The Times. December 23, 2016
Lawmakers should heed growing chorus for roads fix.
A new voice of authority joined the chorus espousing the inevitable need of Indiana’s crumbling road infrastructure.
Now it’s time for all state leaders and taxpayers to listen.
On Monday, the Funding Indiana’s Roads for a Stronger Safer Tomorrow, or FIRSST, Task Force voted 10-1 in recommending 12 revenue-increasing options aimed at long-term state road funding. The task force is charged by the Legislature with identifying Indiana’s long-term infrastructure needs and developing a funding plan to meet them.
The Monday vote was all part of an effort to determine a sustainable fix to Indiana’s road and bridge repair and maintenance needs.
State transportation officials say those needs come with a starting price tag of $1 billion.
Count the FIRSST folks among a growing number of leaders who are realizing new tax revenue - and the politically painful reality of tax increases - will be needed to get the job done.
We don’t take tax increases lightly. Hard-working Hoosiers deserve to know their tax money is being spent in the most effective way.
But we can think of few greater needs to the future and well-being of our state, its residents and its economy than a safe and functional transportation infrastructure.
Such a network of modernized and well kept roads doesn’t come free or cheap, and it’s not a place to cut corners.
For far too long, our state has pushed off a long-term, sustainable funding fix for road repair and maintenance. It happened as recently as the 2016 legislative session when a long-term fix passed the Indiana House but failed to gain enough traction to become law.
Lawmakers throughout the state - but particularly GOP leaders of the General Assembly - are beginning to show an understanding and will that tax revenues must be realized to fix this problem.
Sensible proposals for adjusting gas and other road-revenue related taxes for inflation is an important first step.
Plenty of folks will balk at any mention of raising taxes. Those same people must ask themselves how their livelihoods would be jeopardized by a state transportation network that crumbles beyond the ability to move people or commerce.
As the number of voices begin to grow preaching the need for new tax revenues to fix one of state government’s most vital services, we can only hope enough lawmakers and other officials are listening.
If not in 2017, then when?
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The Herald Times. December 22, 2016
A tepid cheer for jobless stats
Statistics show that jobless rates are declining in the nation and the state. That fact is a bit of good news for the holiday season.
Nationally, the November rate dropped to 4.6 percent from 5 percent a year ago. In Indiana, the rate dropped to 3.9 percent from 4.5 percent.
While that’s positive, it’s not a time to declare victory and go home.
Many people are still out of work or underemployed. Wage growth has been significantly below normal historic rates since the recession began nearly a decade ago. The Bureau of Labor Statistics pegged the real hourly rate average for November 2016 at $10.68, just 8 cents above November 2015.
Yes, the jobless rates are good signs, but the economy is hardly worth celebrating this holiday season.
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The Journal Gazette. December 23, 2016
Follow the money
IU students’ work shows campaign finance flaws
Even with a late start, Republican Eric Holcomb handily won election as governor. His fourth-quarter campaign finance report shows he raised more than $11 million through Oct. 24 and had a balance of about $1 million at the contribution reporting deadline. He would collect another $3 million-plus in large contributions - $1,000 or more - between the deadline and Election Day.
But the cash didn’t stop flowing. Since Nov. 8 Holcomb has collected nearly $160,000 in large gifts, including $10,000 from drugmaker Eli Lilly’s political action committee, $25,000 from Duke Energy and $50,000 from charter school sponsor Christel DeHaan, who supported Democrat John Gregg before Holcomb was elected. The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indiana, preparing to negotiate a compact with the governor’s office to operate a casino in South Bend, gave $15,000 to Gregg on Oct. 28 and $10,000 to Holcomb on Nov. 3.
The contributions can be followed with a laborious search of data, but the task is huge. With each election cycle, state-level political committees rake in millions from individuals and organizations seeking influence. While state law prescribes contribution limits and reporting requirements, an investigation by students at Indiana University’s Media School raises troubling questions about oversight. Students looked at more than 1.2 million contribution reports between 2000 and 2015 to find data “riddled with errors and formatting issues that stand in the way of a clear and comprehensive picture of money in Indiana politics.”
Assistant Professor Gerry Lanosga, who covered Indiana politics as a reporter for nearly 20 years, suggested the project based on his own interest in following money in politics, beginning in the days when all contributions were reported in writing.
“I was elated when the state put the data online, then deflated when I realized the quality of the data was not there,” he said.
The IU project is not the first to highlight the state’s flawed campaign finance system. The Center for Public Integrity a year ago gave Indiana a D- in a report examining each state’s ability to deter corruption in state government. Indiana earned an F and ranked 47th among the states on measures of political financing.
But the students’ work, highlighted in a series of stories we will publish in January, is the most detailed investigation so far, examining campaign filings for candidates for governor, the General Assembly and other statewide positions. They found the state does little to verify or audit information submitted by the candidates’ political committees, in spite of many examples of “dirty data” - spelling errors and missing information.
“It was shocking because a lot of the errors were for the basics, like the donor’s name or address,” said James Benedict, a senior from Katy, Texas.
“It showed how few resources there must be keeping people accountable for their political spending. If they can’t even ensure every contribution has a name, how am I supposed to trust them to find other violations of the law?”
The Media School report found nearly $1 billion was taken in by state candidates between 2000 and 2015. Indiana is one of only a dozen states without limits on individual or political action committee contributions. Corporate contributions are prohibited in 22 states, but not Indiana.
Lanosga said he hopes the project will spur changes to improve transparency, some of which could be made through the Indiana Election Division in Secretary of State Connie Lawson’s office. Short of reforming Indiana’s lax campaign finance laws, the next-best thing is disclosure of who is contributing and how much.
“We just don’t have good disclosure,” Lanosga said. “It’s too hard to find the connections in the data. We just see the tip of the iceberg. The state can claim the information is there, but it is too difficult to get into a million records.”
Hoosiers need to know campaign cash isn’t allowing individuals, political groups or corporate interests undue influence in state government. The IU Media School project presents a strong case it might be.
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Kokomo Tribune. December 22, 2016
A plan to fix our roads
Anyone who drives a truck or car along Indiana’s highways and county roads knows that many of those byways desperately need repair and replacement.
Thankfully, the state’s incoming governor, Eric Holcomb, seems to accept that reality, too. Holcomb has called for a long-term infrastructure plan fueled by “sustainable” funding. That is a gentle synonym for steady tax revenue. Its need is a harsh reality. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave a “poor” rating to one in six major Indiana roads in 2013. Ten percent of bridges were structurally deficient, the engineers concluded.
Last February, the Interstate 70 overpass of U.S. 41 crumbled so extensively that the highway below was visible through a hole in the I-70 bridge deck. Only clumps of concrete clinging to bent rebar prevented a massive opening. Other road and bridge failures around Indiana have been documented.
The cost of restoring the “Crossroads of America” to a safe, smooth status will not be cheap. Infrastructure experts estimate the state must invest $1 billion annually to maintain adequate roads and bridges.
Ironically, an impediment to a comprehensive plan to revitalize Indiana’s roads has been pressure from lobbyists, a force Vice President-elect Mike Pence (also the state’s current governor, officially) and President-elect Donald Trump claim to want to neutralize in Washington. Such pressure threatens to derail a proper infrastructure program again in the upcoming session of the General Assembly. Holcomb, state legislators and the Republican machine controlling the Statehouse should nonetheless stand firm and act reasonably.
Key state lawmakers have indicated they support a cigarette tax increase of $1 to $1.50 per pack, which would generate more than $300 million annually for the Indiana budget, freeing up other funds for infrastructure construction. Such a hike would more than double the state cigarette excise tax, but the current rate (which remains at 99.5 cents per pack) is lower than all but 13 other states.
The influential Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Operators successfully fought past cigarette tax increases, including during last winter’s legislative session, when Pence promised to block a higher tax on smokes. Talk of another attempt at an increase has the group calling the idea “unacceptable” to smokers and the retailers who get half of their profits from cigarettes.
Legislators should equally consider other reasoning.
A smoker who quits a $1,000-a-year habit will then have that same amount of disposable income to spend on other products sold in a store, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids insists. That nonprofit organization also points to several studies that show cigarette tax increases have not harmed convenience store retailers.
Those arguments aside, two factors remain irrefutable. First, Indiana, and its economy, suffer from poor health, worsened by smoking. The latest United Health Foundation rankings put Hoosiers’ health at 41st out of 50 states. The state’s smoking rate was among the seven worst. Second, Indiana’s roads need long-overdue mending and rebuilding, an initiative that would deliver a positive jolt to the state’s economy. Legislators should not forget those priorities.
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