of control. What’s my share of the Iraq War? About $750? What do I get out of it? People half-way around the world get a bit of democracy and instability? Call me cold hearted, but no thanks. Given my druthers, I’d ship that money to Indianapolis or, even better, keep it in the county to pay for roads and schools and healthcare for my neighbors.