A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

IN-09: News & Tribune on Eric Schansberg candidacy

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More press for the candidacy of Libertarian Candidate Eric Schansberg in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District against Democrat Baron Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel. This story by David Mann in the Clark County News & Tribune gives a lot of ink to Prof. Schansberg’s positions rather than merely focusing on the horse race aspects of the race.

The short version.

Agriculture: End government subsidies to farmers.

Immigration: Crack down on illegal employment & secure the borders.

Gas prices: It’s supply & demand. OPEC has limited supply; India & China have increased demand; Democrats are on the wrong side of the issue by complaining about prices while inhibiting supply by adding environmental regulations and restricting drilling.

Horse race: Libertarians may draw young people away from the Democrats but also may draw fiscal conservatives away from the Republicans.

Quoth the Schansberg:

The Republicans are spending money like drunken sailors,” he said. “The Democrats are talking about silly stuff.

(For some reason this reminded me of the Animal House quote, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”)

Yet another political quiz

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Political Compass Questionnaire

Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92

That puts me pretty close to the center, but a bit to the left, on the economic left/right axis and a bit farther into the libertarian side of the libertarian/authoritarian axis. In the list they give, I seem to be economically lined up with Pope John Paul II (though he was much more authoritarian) and about as libertarian as Nelson Mandela (though he was quite a bit more economically to the left of me.)

It’s Costly to be Small

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An installment of Capital Comments written by everybody’s favorite economist, Larry DeBoer, ran in the July 26, Carroll County Comet. Professor DeBoer’s commentary concerns a report (PDF) by the Department of Local Government Finance on 2005 expenditures per capita by local governments. (Senator Kenley had a column in the Indy Star on the report, and I had a blog post.)

Professor DeBoer suggests that the legislature thought it would be a good idea to make comparisons of expenditures per capita by local jurisdiction available so that citizens might be able to ask questions about why some are spending more and others are spending less. However, he says, it’s difficult to know what to make of the reported numbers. First, DLGF says that there are inconsistencies in how jurisdictions report their numbers. Second, operating costs and infrastructure costs are combined. Third, the numbers reported by DLGF don’t seem to reflect patterns seen in previous research such as wealthy jurisdictions spending more per person and jurisdictions with more homeowner property spending less.

Prof. DeBoer notes that at least one pattern that shows up, however. Small jurisdictions spend more per person. Of the 11 counties in the state with fewer than 15,000 people, 9 of them spend more per person than the typical county. The smallest counties averaged $1,570 per person compared to a $1,090 average for all counties. He suggests that this might be a symptom of “economies of size” which I take to mean that there are certain fixed costs for a county which have to be incurred regardless of how many citizens the county has. The bigger counties get to spread these costs over more people.

Last year the General Assembly passed HEA 1362 which might provide some assistance for the smaller counties. It provides a mechanism by which political subdivisions, including the small counties with high overhead, can use cooperative agreements with cities, towns, other counties, or other jurisdictions to deliver services, share equipment and employees, or buy services from one another. Through such cooperative agreements, the small counties might generate the sorts of economies of size currently enjoyed by the larger counties.

50 films to see before you die

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(H/t Good Brownie) I’m a little lowbrow for this list, I think, but the top 50 in England’s Sunday Mail are:

1 Apocalypse Now 2 The Apartment 3 City of God 4 Chinatown 5 Sexy Beast 6 2001: A Space Odyssey 7 North by Northwest 8 A Bout de Souffle 9 Donnie Darko 10 Manhattan 11 Alien 12 Lost in Translation 13 The Shawshank Redemption 14 Lagaan: Once Upon A Time in India 15 Pulp Fiction 16 Touch of Evil 17 Walkabout 18 Black Narcissus 19 Boyzn the Hood 20 The Player 21 Come and See 22 Heavenly Creatures 23 A Night at the Opera 2 4 Erin Brockovich 25 Trainspotting 26 The Breakfast Club 27 Hero 28 Fanny and Alexander 29 Pink Flamingos 30 All About Eve 31 Scarface 32 Terminator 2 33 Three Colours: Blue 34 The Royal Tenen-baums 35 The Ladykillers 36 Fight Club 37 The Searchers 38 Mulholland Drive 39 The Ipcress File 40 The King of Comedy 41 Manhunter 42 Dawn of the Dead 43 Princess Mononoke 44 Raising Arizona 45 Cabaret 46 This Sporting Life 47 Brazil 48 Aguirre: The Wrath of God 49 Secrets and Lies 50 Badlands.

The ones in bold are ones I have seen. There are some in there I would have specifically excluded and I would have worked in a few films like Cool Hand Luke, Twelve Angry Men, and, of course, Starship Troopers.

State computer problems

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The BMV computers are spitting out bogus information to law enforcement officials. The State of Indiana website is down. I can’t wait to see what happens when the consortium involving FSSA chief Mitch Roob’s ex-employer and IBM gets ahold of the billion dollar FSSA contract to screen applications for welfare benefits.

At the moment, the BMV situation is the most pernicious. Sheriff’s Departments are being advised that the information from the BMV should be considered unreliable and, therefore, they can’t take appropriate action against violators unless they can confirm the information independently of the Bureau.

Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter says the BMV system accessed by dispatchers or officers’ mobile computers is spitting out faulty information that implicates drivers in offenses they never committed. Gov. Daniels says that the problem isn’t the BMV data, its faulty training of personnel leading to incorrect interpretations of the data. That’s a bit tough to square with Sheriff Carter’s statement that he did BMV records checks on six of his radio dispatchers as well as on himself and that every one of them was incorrect, showing, among other things that he had a defensive driving credit when he’d never been to defensive driving.

(Update: I’ve been told that some folks at the State House have access to the State of Indiana’s website. My suspicion is that there is some problem with a nameserver or somesuch.)

IN-02: Donnelly leading Chocola

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(Via Kos) A South Bend Tribune/WSBT-TV poll indicates that Democratic challenger Joe Donnelly has a slight lead over Chris Chocola in Indiana’s Second Congressional District race, according to a report by James Wensits in the South Bend Tribune.

According to the poll, Donnelly had 46%, Chocola had 41%, 13% were undecided, and there was a 5% margin for error. Considering this was supposed to be something of a “second tier” race in Indiana, taking a back seat to the supposedly more hotly contested races in the 8th and 9th Districts, this might be really bad news for Congressional Republicans.

The South Bend Tribune article seems to confirm the suspicions of Rep. Chocola voiced by Tribune Columnist Jack Colwell back in February that local issues could be dangerous for Chocola:

Also, Chocola has a point about things in which he was not involved being a potential source of trouble.

The congressman was thinking of matters such as the leasing of the Toll Road, the daylight-saving time squabble[.]

According to the Tribune article on the recent poll:

[Pollster Delair Ali] said he was also surprised at the number of people who brought up the Toll Road (7 percent) and time zone change (5 percent) as campaign issues.

Ali now looks for Chocola to go really negative against Donnelly.

“He’s in deep and serious trouble,” Ali said of Chocola. “The good news for him is the election is in November.”

Ali predicted that a nasty race is in the offing because Chocola needs to raise Donnelly’s negatives.

To do that, Ali said, Chocola must go on the attack against Donnelly.

Toll Road: Argument against using tolls for general purposes

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An Illinois Republican state senator argues against privatization of Illinois toll roads, at least if the privatization is done without serious study and if the proceeds will be used for the benefit of the State generally rather than the areas served by the toll roads specifically.

Illinois has a toll road privatization effort similar to that under way in Indiana, but the parties rolls are different with the Democrats in control favoring privatization and the Republicans in opposition.

Illinois State Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) writes  that suburban businesses have the largest stake – and the most to lose- in a proposal to lease the Illinois State Toll Highway authority because the region’s toll highway system is the economic lifeline and the way employees and products move about. Tolls shot up, he says, when the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road were leased, making it more expensive to get to work or move goods.

Any leasing idea, he contends, should be explored in a thorough process that includes world-class economists, transportation experts and leaders from the areas affected by the toll road leases. Tollway proceeds should be used only for transportation infrastructure in the areas served by the toll roads, not for general purposes or in other parts of the state.

Along with these main points, Sen. Dillard includes plenty of invective against Illinois Democrats, but, aside from that, his position seems remarkably similar to that of Indiana Democrats, particularly those in the northern part of the state.

IN-09: Schansberg could trip up giants

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Libertarian Eric Schansberg made a bit of a ripple in a poll by Louisville Courier Journal columnist Dale Moss, receiving 12% of the vote as a “write in”, or 72 of 656 respondents. The poll is unscientific and libertarians tend to be disproportionately represented online, so I suspect his support among the general public is somewhat less. Still, in a race between Baron Hill and Mike Sodrel that is likely to be extremely close, the Schansberg is likely to be a factor.

I predict both Sodrel and Hill will try to keep Schansberg out of any debates, but the greater his support is or is perceived to be, the more care they will have to take in order to avoid alienating those sympathetic to Schansberg who might, nevertheless, vote for Hill or Sodrel.

Lafayette, nous voilà!

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In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Charles E. Stanton (sometimes attributed to General Pershing), Lafayette, we are here! Whereas Stanton was talking about repaying the French a 140 year old debt of gratitude for their assistance in the American Revolution by aiding them in World War I, I am talking about a 25 mile move to the southwest from Monticello to Lafayette, Indiana. So, roughly equivalent.

And what a welcome! The doughboys got shot at by the Huns. I get the Lafayette Police Department knocking on my door in the wee hours of the morning. Apparently the neighbors, who seem nice enough, have a wayward son who was staying with them who brought certain chemicals into the house that, one way or another made law enforcement authorities think that they needed to bring in a bomb technician. (My original thought was that they suspected a meth lab. Further investigation has revealed that the substances were suspected to be materials for making dynamite or a pipe bomb, so I’m oddly somewhat relieved.)

Neighbors, such as myself, were evacuated “just in case.” Thank goodness we had taken the kids to their grandparents during the move so we didn’t have to roust them out of bed. I’ve been told that this “really is a nice neighborhood,” but to have my first night’s sleep at my new house disturbed by the police knocking at the door is just disturbing.

So, now we just have to find out whether this story will end up being of the “We knew it was trouble right from the start” variety or the “Haha, . . . but do you remember that *first* night?” variety.