Terre Haute () - Tribune-Star. April 16, 2019
The South Bend Surprise
The American electorate has experienced no shortage of surprising political uprisings staged by movements or even candidates. It seems to happen in almost every election cycle.
Would anyone have guessed the 2019 surprise story would come from South Bend, Indiana?
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of that northern Indiana city near the shores of Lake Michigan, is in the midst of a meteoric rise to prominence, and at this point no one can seem to adequately explain, rhetorically anyway, where he came from or where he’s going. His surge to the upper tier of Democratic candidates hoping to win the party’s nomination to the 2020 presidential ticket qualifies as surprising on multiple fronts.
Indiana is a red state that’s been getting deeper red with each passing year. It no longer even seems to tolerate moderates in statewide elections. Republicans control everything at the state level and hold both U.S. Senate seats. Anyone expecting to see a politician emerge from the Hoosier state to a lofty position on the national level would assume that person would be a Republican.
That’s Surprise No. 1. It’s Buttigieg. A Democrat.
There are as many as 20 potential candidates for the Democratic nomination, with most being members of Congress or governors. They are all clamoring for attention in a crowded field and working to position themselves to challenge the clear frontrunners - Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. One would assume the major threats are those already in big offices with at least some name recognition.
That’s Surprise No. 2. Buttigieg is mayor of a medium size Midwestern city. He’s never held any other office and lost his only statewide race, for Indiana treasurer. It’s not just that people don’t know his name, it’s that they can’t pronounce it when they do. (Try Boot-Edge-Edge.)
The Democratic Party is proud of the diversity in its candidate ranks - racial, age and gender. Looking for a new face to stir enthusiasm and passion? Surely it’s one of the women leading the chase pack, right?
And that’s Surprise No. 3. Buttigieg is young, 37, but he’s also gay.
“Mayor Pete,” as he calls himself, officially declared his candidacy Sunday, although he’s been campaigning hard for weeks now. He’s raising money at a strong clip and has created a major buzz in the media for his numerous appearances and interviews. He’s struck a chord that is resounding in Democratic circles. The latest polls show him running third, behind Sanders and Biden, in the large field. At this point, he is a contender to keep an eye on.
There’s a long way to go before the first primaries in early 2020. But believe it or not, a young, gay, male, Hoosier Democrat is commanding a spotlight. Another unpredictable presidential election cycle may be upon us.
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The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. April 16, 2019
State’s tax rates hit lowest earners hardest
George Harrison lamented the high tax rate on the British uber-rich in the Beatles’ 1966 song, “Taxman.” But the wealthiest Indiana taxpayers filing state returns ahead of Monday’s deadline have little reason to complain. An analysis of state tax systems shows the wealthiest Hoosiers pay just 6.8% of their income in state and local taxes; the lowest-income Hoosiers pay 12.8%.
Those differences serve to make Indiana’s tax system among the most regressive in the nation, according to the study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Indiana Institute for Working Families.
“Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in all 50 States” evaluates major state and local taxes in each state, including personal and corporate income taxes, property taxes, sales and excise taxes. Indiana’s low-income residents are taxed at the eighth-highest rate in the country; second-highest in the Midwest.
Indiana’s sales and excise tax rates are largely to blame. When the General Assembly overhauled the state’s property tax system in 2008, it shifted many costs formerly funded by local property taxes to the state sales tax, increasing the sales tax rate by 17%. Indiana collects 42% of its tax revenue from sales and excise taxes - well above the 35% national average.
“Indiana’s state tax system is regarded as regressive because the lower one’s income, the higher one’s effective tax rate,” according to the Indiana Institute for Working Families. “This is in part because Indiana, like most other states, relies more heavily on sales and excise taxes to raise revenue, has a flat personal income tax, and offers relatively few tax benefits for low-wage workers.”
As a result, families in the lowest 20% of wage-earners spend 7.1% of their family income on sales and excise taxes while the top 1% of wage-earners spend just 1% of family income on sales and excise taxes. Relative to their incomes, young families are likely to be buying more goods subject to sales and excise taxes: clothing, furniture, gasoline and more.
“The report found these upside-down state tax changes have occurred in an era when inequality increased at a faster rate in Indiana than in the Midwest and the U.S. overall, while Hoosiers’ hourly wages fell from near the middle of the Midwest in 2001 to second-lowest by 2017,” according to the institute.
The burden is greatest on those lower-income households, but all Hoosiers are affected. When families spend more of their income on taxes, they have less to spend elsewhere in the state’s economy. The taxman’s disproportionate bite on working families shouldn’t be overlooked when policymakers weigh the next corporate income tax cut.
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South Bend Tribune. April 19, 2019
Indiana lawmakers should reject this loan for good
The good news is that Senate Bill 613, an ill-advised payday lending bill, died this week on the Indiana House floor.
The bad news? That such a bill - which would have allowed loan products that would be considered criminal loan-sharking under current state law - got as far as it did.
Last year at this time, when similar legislation met its end, we breathed a sigh of relief. It’s confounding that legislation so potentially devastating for Indiana’s poor and vulnerable made its return. Despite opposition from veterans organizations, religious groups and social services agencies, the bill was approved by the Republican-led Senate in February.
The bill would have allowed two new loan types, including loans of $605 to $1,500 for six to 12 months with annual percentage rates up to 192 percent. Under current law, rates of more than 72 percent are considered felony loan-sharking.
Not surprisingly, the bill was supported by the payday loan industry, which hired several top lobbyists at the Statehouse in the effort.
Bill sponsor Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne, argued that the legislation fills a gap for Hoosiers unable to obtain traditional loans.
“By this bill not moving,” he said, “we have pretty much condemned people in Indiana to (shorter-term, higher-interest forms of) payday lending or online. There are not other options for them.”
Actually, there was another, better option for Hoosiers in Senate Bill 104. But that bill, which would have limited interest rates on payday loans and was backed by some of the groups who opposed the loan-sharking bill, was rejected last month. That’s a shame, because such reform is needed. And those concerned with lending that exploits vulnerable Hoosiers can only hope this is the last we’ve seen of legislation like Senate Bill 613.
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