Good catch by Kemplog.
A report is out that confirms what a lot of folks in the business already suspected. A good chunk of personal bankruptcies are caused directly or indirectly by medical expenses.
Indy Star on SB 217 – Higher speed limit
The Indy Star has an article entitled Bill would raise state speed limit. It comments on SB 217 which would raise the speed limit on Interstates from 65-70 and from 60 to 65 for trucks. My prior post on the subject.
The article suggests that the bill has more momentum than in years past. Apparently it passed the House in 2002 51-46 but didn’t get a hearing in the Senate. This year it will get a hearing in the Senate. Apparently police and insurance interests are the main opponents. Lots of ordinary citizens, yours truly included, would like to drive faster on the open highway.
I’m a little confused by this sentence in the article: “The bill doesn’t specify what types of vehicles or which locations would be affected.” Actually, it does. The bill states:
A person may not drive a vehicle on a highway at a speed in excess of the following maximum limits:
(1) Thirty (30) miles per hour in an urban district.
(2) Fifty-five (55) miles per hour, except as provided in subdivisions (1), (3), and (4).
(3) Seventy (70) miles per hour on a highway on the national system of interstate and defense highways located outside of an urbanized area (as defined in 23 U.S.C. 101) with a population of at least fifty thousand (50,000), except as provided in subdivision (4).
(4) Sixty-five (65) miles per hour for a vehicle (other than a bus) having a declared gross weight greater than twenty-six thousand (26,000) pounds on a highway on the national system of interstate and defense highways located outside an urbanized area (as defined in 23 U.S.C. 101) with a population of at least fifty thousand (50,000).
(5) Fifteen (15) miles per hour in an alley.
Faith-Based Initiatives
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Passed the House:
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
(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.)
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 671
- 672
- 673
- 674
- 675
- …
- 687
- Next Page »