The Lafayette Journal and Courier is reporting on vandalism to the Tippecanoe Battle Ground monument. Even though I’m not generally inclined to believe in hell, I find myself hoping there is a special place there for the kinds of people who would deface our monuments in this way.

Messages spray-painted on the monument said, “America repent,”

“Justice will be served,” “Coward,” “Give us back our spiritual capital” and “Tecumseh’s not dead.”

Tippecanoe County Parks & Recreation Department superintendent Allen Nail gets it exactly right when he says:

“We see the battlefield as hallowed ground where 196 years ago brave men, red and white, fought and died courageously,” Nail said. “I don’t know how anybody could hope to do honor by doing this sort of thing.”

Hopefully they figure out who did this so they can prosecute and force repayment for the repairs. The Tippecanoe Battle Ground is one of my favorite places to take my kids. This is really appalling to me.

The Hoosier Pundit has a post commenting on whether Indianapolis Democrats should repeal the controversial county option income tax they forced through earlier this year.

The Democrats in Indianapolis adopted a county option income tax to pay for public safety. (Indy was given special dispensation by the legislature to raise this income tax by itself — other counties had to implement two income taxes designed for property tax relief before the public safety tax was an option.) Indianapolis Republicans railed against this tax increase. I believe mayor-elect Ballard was among them. (Correct me if I’m wrong on that.) I believe there is also a lawsuit challenging the validity of the vote on the tax increase because one of the council members wasn’t legitimately a resident of the district to which the member was elected.

Hoosier Pundit says it would be “vindictive” of the Democrats to repeal the tax. Why? Give the voters and the Republicans what they said they wanted. It might be a little passive aggressive, I suppose, but on what grounds can these people complain? I would be shocked, shocked to find out that the Marion County Republicans would want the political issue of the tax increase to use against the Democrats and the tax revenue they need to actually run the city.

Update I was considering this post and previous comments I’ve made on various boards and trying to figure out why the topic of Indy’s county option income tax and its potential repeal was of such interest to me. I was only mildly interested when it was passed, after all. And, of course, the political gamesmanship is interesting as well. But I don’t think that’s it.

Here’s the thing. Nobody likes paying taxes, but taxes are necessary for a functioning government. A functioning government is necessary to make our communities places where we can live happy lives. It’s tough to prosper in a shit hole.

Was the Indy county income tax a necessary one? I have absolutely no idea. I have no knowledge of Indy’s budget, what expenditures are necessary and what expenditures are unnecessary. But, I think it’s important for political operatives to be judicious in the taxes they oppose. By all means, oppose the unnecessary ones. Citizens will also not thrive if they are taxed for government expenditures that are not beneficial. But, raising a huge stink over a necessary tax increase creates a toxic political environment that leads to a dysfunctional and underfunded government which in turn contributes to our communities turning into shit holes.

And, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether or not I think the Indy tax increases were necessary. The only important thing is whether Indy’s new masters — Ballard and the Republican County Council members regarded the tax increase as necessary but railed against it anyway, purely for political gain. That sort of hypocrisy should be condemned in the harshest possible terms. If they regarded the tax increase as unnecessary and railed against it, that is obviously fine. But, at the same time, they would have no reason not to repeal the tax themselves or basis for complaint if the outgoing Democrats repealed the tax prior to departure.

An interesting article on the effects of the bankruptcy bill on banks. The 2005 bankruptcy bill made it harder for debtors to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and forced more into Chapter 13 bankruptcy instead. Essentially the difference is this: In a Chapter 7, the bankruptcy court accounts for all of the debtor’s assets, deducts the statutory exemptions to which the debtor is entitled, liquidates the remainder (if any) and distributes it to the creditors. It’s over relatively quickly and, frequently, there are not many assets available for distribution. In a Chapter 13, the debtor is instead required to set up a 3 to 5 year plan wherein a chunk of the debtor’s income goes to the bankruptcy court for distribution. It takes a long time to get that “fresh start” under the bankruptcy laws.

The Bloomberg article suggests that this is backfiring on the banks. They had hoped to force more debtors into paying off more of their credit card debt this way. And, apparently, they are. However, now, partially as a result, they are getting more foreclosures.

The new bankruptcy laws are helping drive foreclosures to a record as homeowners default on mortgages and struggle to pay credit card debts that might have been wiped out under the old code, said Jay Westbrook, a professor of business law at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Westbrook said. “They wanted to make sure that people kept paying their credit cards, and what they’re getting is more foreclosures.”
. . .
“The law had an unintended consequence of taking away a relief valve that mortgage borrowers used to have,” said Rod Dubitsky, head of asset-backed research for Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc. in New York. “It’s bad for the mortgage borrowers and bad for subprime investors because it means more losses.”

I did not warn against this specifically when I was commenting on the bankruptcy bill, but I think I was driving in this general direction.

I also tend to think that the bankruptcy law will make the next recession tougher to shake off. Your typical small business owner has to sign personal guarantees for any credit extended to his business. Recession comes. Business goes under. Business owner is on the hook for the business debts. Now, instead of being able to get a fresh start after a few months through a Chapter 7, he’ll have the anvil of a Chapter 13 hanging around his neck for 5 years. There are probably going to be a lot of entrepreneurial types alongside the genuine deadbeats in Chapter 13 plans.

By getting debtors mired in Chapter 13s instead of quickly discharged in a Chapter 7, I think there is more drag on the economy.

Vic Ryckaert, reporting for the Indy Star, has an article entitled Sheriff not about to turn IMPD over to Ballard. Indianapolis-Marion County has a unique, unified form of government. In most places, the county and the city are distinct units of government. The lines are blurry to non-existent in Marion/Indy. Sometimes it’s tough to distinguish between the vestigial organs of government and the necessary ones.

I’m not familiar with the details of the recent merger, but apparently the Indianapolis Municipal Police were merged with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. Apparently mayor-elect Ballard has vowed to reclaim control of the police officers. Sheriff Frank Anderson said he’s not going to give up control of the 1,600 officers without a fight.

There are Constitutional issues involved — the Sheriff is an elected officer, mandated by the Constitution; but no particular are really provided about the duties of the office. There are certain duties prescribed by the General Assembly, but generally all kinds of special statutes (another Constitutional issue) related to Marion County that I never read. The City County Council surely has some say in the matter, and I suspect they’ll want to be careful. Republicans will now control and, for the short term, I suppose they might want to go with fellow Republican Ballard. However, Ballard isn’t exactly part of the Marion County GOP club and, long term, they might want to think about whether they will more often be able to get elected to the Sheriff’s Department or the mayor’s office. (Or, I suppose — brace yourself — they could try to figure out what the most effective policy might be for keeping law and order in the county).

Anyway, a battle over law enforcement isn’t likely to be pretty.

(H/t Oliver Willis) The New York Times has an article entitled Conservative Authors Sue Regnery Publishing Over Royalties. Some authors who publish through Regenery Press are mad because they get little to no royalties for books sold through at steep discounts. Regenery, which is an arm of the right-wing noise machine, moves a ton of books in this fashion. That helps them to get some of their crap listed on the New York Times bestseller lists.

Some of the authors’ books have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, including “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,” by Mr. Corsi and John E. O’Neill (who is not a plaintiff in the suit), Mr. Patterson’s “Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security” and Mr. Miniter’s “Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror.”

I’ve gotta think Regenery is going to get the better end of this. I imagine they have contracts that allow them to distribute the books as they see fit. And, I imagine it will be tough for Corsi, et al, to prove that people who received the books at a deep discount would have otherwise paid retail for the books.

In a perfect (to me) world, the authors lose, Regenery Press loses, and their lawyers win.

The National Council of State Legislatures has a table reflecting 2007 Post-Election Partisan Composition of State Legislatures. Only three states (Mississippi, Virginia, and New Jersey) apparently had any legislative elections this year. Democrats appear to have claimed narrow majorities in the Mississippi and Virginia Senates, maintained majority status in the Mississippi House, and the New Jersey House and Senate. In the Virginia House, the GOP maintained control but lost a few seats. For 2008, it appears that Democrats will control 23 legislatures; Republicans will control 14 legislatures, and 12 will be split between the two parties.

A post over at stAllio!’s way made me think of the property tax implications for the State generally of the Ballard victory over Peterson in the Indianapolis mayor’s race.

mayor peterson is perhaps the first major victim of the property tax crisis. he didn’t cause the problem; the governor and the legislature are the primary culprits there (and are surely quaking in their boots now that they’ve witnessed the fall of so many incumbents today). but the mayor and the city-county council weren’t proactive enough about preventing property taxes from going up, and so they went way up for some unlucky souls. in the end, the GOP did a better job motivating their people to get to the polls.

I hope we don’t take the wrong message away from that loss though. My fear is that Marion County’s almost uniquely bad handling of property taxes isn’t mistaken for the condition in the State generally. For example, Marion County did not do a think to mitigate the loss of the inventory tax when the State eliminated it. Elsewhere, a county option income tax was imposed to replace the lost inventory tax revenue. This was an option for Marion County, but it was not taken. Consequently, the tax burden shifted from inventory tax payers to property tax payers. That bill came due at the same time a few other property tax chickens were coming home to roost – e.g. the State balancing its budget on the backs of local government, reducing the homestead and property tax replacement credits homeowners have previously enjoyed; and State mandated trending valuations for residential property playing “catch up” when compared to business property.

Marion County was also the recipient of special dispensation from the State legislature to impose a county income tax for public safety funding without first imposing county option income taxes for property tax reduction as was required for the rest of the state. Probably foolishly, the Marion County Democrats voted for that tax at the worst possible time, when its citizens were reeling from property tax increases that were generally in excess of the still substantial property tax increases in the rest of the state.

Anyway, I hope this election is seen for what it is – a reaction to a difficult general situation compounded by really poor decision making at the local level. I’d hate to see the Eric Miller crowd win the day, claiming their overreactions are good policy and reflect the will of the people statewide.

Meet [Indy’s] new Indianapolis Mayor, Greg Ballard. He has won the Indianapolis mayor’s race with little to no help from his fellow Republicans. Ballard or Peterson – I’m pretty sure I’m just glad I moved out of Indianapolis some time ago. Good luck down there.