The first meeting of the Legislative Council for the 2007 interim will take place on June 6, 2007 at 1:30 in Room 404 of the State House. The Legislative Council is the executive body for the General Assembly. This meeting will primarily be for the purpose of charging the interim study committes with their duties. Also on the agenda is a status report on the search for a permanent executive director of the Legislative Services Agency. The former director of LSA, Phil “Satch” Sachtleben resigned prior to the 2007 General Assembly. John Rowings, director of the Office of Bill Drafting and Research stepped in to fill his shoes and has been the acting executive director. If memory serves, Satch was “acting” executive director for 30 years, give or take, before being given the permanent position.
Hollywood Actor, Trial Lawyer, Old White Guy Joins GOP Presidential Field
The Republicans look like they have another old white guy running for their nomination. But, in a twist that might require the GOP to do some acrobatics with their standard rhetoric, the new candidate is Hollywood actor and lawyer, Fred Thompson.
(Note: I was doing a little rummaging around the Internet to check some background and have to say, I appreciated this piece of Thompson’s on Red State with respect to allegations that he is too friendly to trial lawyers and hostile to “tort reform.”)
Band-aid or surgery for Indiana property taxes
Everybody’s favorite economist, Larry DeBoer, has column entitled Capital Comments which appeared in the Carroll County Comet. As always, he does a good job of explaining the implications of legislative tax policy.
Again, he explains why the increase in local taxes. First, property taxes on inventories will be eliminated in 51 counties this year. That means the tax burden shifts from taxpayers with inventories to other taxpayers. Another policy change is trending — updating assessed values each year to keep up with changing sales prices. Since they’re playing catch up this time around, 1999 sales prices are being “trended” to 2005 selling prices. In the future, this should make for more gradual assessment changes, but this year it can be rather jarring. Prof. DeBoer says that so far it looks like home assessments are being trended upward a lot more than business assessments, thereby shifting the tax burden toward homeowners.
He notes the legislative Band-aid solution this year — “racino” income. Race tracks are paying big bucks for the right to have slot machines. The racino licensing money is being used to subsidize property taxes, thereby lessening the increase. He pointed out a practical (in addition to the political) reason for the much maligned rebate strategy. Instead of just reducing tax bills with the race track subsidy, the legislature required that homeowners get a rebate in November or December. The practical reason for that is that the the State won’t have the casino money until then.
Prof. DeBoer goes on to look at who wins and who loses under various new taxing options given to municipalities by the legislature. First, local government can use an income tax of up to 1% that would be used as a dollar-for-dollar offset of property taxes. The local government has three options for distributing revenues from this tax: a) for all property owners; b) for homeowners only; or c) for homeowners and rental-housing owners.
Under option “a” – all property owners, all property taxes would go down about 20%. Renters and employed homeowners would see their income taxes rise more than their property taxes were lowered. Farmers, retired homeowners, and corporate businesses would pay less overall.
Under option “b” – just homeowners, homeowner property taxes would be cut by about 50%. Almost all homeowners would see their overall tax burden reduced. Other property owners who earn income in the county would pay more.
Under option “c” – homeowners and landlords, homeowner taxes would drop by 1/3 and most would see an overall reduction in taxes.
[tags]property taxes[/tags]
We’re not alone
Irwin Horowitz wrote a column appearing at the New West Network entitled Should We Move Boise to Pacific Time Zone? Boise is apparently pretty far west in the Central Mountain Time Zone — 11.2 degrees west of its meridian which is in excess of the 7.5 degrees off center which should more or less be the maximum. This results in later sunsets which in turn hinders the focus of Mr. Horowitz’s column, stargazing.
In particular, I always enjoy a bit of history, which Mr. Horowitz provides:
The origin of the longitude system (the Prime Meridian) was placed at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England following an international conference addressing this issue in 1884. In an ideal world, 24 time zones would each be equally spaced around the planet at 15 degree intervals in longitude. Therefore, the relationship between the position of the Sun and local time would remain fairly close and times of sunrise and
sunset would be reasonable all year long.
. . .
In ancient times, the concept of a time zone was unnecessary. Wherever you were, you could always base your time on the local solar position, and if you traveled to a neighboring village or city, you would simply adjust to the new local time, as your travel time was always much greater than the difference in time between the two locations.
However, in the modern era, with the advent of faster modes of transportation such as cars, trains and airplanes, it became possible to travel to distant places at rates that were comparable to the shifting local solar time.
. . .
With the growing need to standardize train schedules in the late-19th century, President Grover Cleveland established the Interstate Commerce Commission, and authorized it with the power to regulate time zone boundaries in the United States. Its authority over time zones was transferred to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) following the latter’s establishment in 1966.
Essentially, the need for synchronizing time across large areas of space came about because of our ability to communicate and travel at speeds faster than a run (e.g. the telegraph and the train.)
Nicely done Mr. Werner
I really enjoyed this lede by Nick Werner, writing for the Muncie Star Press (and reprinted at the Indy Star):
When faced with making good on a $5,000 down payment or returning a seven-year-old Cadillac to a dealership, Craig D. Allen chose a third option, police said.
It creates tension, drama, and mystery. He could have just said that a deadbeat who wanted something for nothing used violence to get his way.
Ohio Driving
This Memorial Day Weekend, I drove to Akron, Ohio – the Midwest smelled like a barbecue. The state troopers were thick as flies on the Ohio Interstates. And, here is the peculiar thing. For some reason, Buckeyes are repelled by the right lane of their highways. I drove I-70 from Richmond to Columbus, then I-71 up to Akron. In a lot of spots, the Interstate is 3 lanes. A normal scenario was this – the middle lane occupied by one vehicle traveling at about 65 mph, the left lane occupied by a line of vehicles with the lead one traveling at about 66.5 mph, and the right lane empty. What’s a Hoosier to do on Indy-500 weekend? Go about 75 mph in the right hand lane, of course. (Making me a criminal-alien in the Buckeye state, I suppose.) The only problem is that some deviant would occasionally use the slow lane for going slow, throwing the whole thing off. It’s an annoying driving scenario that happens everywhere to some extent, but it always strikes me as being particularly bad in Ohio for some reason.
Tuition increases
The South Bend Tribune has an article attacking tuition increases at all of Indiana’s major public universities over the next biennium:
Ivy Tech – 7.8%
University of Southern Indiana – 12%
Purdue – 9%
Indiana State – 11%
Ball State – 9.8%
I.U. – 10%
These hikes — all considerably above the overall cost-of-living growth — come after the Indiana General Assembly approved a $26 billion budget that met the needs of higher education better than any in recent years . .. In past years, state universities complained that the skinflint General Assembly left them no choice but to pass growing costs on to students and families. That excuse doesn’t wash this year. Yet the universities proceeded anyway to feed the phenomenon of “education inflation.” Every public university in Indiana has raised tuition way more than 100 percent in a decade.
There is a pretty good Wikipedia entry on college tuition costs.
So, what is it that’s changing about the college tuition equation that requires increases that well exceed inflation — cost of infrastructure? professors salaries? cost of the administrative bureaucracy? Is the per capital quality or quantity of any of these things increasing? Are taxpayers shouldering less of the educational burden; requiring more dollars to come out of individuals directly? (And, if so, where have the tax dollars been shifted?)
I haven’t the foggiest idea of the answers to any of these questions.
Probing Tinky-Winky
It’s not a purse! It’s a man-bag! Even after the passing of Jerry Falwell, the Tinkster can’t catch a break. The Polish government is investigating the Tinky-Winky and the other Teletubbies for promoting homosexuality.
In comments reminiscent of criticism by the late U.S. evangelist Jerry Falwell, [Ewa Sowinska, government-appointed children rights watchdog] was quoted as saying: “I noticed (Tinky Winky) has a lady’s purse, but I didn’t realize he’s a boy.”
“At first I thought the purse would be a burden for this Teletubby … Later I learned that this may have a homosexual undertone.”
Bad Idea
Don’t insult the judge (via Above the Law). While arguing a point with a federal bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Florida, a partner from a large Chicago law firm responded to a comment from the judge as follows:
I suggest to you with respect, Your Honor, that you’re a few French fries short of a Happy Meal in terms of what’s likely to take place.
The Show Cause hearing for contempt is scheduled for this morning.
Fear The List
Via Balloon Juice:
The Commissar has handily assembled authoritative statements from every major official at the DOJ denying a significant role in creating the list of axed Attorneys. It just appeared one day under their noses and then some mysterious, unexplained force compelled them to act on it. I tell you, that’s pretty spooky. If it weren’t for my doggone empiricism I would join them lest the List grow angry and smite me.
Reminds me of Ash’s disembodied hand in Evil Dead II. Groovy!
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