A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Schansberg for Congress – 2006

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Eric Schansberg, Libertarian Candidate for Indiana’s 9th District, has his website up. It will be interesting to see what role Mr. Schansberg has to play in what looks to be one of the most hotly contested districts in the country. Former Democratic Congressman Baron Hill is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Sodrel. Enormous amounts of money are flowing to the Republican and Democratic candidates. Mr. Schansberg claims, not without some justification, to be the only fiscal conservative in the campaign:

Given their voting records, my opponents can only offer empty promises of fiscal restraint or a more credible promise to increase taxes or to continue to finance their spending with increasing government debt (and thus, future taxes).

He claims to be the strongest defender of the poor and the middle class, stating that the Republicans exhibit little interest in the poor while the Democratic interest amounts to little more than lip-service since, he contends, their policies work against the interests of the poor.

He is pro-life and pro-adoption, an economics professor and public policy analyst for the past 15 years.

I’ve been told that the website, while operational, will undergo some tweaking. So it’s probably worth keeping an eye on.

William Safire – dead on

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William Safire knocks this one out of the ball park in a Meet the Press discussion about the latest right wing talking point that the New York Times should be prosecuted for treason for running a story on the U.S. Government sifting through bank records. Bill Bennett got on his high horse, saying, among other things, the Bush administration was elected and “the media” was not:

MR. SAFIRE: Let me respond to what Bill, to the point he’s making, that who elected the media to determine what should be secret and what should not?

MS. MITCHELL: Which is the fundamental point.

MR. SAFIRE: Right. And the answer to that is, the founding fathers did. They came up with this Bill of Rights beyond which the constitutional convention would not move unless there were a First Amendment to challenge the government…

MR. BENNETT: Right.

MR. SAFIRE: …just as the American founding fathers challenged the British government. Now it’s not treasonable, it’s not even wrong for the press to say we’re going to find out what we can and we’ll act as a check and balance on the government. Sometimes we’ll make mistakes. Sometimes the government will mistake.

These threats to stifle the free press are part and parcel of an administration that wants to be able to incarcerate people indefinitely without charges and wants to be able to eavesdrop on its citizens without warrants.

Old economy v. New economy

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It’s hard not to regard the announcement of a new Honda plant coming to Greensburg as good news for the state. However, this story by Ted Evanoff of the Indy Star (and this most excellent comment from Paul O’Malley), suggest that the new plant won’t be an unmitigated blessing.

Our state and local governments are subsidizing Honda to provide more of the same to Indiana. It’s most likely a net positive to the State since Honda will most likely pay a good wage to a lot of people who will in turn spend their money locally, thereby benefiting a great many Hoosiers, not just those who land jobs at the new plant.

However, there are some opportunity costs involved. Money, labor, and ingenuity spent on manufacturing cars will not be available for riskier but potentially more beneficial entrepreneurial ventures down the line.

“Often when you bring in an established concern that’s going to employ 2,000 people, you don’t get the growth possibility that you would if you put your money on a young Bill Gates who has three employees now but will have 30,000 in the future,” said Jon Teaford, professor of urban history at Purdue in West Lafayette and author of the book “Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest.”

Mr. O’Malley suggests:

It is possible too that our long time emphases, first on agriculture, then on manufacturing, encouraged an attitude that education is not important. Our high school drop out rate has for years stood out as being much higher than the national average. See the Kids Count Data Book for 2006. Perhaps the recent increase in the age for dropping out from 16 to 18 will help here.

. . .

Growing up in Marion I heard many of my parents’ friends, who generally ran small manufacturing concerns, talk about how when GM came to town in the 1950’s they thought it would be great, but in the long run how it proved a disaster for the community because of some of the attitudes it fostered. In part they were just griping about having to compete with Generous Motors’ wage scales, but I think too they had a point about believing that we could actually do something for ourselves.

When I took my first gainful employment in the mid 1980’s I was assigned by my employer to San Jose, California. The most shocking thing to me about California was the attitudes of my neighbors. So many of them really believed that they too could start a business and make a million, or ten. Indiana will never be a place attractive to our children until we learn something of that attitude, rather than believing that an auto assembly plant is way of the future.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting we not go after projects like the Honda plant, but we should be ambitious. These good manufacturing jobs should be regarded as somewhere in the middle of our economic development strategy, not as its pinnacle. Governor Daniels talks a good game about having a high tech vision for Indiana’s future, and perhaps he’ll deliver on some of that. But, from reading Kemplog’s excellent coverage of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) activity in Indiana, it seems the Daniels administration is all too successful in attracting businesses that will have our citizens and local governments wading through oceans of pig shit trying to make a buck.

As Mr. O’Malley suggests, our long term strategy needs to involve educating our children, making education a trait that is revered rather than something that is regarded as vaguely suspicious, and then keeping the educated children in Indiana to re-invest in the state.

Agricultural welfare

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The Indiana Law Blog posted on a a Washington Post story on agricultural welfare.

The money is substantial: $172 billion over the past ten years. The controls are weak: you don’t actually have to grow the crops that are subsidized. The protections are wasteful: The system pays farmers a subsidy to protect against low prices even when they sell crops at high prices, and it makes “emergency disaster payments” for crops that fail even as it provides subsidized insurance to protect against those failures. And, it disproportionately benefits those who are already wealthy.

The ILB pointed out an interactive map that the Washington Post provides. But if you really want to get to know your farming neighbors, I’d recommend the Environmental Working Group’s farm subsidy database.

The Washington Post provides this amazing statistic:

In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.

From an electoral standpoint, agricultural welfare makes a great deal of sense. Citizens in agricultural areas have a lot more electoral influence per capita than do urban areas. Because each state gets two senators, regardless of the population of the state, citizens of more sparsely populated states get more bang for their ballot than citizens of more densely populated states.

But, if the Washington Post’s story is accurate, those who are concerned about bloated government programs and wasted tax dollars should concentrate on the agricultural welfare system before social welfare programs for the poor.

Senior care focus shifting from nursing homes to assisted living

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Niki Kelly has a good story for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled Senior care focus shifting: State pushing service delivery as alternative to nursing homes.”

State officials are doing more than just trying to pay Medicaid bills. They are transforming the long-term care model for seniors in Indiana, including a strong push to reduce the number of people living in nursing homes.

Specifically, there is a focus on making it easier for seniors to choose community-based and home-based alternatives.

In general, this seems like a positive development, both because the alternatives to nursing homes are generally less expensive over all and because they generally provide a better quality of life to the senior. (Or at least, so I’ve been told; I don’t have any expertise or direct experience myself.)

The devil, as always, is in the details. I suspect if the government were so inclined, it would be easier to shave services and costs at the expense of the senior in a way which is less noticeable under the alternate models than under the nursing home model.

For those who are interested, there are other angles to the story and details in Ms. Kelly’s article.

Can’t burn the books? Close the libraries

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Apparently the Bush administration doesn’t like the environmental data that has been coming out lately, so they’ve decided to take decisive action: by shutting down Environmental Protection Agency libraries.

In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives for 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency’s network of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush deleted $2 million of support for EPA’s libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency’s total budget for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff. The letter notes that “EPA library services are [now] greatly reduced or no longer available to the general public” in agency regional offices serving 19 states.

It’s new law day!

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Today is July 1, the day in which most of the legislation from the most recent session of the General Assembly goes into effect. Now, don’t you feel better now that all those new laws are in effect? Because clearly there was a shortage of laws before today.

Bush’s military commissions are illegal

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In the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court has decided, by a 5 to 3 vote, that the Bush administration’s military commission’s, set up to try alleged terrorists, are illegal. The Court basically determined that the Bush administration has 3 options: 1) Try the accused under the Uniform Code of Military Justice; 2) Try the accused in a federal court; or 3) Go to Congress and get them to provide the authority to try the accused in the manner desired by the President. That analysis would change if the trial were under emergency conditions.

The Court also held that certain minimum provisions of the Geneva Conventions apply to purported al Qaeda members captured by the United States military. Specifically,

in a ‘conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties [i.e., signatories],each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum,”certain provisions protecting “[p]ersons . . . placed hors de combat by. . . detention,” including a prohibition on “the passing of sentences . . . without previous judgment . . . by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees . . . recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.’

The Bush administration argued that the fight against al Qaeda was international in character. The Court retorted that, “international” means “between nations,” and therefore the fight against al Qaeda is not “international,” and this minimal protection required by the Geneva Conventions applies.

Bye bye Toll Road

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The Toll Road goes into private ownership today.

“There’s been a lot of talk and a lot of controversy about this,” said Sen. Thomas J. Wyss, R-Fort Wayne. “But I think history is going to prove, 10 years from now, that this was all a good idea.”

It’s not 10 years from now I’m worried about. If this were a 10 year deal, it would probably be a good one. It’s 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70 and 75 years from now as the tolls increase a likely 2 to 4% per year that concern me.

The Indianapolis Star has an editorial on the subject where they make the somewhat ridiculous assertion:

Critics of the plan ultimately lost, however, because they lacked any rational arguments against the deal.

Well, no, critics of the plan ultimately lost because the deal came with enough pork for the Governor to spread around to get the deal passed; barely. There are plenty of rational arguments. Here are two: 1) It’s unfair for the motorists of northern Indiana to be the main source of taxes to build roads in other parts of the state; and 2) Toll Roads are not as conducive to economic development as are free roads.

The Star makes another argument:

Revenue from the lease will be used to substantially improve highways and bridges all over Indiana. And, as Honda Motor Co.’s announcement out of Greensburg on Wednesday illustrates, good roads are a prime resource in helping communities attract good jobs.
Does anyone believe Honda would be creating 2,000 jobs and investing $550 million in Greensburg if the city didn’t sit near I-74?

Here is the better question. Does anyone believe Honda would be locating in Greensburg if I-74 were a toll road? Maybe I’m wrong, but I seriously doubt that major manufacturers find toll highways as desirable as they do free highways. So, while we may have helped the rest of the state, we’ve condemned northern Indiana to an inferior economic development tool for the next 3 generations for the benefit of the rest of the state.

This is a great deal for folks who don’t drive the Toll Road like, presumably, the editors of the Indianapolis Star, but it’s a sacrifice we shouldn’t request of the folks who do.