A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Faith-Based Initiatives

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Indy Star article entitled: Daniels appoints community service leader reports that Gov. Daniels “selected Indianapolis community service leader as his first director for the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Paula Parker-Sawyers, a former deputy mayor, will lead the state’s effort to strengthen volunteerism and community service and to increase partnerships with faith-based organizations.”

The Devil, as always, is in the details. It’s probably a good idea to enlist those organizations with boots already on the ground to help the poor and otherwise help take care of the state’s volunteer needs. This will hopefully be more effective and cheaper. But, such programs should not be taxpayer subsidized religious proselytization nor should it be used to mask state abandonment of the poor.

Soc. Security

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In an article entitled Social Security key to state’s fiscal fitness, Rep. Chris Chocola implies that the U.S. Government is going to default on its Treasury Bills. Social Security is only a dramatic concern if one assumes that the U.S. is going to default on Treasury Bills which are part of the Social Security Funds assets. The U.S. general fund has been drawing on Social Security funds (taxes that fall more heavily on the middle class, by the way) and issuing IOUs to the Social Security fund.

Chocola:

Rep. Chris Chocola, the only Indiana congressman who serves on a committee that will be writing any Social Security legislation, said lawmakers need to act soon because benefits being paid out are expected to exceed tax money going into the fund in
2018. Chocola, a Republican, has been a supporter of Bush’s proposal to let workers divert some of their Social Security taxes into private investment accounts.

That 2018 date is only a problem if the U.S. is going to default on the IOUs it’s been writing to the Social Security fund so as not to have to raise general taxes (which fall more heavily on the wealthy than do Social Security taxes).

Maybe I’m cranky ‘cuz I’m sick. I’ll post more on the General Assembly when my nose stops running like a faucet. I swear my little boy is genetically engineered to transmit disease to me.

HB 1090 – Lobbying by former legislators

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HB 1090 which provides a cooling off period before a legislator can become a lobbyist passed out of committee by a vote of 10 to 1 after they ameneded the bill to start later and to only require a 1 year cooling off period. The Indy Star has an article on the bill saying that the bill has the support of Speaker Bosma and the Governor and, apparently, the tepid support of Sen. Garton who seems to be allowing the bill as a favor to the Governor.

Indy Star on Daniels’ order to withhold school funds & GOP tension

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$27 million cut from schools:

Gov. Mitch Daniels has ordered his budget director to withhold nearly $27 million that Indiana schools had counted on this spring as part of his promise to balance the state budget.

The unprecedented move angered school leaders and fueled tensions with House Republicans, who believe the governor not only shortchanged schools but also overstepped his authority.

“Much like the tax increase plan, the governor states his preference,” said House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis. “That preference won’t be acted upon by the General Assembly until the budget is complete. This will be decided by the budget, and not the budget director.”

. . .

For schools, that means ending the state’s previous practice of covering a shortfall between what the school aid formula dictated and the lower amount state lawmakers set aside when they wrote the budget. Projections can be off because of enrollment growth, changes in property assessments, motor vehicle excise tax collections or other factors.

So, if I read the article right, the Governor’s office is withholding funds that the General Assembly had ordered to go to schools. The General Assembly can act to get those funds to the schools, but until it acts, the Governor’s action has an immediate impact on the schools.

Do Not Call Under Attack

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Good catch by kemplog. Pointing to a story in the Northwest Times about the Consumer Bankers Association petitioning the FCC to strike down portion of the Indiana Do Not Call list, presumably as preempted by federal law. Attorney General Steve Carter is fighting for Indiana’s law.

This was my main concern with the federal do-not-call legislation. I actually went so far as to write my Congressman, Steve Buyer, to ask that he make sure that more stringent do-not-call legislation was acceptable under the federal law.

I sent my comment to the FCC (Referencing Case 02-278)

Dear Sirs and Madams:
Please deny the recent petition of the Consumer Bankers Association seeking to water down Indiana’s “do not call” list. The federal “do-not-call” list was enacted as a measure to help those in the country in states which had not acted sufficiently to stop the blight of unwanted telephone calls. It was not designed to prevent Indiana from taking more stringent measures to protect its citizens.

Thank you for your consideration
/s/Douglas J. Masson

Pal-Item on Rep. Pflum’s Internet Poll on DST

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The Palladium-Item has a story on Rep. Pflum’s Internet survey over whether Hoosiers favor DST.

The article states:

Daniels asserts that not observing daylight-saving time is a handicap for Hoosier businesses because businesses outside of Indiana many times do not know what time zone Indiana is in. If daylight-saving times were observed, east-central Indiana would spring forward one hour in the spring and fall back one hour in the fall with the Eastern time zone, while areas like Lake County near Chicago would spring forward and fall back in the Central time zone all year long.
“… The time has come to stop penalizing Indiana businesses through
our quirky treatment of time itself,” he said in his State of the State
Address last week.

First, see a previous entry for information suggesting there is really no evidence that the lack of DST hurts Indiana business. Second, if Indiana is still going to have at least two time zones for patches of the Region and Southwestern Indiana, I’m not sure foreign businesses are going to be any more aware of what time it is in a given part of Indiana.

J&C on the proposed cell phone ban

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The Journal & Courier’s story on the proposed cell phone ban. It has all of the standard elements. The “man on the street” angle:

It’s not a habit she’s proud of, but Danielle Green doesn’t think twice before answering her cell phone or making a call while driving. “I know I should be more careful. We should all be more careful — practically everyone has a cell phone these days,” said Green, 34, of West Lafayette. “I’ve seen people swerve while they’re talking on the phone, and I’ve probably done it, too. It’s not a good thing.” . . .[description of cell phone legislation] . . .Green thinks the proposal has some merit. “If it’s going to help people pay attention to the road, especially if they have kids in the car, then, yes, I’m for it,” she said. “But I still wonder, is wearing a headset going to help?”

Then it hits the “there are other distractions, where is it going to end” angle and talks to a few law enforcement officials. The jist: cell phones make driving more dangerous, lots of other things make driving more dangerous, cell phones are the hot topic so lets do something about them. Oh, and a relatively new angle: Europe! “Such bans are already common in most European countries, and Nokia, which is based in Finland, has not seen a falloff in its business in that part of the world[.]” Don’t trot Europe out unless you’re prepared to explain how much better European public transportation is than that in the U.S. If I could catch a train to wherever I wanted to go, I wouldn’t spend so much time in the car.

Some recently passed bills

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Passed the House:

  • House Bill 1022: Military base protection act. Establishes a military base planning council. Requires IDEM to give military bases preferential treatment. Creates immunity for military bases for damages arising out of noise within 2 miles of base and telecommunications interference within 5 miles. Requires local government to give notice before rezoning within 3 miles of a base. Passed 91-0.
  • HB 1051 Tweaks the wage claim statute. It does a few things, but the main thing is to allow assignment of wage claims from the laborer to the Commissioner of Labor from $800 to $3,000. (The Dept. of Labor will review a wage claim and send a demand out to the employer which may or may not get a response. If there is no response or an insufficient response, the Dept. of Labor will farm the claims out to private attorneys who have to make their own arrangements with the employee as far as a fee is concerned. Usually this means a contingency. The Dept. of Labor stopped farming them out to me after I kept sending them back as too cheap and too messy to work with. The increased limit may help, but there are still going to be a bunch of word verses word situations with no documentation that, as a practical matter, make private attorneys reluctant to handle the case.)Passed 93-0.
  • HB 1069 – Home and Community Based Services Passed 94-0.
  • HB 1097Establishes fair market value as the amount that must be deducted whenever the value of computer application software is allowed to be deducted from the true tax value of tangible personal property. Provides that the rules of the department of local government finance must require the use of nationally recognized valuation guides when determining the true tax value of mobile homes that are not assessed as real property. (Computer software and mobile homes? Two great tastes that taste great together!) Passed 92-0.
  • HB 1262 Increases exemption amounts for property you can keep when you declare bankruptcy or someone is trying to execute on a judgment. Doubles the homestead amount from $7,500 to $15,000; doubles the personal property exemption from $4,000 to $8,000; triples the cash amount from $300 to $600. Eliminates the $10,000 cap. (So, I could have a $1,000 judgment against a couple, and they could stiff me even though they have $47,000 in assets and a pile of retirement money. I thought a Republican controlled government was supposed to be about personal responsibility not about coddling debtors!) Passed 63-33. (Looks like the nay votes were pretty well mixed up between R & D.)
  • SJR 4 The Constitutional right to hunt and fish. Passed 83-15. The Joint Resolution page doesn’t seem to have the roll call vote available, so I can’t see who to applaud for voting against this garbage. I mean, I’ve got nothing against hunting and fishing. Some of my best friends hunt and fish. But do we really need to muck up our Constitution with this crap? Say what you will about the gay marriage proposal, at least it’s a topic that rises to the level of a Constitutional question. What’s next? A Constitutional right to have a logo of Calvin peeing on stuff? Update: The Evansville Courier Press seems to share my take on this:

    The Indiana Constitution is a document best left as it is, to protect our basic rights and guide us in the conduct of public policy. That is not to say it should never be amended; rather, that process should be reserved for a true crisis or for those eventualities that require adjustment of a document adopted more than 150 years ago.

    To amend the state constitution for anything less is to risk opening the gates to every special-interest group in search of the precious protection of our constitution.
    . . .
    Proponents, in referring to hunting and fishing, say they want to guard “a valued part of our heritage.”

    Let us suggest that Hoosiers need to guard another valued part of our heritage, the Indiana Constitution, by quashing this ridiculous and totally unnecessary effort to alter that constitution.

    Passed the Senate

  • SB 196 Licensing and permits for boxing a/k/a the Don King Bill. Passed 47-0.
  • SB 102 Foreign judgments. Provides that defenses raised by a foreign judgment debtor must be ruled upon before the foreign judgment: (1) may be enforced by execution; or (2) constitutes a lien. Provides that a foreign judgment creditor is entitled to the same prejudgment remedies as an Indiana judgment creditor. Authorizes an Indiana court in which a foreign judgment is filed to preliminarily litigate certain postjudgment motions. Passed 46-0.

    (The Senate bill information kept generating error pages in a lot of instances, so my Senate information is a little sparse tonight. Also, the House information isn’t comprehensive, but I think I got most of it.)

    • Cost of Iraq

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    Like I’ve said before, I’m trying to stay away from national politics on this blog, but being a fiscal conservative and a devoted Hoosier, the Bush administration’s wasteful Iraq policy gets me riled up.

    Compare THEN:

    Nightline: Project Iraq
    April 23, 2003 Wednesday
    Source: ABC News
    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) Our guest tonight is ANDREW NATSIOS, administrator of the Agency for International Development, the lead [Bush administration] agency that is responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq.
    . . .
    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) Well, it’s a, I think you’ll agree, this is a much bigger project than any that’s been talked about. Indeed, I understand that more money is expected to be spent on this than was spent on the entire Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    No, no. This doesn’t even compare remotely with the size of the Marshall Plan.

    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) The Marshall Plan was $97 billion.

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    This is 1.7 billion.

    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it’s up and running and there’s a new government that’s been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They’re going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.

    . . .

    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) And we’re back once again with ANDREW NATSIOS, administrator for the Agency for International Development. I want to be sure that I understood you correctly. You’re saying the, the top cost for the US taxpayer will be $1.7 billion. No more than that?

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    For the reconstruction. And then there’s 700 million in the supplemental budget for humanitarian relief, which we don’t competitively bid ’cause it’s charities that get that money.

    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) I understand. But as far as reconstruction goes, the American taxpayer will not be hit for more than $1.7 billion no matter how long the process takes?

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    That is our plan and that is our intention. And these figures, outlandish figures I’ve seen, I have to say, there’s a little bit of hoopla involved in this.
    . . .

    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) If it’s cost plus, in other words, if they come back to you in another six months or in another year and say, gee, you know, we gave you best estimate we could but here’s what it ended up costing and it ended up costing double what we said it was gonna cost.

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    Oh, no, no, we have, that’s the amount of money we have to spend. We’re gonna do less if it costs more than that, because we have an appropriation, we’re gonna go within the limits of the appropriation.

    TED KOPPEL
    (Off Camera) But what you are saying is, maybe, maybe fewer tasks will be accomplished. The amount of money, however, is gonna be the same?

    ANDREW NATSIOS
    That’s correct. 1.7 billion is the limit on reconstruction for Iraq. It’s a large amount of money but, compared to other emergencies around the world. But in terms of the amount of money needed to reconstruct the country, it’s a relatively small amount.

    NOW:

    The White House said Tuesday that President Bush will ask Congress for another $80 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an appropriation that would bring the total spent for the two wars to more than $300 billion.
    . . .
    The White House said additional war spending would push the federal deficit to a record $427 billion for fiscal 2005, according to administration budget forecasts unveiled Tuesday. Bush said the new infusion of money will pay for essential equipment and supplies.
    . . .
    Before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, estimates of the war’s cost were $50 billion, with assurances from administration officials that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for much of the effort.

    Now, the Afghanistan undertaking seems pretty well justified to me. Taking that out of the equation, a fair estimate of the cost of the Iraqi adventure would seem to be $200 Billion (and counting.) Indiana’s population is roughly 6 million of the nation’s 270 million people or about 2.2% of the nation’s population. So, our share of the Iraq bill is roughly $4.4 Billion dollars. With that kind of money available, the state’s $800 million shortfall would seem trivial. We could have good schools, paved roads, and affordable healthcare. Given that sort of option, I’d much rather have those things even if it meant that Saddam Hussein was still in charge of his decrepit Army with no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Sure, the Iraqi people would still be under his bootheel. But, I favor a conservative foreign policy that is not motivated by bleeding-heart human rights considerations. I’m more concerned about the well-being of my fellow Hoosiers than I am by the welfare of strangers half-way across the world. Not the most compassionate world-view, I guess, but strikes me as awfully pragmatic.

    Indy Star on HB 1508

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    The Indy Star has an article entitled Bill calls for drivers to hang up discussing HB 1508 which would limit the use of cell phones in one’s car.

    What I really enjoy is the “man on the street” commentary these articles always seem to feature. Today’s offering:

    Most folks acknowledge that driving while phoning is a hazard. Ivan Rouse, 27, Indianapolis, said he has noticed that “most of the people driving slow are not really paying attention and are on the phone.” But Rouse questions whether a new law is the answer. “I wouldn’t want it to be a law, because it just gives the law a way to get in my pocket,” he said. “If they pass a law on it, then I think they will more or less abuse it.”

    I guess I’m like most folks because I think driving while phoning makes you a less effective driver. Then again, I think the same could be said about driving-while-tired, driving-while-really-really-old, driving-while-hung-over, driving-while-futzing-with-the-radio, driving-while-the-kids-are-yelling-in-the-back, and countless other distractions or impairments. And, in fact, most of the folks I notice driving slowly are not using cell phones. Take that Mr. Ivan Rouse. But I agree with him that another law probably isn’t the answer.