A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The good news is that Experts predict a $1.8 billion revenue boost according to the Indy Star. But, as the article points out:

But that extra money won’t go far. Public schools say they need more money over the next two years to operate at current levels. Public colleges and universities want an extra $500 million. And the cost of operating the Medicaid health care program is escalating.

I read a chapter or two in an Indiana history book last night. The author stated that Indiana’s constitutional convention and early political experience was very democratic and populist. There was an optimism about the ability of government to benefit the governed. The constitution called for free education and for a reformative as opposed to a punitive justice system. Early political efforts were to build infrastructure. Infrastructure efforts tended not to be focused on one or two particular projects but rather statewide and, as a result, piecemeal and rather unfocused. During the canal building era between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, Indiana engaged on a monumental group of infrastructure projects and borrowed huge sums of money. Shortly thereafter, a financial panic hit the country and Indiana defaulted on its obligations. Indiana became synonymous with fiscal recklessness. The theory goes that this wounded the state badly and has led to a cautiousness that tends toward a lack of vision and a government that provides the bare minimum to its citizens.

That’s mostly a digression. Vision or no, the Medicaid program is a financial black hole and it’s still not adequate. I don’t know what the answer is though. Sick people are just expensive. Maybe the state would be better off just spending a bunch of money on light rail and other infrastructure as well as kick ass schools and other investments that will help healthy people prosper. Nah, that can’t be the right thing to do.

Good article from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette on the truck seat belt and road fund formula entitled: Journal Gazette | 12/12/2004 | Truck-plate fight looms for seat belts

The two basic issues are that 1) for seatbelts, there are going to be folks who think their rights are being compromised by having a truck and being required to wear a seatbelt; and 2) the formula restructuring that would likely help rural counties at the expense of metropolitan counties. I don’t believe the article mentions that the proposed seatbelt law also requires backseat passengers to be belted in. As I understand it, the road fund is currently divided up by counting the number of passenger vehicles (but not pickup trucks or SUVs registered as trucks) and giving each county its pro rata share based on the ratio of its passenger vehicles to the total number of passenger vehicles. Throwing pickup trucks into the mix would help your county if more of the counties vehicles were pickups than in other counties.

I wasn’t much taken by the article’s reliance on “local resident Jason Eminger” for constitutional analysis. He says that he shouldn’t be told to wear a seatbelt because “if I hurt anybody, it’ll be myself.” That’d be fine logic if Mr. Eminger is heavily insured against personal injury. But, my guess is that if Mr. Eminger required 30 years of tube feeding and diaper changes, it’d be the Indiana taxpayers or his family who bore the heaviest burden, neither of whom Mr. Eminger would have consulted before “exercising his right” not to wear a seat belt. I’m generally a hardcore Bill of Rights sort of guy, but wearing a seat belt is too trivial a burden with too great a benefit for me to get worked up over.

Back on the subject of the road formula, the article notes that former Senator Borst headed up the Finance Committee and was from Indy so he generally sat on previous road formula change bills. I’m not sure who will head up the Senate Finance Committee.

From the South Bend Tribune:

Gov.-elect Mitch Daniels on Friday named a retired GTE executive and former chairman of the Indiana Sports Corp. to run the state’s Department of Administration. Earl Goode will run the department which is in charge of, among other things, procurement for the State.

So, we have:

An Eli Lilly attorney as director of the Office of Management & Budget;

An Ice Miller corporate & securities attorney as Chief of Staff;

An Eli Lilly & Ice Miller corporate attorney as Director of State Personnel;

A Barnes & Thornburg corporate attorney as General Counsel;

A Golden Rule Insurance Company IT manager as Chief Information Officer;

A COO of the Indianapolis Water Company as head of FSSA;

A COO of Galyans as head of the BMV.
You know, I just wish the Indianapolis business community had more influence in this administration.

Some data with regard to the Bill to put Indiana on Daylight Savings Time.
If we’re on Eastern Daylight Time (and Eastern Standard Time statewide during the winter), which is what the bill calls for, in places like Gary, Terre Haute, and Evansville, sunrise will come at about 8:15 a.m. at the end of December, and sunset will not occur until 9:30 p.m. at the end of June.

If, on the other hand, we switched to Central Daylight Time (and Central Standard Time statewide during the winter), then places in the east like Richmond and Lawrenceburg would have sunset at about 4:18 p.m. at the end of December and sunrise at 5:12 a.m. at the end of June.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”

My earlier suspicion about Representative Koch being from a district with freeloading DNR property is more or less confirmed. Part of his district is in Brown County which has the beautiful Brown County State Park.

If I read his bills correctly, he wants to drain off the tax dollars of the rest of the state’s tax payers to subsidize his area. I suppose that’s reasonable if the rest of the state somehow charges Brown County for all of its tourism income.

Introduced Version, House Bill 1039 Makes it a Class B misdemeanor for a prisoner or someone on probation or court ordered drug treatment plan to possess a device designed for or intended to defraud a drug screen.