A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

That’s my boy

by 6 Comments

I posted this over at our family blog, but it amused me so much, I thought I’d go ahead and cross-post. Cole is my 2.5 year old son:

We had a beautiful evening – nice breeze, sun starting to set, 70 degrees. Cole and I were kicking back, winding down after a long day. He was in his toy car. I was next to him, sitting under a tree staring out over the cornfield to the south of my yard.

He looked curiously at the bottle of Negra Modelo I was holding. “That’s beer,” I told him.

“That’s beer,” he repeated, testing out the new word. He paused for a bit, thinking. “Looks delicious!” he decides.

Yes, son. Yes it is. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him use the word “delicious” before. I had to explain that it’s a “Daddy” drink.

Bayh: End estate tax when deficit shrinks (updated)

by 6 Comments

Evan Bayh is suggesting that we end the estate tax when the deficit shrinks.

I support eliminating the estate tax, especially for small businesses and family farmers,” Bayh said in a statement released by his office. “During times of surplus, I’ve voted to eliminate the estate tax. Unfortunately, today we face mounting deficits and would be forced to borrow more money from China and ask our children to pay it back with interest. That is not a responsible course.”

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., has been a long-time advocate of lifting the tax on inheritances, and that has not changed, his spokesman said.

Here is when the estate tax should be eliminated: When the deficit is gone, the national debt is gone, and the income tax is gone. That the estate tax is a priority at all in this country is mindboggling. It effects very, very few Americans. You can already leave $2 million to your heirs tax free. Couples can leave $4 million. So, unless you have a couple million dollars squirreled away, this does not affect you.

The campaign to end the estate tax has been waged primarily by 18 of America’s wealthiest families. If you’re reading this blog, that’s probably not you. The families have a combined net worth of about $185.5 billion and the repeal of the estate tax would yield their heirs a windfall of $71.6 billion. Worth playing for?

As for the much imperiled family farmers you always hear about, don’t worry about them. A New York Times investigation was unable to find an example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability. So, for folks concerned about the family farmers, perhaps an amendment simply exempting family farms from the estate tax would be in order.

I’ll just re-post thoughts I’ve posted before and will likely post again:

Nobody likes paying taxes, and every tax contains elements that are unfair or particularly undesirable. But, I have never had anyone adequately provide a justification for eliminating the estate tax before eliminating the income tax. Whatever moral claim an heir has on the state of his father at the end of his life, it pales in comparison to the claim a worker has to his paycheck at the end of the week. So, whatever problems the estate tax has, there is little or no reason to address them while we still tax the paychecks of working people. Furthermore, extreme concentrations of wealth have pernicious effects on our democracy. I don’t have any serious problems with allowing individuals to amass ridiculous amounts of wealth based on their own luck and skill. But I don’t see any particular public good served by extreme levels of wealth in the hands of the children and grandchildren of those people. How many generations since John D. Rockefeller made his first billion? And we still have his progeny directly affecting our lives through their various prominent roles in our government.

I’m still unhappy with Senator Bayh for voting for the elimination of the estate tax back in 2001, and, while I’m pleased that he’s at least giving a nod toward fiscal sanity by linking the estate tax to the deficit, I’m not a great deal happier with the level of support he is giving to the idea of getting rid of this tax in advance of taxes that affect average citizens, such as the income tax; or getting rid of taxes on rich people while a massive National Debt remains for our children to pay.

Update The estate tax repeal bill fell 3 votes shy of what was needed to advance the provision. According to the linked article, in 2002, only 1.17% of people who died left a taxable estate.

Two Republicans, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, broke with their party.

“Repealing the estate tax during this time of fiscal crisis would be incredibly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest,” Voinovich said.

Proposed Federal Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

by 6 Comments

A number of Indiana’s Representatives are co-sponsors of H.J. Res. 88 proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Indiana co-sponsors are Chris Chocola (IN-02), Mark Souder (IN-03),  Dan Burton (IN-05), Mike Pence (IN-06), John Hostettler (IN-08), and Mike Sodrel (IN-09).

The substantive portions of the proposed amendment would add the following language to the United States Constitution:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.

So much for states rights. This proposed amendment would not only prevent recognition of gay marriage under federal law, it woudl prohibit the people of a state from constituting their respective governments so as not to discriminate against gays.

The broadest provisions of this proposed amendment reads as follows: “The Constitution of a State shall [not] be construed to require the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”

Potentially, that could be read to mandate that if something is a legal incident of marriage, a state cannot required it to be conferred on a non-heterosexual union.

The Constitution is too important to be trifled with in this fasion.

Tippecanoe Politics ranks the websites

by 4 Comments

Tippecanoe Politics ranks the websites of the candidates for Indiana’s 4th and 1st Congressional Districts.

The quick rundown:
IN-04: Buyer – D; Sanders – B+
IN-01: Visclosky – B-; Leyva – F.

I particularly enjoyed this passage about Mark Leyva’s website:

If the picture on the first page isn’t bad enough, the website itself looks like it was put together by a bunch of beer buddies. As for content, the first issue people see after clicking the issues button is “smoking” (seriously, I’m not joking).

IN-04: Limiting liability to VA for identity thefts

by 2 Comments

The Army Times had a story a couple of weeks ago on the theft of personal data on 26.5 million veterans. Representative Steve Buyer had a pretty astounding quote with respect to dealing with the aftermath of the VA’s negligence which led to the theft of the data:

Buyer said there may be other costs if the VA has to take steps to help veterans, although with 26 million people potentially compromised, it will be difficult to determine if the loss of the VA data is the sole reason for identity theft.

“How many of them would have had their identities stolen anyway?” Buyer said.

Rep. Salazar wants to err on the side of helping veterans:

Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., a member of Buyer’s committee, introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the VA to provide free credit monitoring and credit reporting for any veterans whose personal information was on the stolen computer. The bill, HR 5455, will be discussed at Thursday’s hearings.

“We cannot allow our veterans to suffer while the government sorts out its mistakes,” Salazar said, noting that the VA waited until several weeks after the theft to warn veterans.

“Veterans should not have to pay for identity theft,” he said. “The least the government can do is cover the cost for veterans to monitor their credit. Entire lifetimes of saving money and good work can now be devastated in an instant because of the VA’s careless handling of personal information.”

David Sanders, Buyer’s challenger for the 4th District seat, supports the Salazar bill.

D-Day

by 10 Comments

Today is the 62nd anniversary of D-Day, 06/06/1944. Which made me think. D-Day occurred 912 days after Pearl Harbor. If 9/11/01 was our generation’s Pearl Harbor, then our generation’s D-Day should have occurred on or about March 11, 2004. And our V-T Day would have been on or about May 20, 2005. But if George Bush actually won the War on Terror(ism/ists), then he’d have to give up all those war powers and the perks of being a “War President ™”.

Toll Road litigation: notice of appeal filed

by 1 Comment

The plaintiffs in the toll road litigation have filed their appeal. The Plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the toll road privatization legislation. The trial court judge told them they’d have to pay to play — telling them to post a $1.8 billion bond before they were allowed to litigate the issue of whether the legislation was within the constitutional authority of the General Assembly.

I have questions about the judge’s decisions interpreting the public lawsuit statute under which such a bond is authorized. But, that aside, I wonder about the validity of legislation that makes a Constitutional challenge too expensive for anybody to reasonably sustain. Because the sale involves so much money, nobody can get a court to determine whether the transaction was actually within the authority of the General Assembly.

Smith v. Hoy

by 5 Comments

Republican Andrew Smith, candidate for House District 77, is trying to gain a foothold in his race against incumbent Phil Hoy. But, he’s trying to do it on the backs of homosexuals and altering Hoy’s statements to do it.

Smith said the letter, [concerning Hoy’s position on homosexual rights] mailed to about 200 GOP voters who describe themselves as opposed to same-sex marriage, deals with legitimate public-policy issues for voters in House District 77.

“Phil gets upset whenever his extremist views are talked about,” he said.

The letter prominently features in enlarged letters a United Church of Christ statement and includes this quote: “Homosexuality is a good gift of our Creator, as is its responsible, loving expression.”

Smith acknowledges that he changed the word “sexuality” to “homosexuality.”

Hoy’s response:

Rep. Phil Hoy, D-Evansville, contends that the letter — paid for by Andrew Smith’s campaign — is a “smoke screen” to energize social conservatives while avoiding more important issues.

“Why don’t we talk about education, health care, Medicaid?” Hoy asked.

This is nothing new, really. Howard Dean identified the strategy succinctly back in 2004 when he referred to the GOP’s “God, Gays, and Guns” wedge strategy. Get folks all worked up over emotional issues, and they won’t notice so much that their paychecks are stagnant, their environment is deteriorating, the government’s safety net is getting frayed, and the super rich are getting a lot richer.

I can certainly understand gays voting primarily on gay rights issues. And I know that there is a certain segment of the population for whom gays being treated equally under the law is anathema. But I would think that for a substantial majority of citizens, gay rights is something of a side issue. Not to minimize its importance to the people it effects directly — for whom the issues are of immense importance, but for the average Hoosier, the ability of gays to marry or otherwise receive the rights and privileges afforded to other citizens simply does not affect their daily lives.

This issue should be discussed, but it should not be emphasized disproportionately to its actual importance. And altering the text of what Hoy actually said is wrong.

For my part, I’ll go with the “if it doesn’t break my leg or pick my pocket, it’s probably o.k.” reasoning. Also, I suspect that the anti-gay position will eventually be seen as being on the wrong side of history, along side Bull Connor and the segregationists. I’m sure there were many, many good people from that era who held segregationist views for reasons they saw as perfectly legitimate. But they were wrong.

IN-06 PSA: Barry Welsh Fundraiser

by 5 Comments

A public service announcement:

Fundraiser hosted by David and Robyn Honig
Start: 06/24/2006 – 4:00pm
End: 06/24/2006 – 8:00pm
Timezone: Etc/GMT-5
Event Details:

David & Robyn Honig are holding a fundraiser on June 24 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. David and Robyn live in Carmel, and David has been an active supporter of Barry’s campaign and contributor to the website for quite a while now.

The location of the event is 2811 Maralice Drive in Carmel, Indiana. Stop by and mingle with frinds, talk politics without anny annoying dittoheads runing your good time, and donate your time and or money to a good cause. Here is a map if you are not familiar with the area.

Greenwood mayor proposes rental ban

by 8 Comments

I have serious doubts about the propriety of this proposed ordinance in Greenwood. The mayor wants a ban on the rental of any newly constructed home for a 3 year period.

I think you could probably make it legal, by using the zoning and building permit processes to get the builder to agree to such a condition in exchange for permission to build. I understand the motivation — you have a number of builders softening the housing market which probably has deleterious effects on the community at large.

I don’t necessarily have much sympathy for large developers, who can address the pros and cons of such an ordinance up front and price and plan accordingly. But, it might tie a home buyer to his or her property in an unfair way. Say someone buys their home, plans to live there, but their situation changes 1.5 years later with the real estate market in a down phase — perhaps getting them upside down on their mortgage, making their only real option to rent the place out.

Councilman Keith Hardin seems to have a good head on his shoulders about this at any rate:

Some Greenwood City Council members, who will hear Henderson’s proposal tonight, like the idea behind it but are wary of whether it can pass legal muster.

“I don’t want to be a test case in the courts for these types of things,” said Councilman Keith Hardin.

He prefers more of a carrot-and-stick approach in the form of a three-year tax abatement to developers that could be passed on to homeowners to help nurture the upkeep of their properties.

“The whole point is we debate this and encourage developers to stick with their original plan and not bait-and-switch the city.”
He and fellow Councilman Bruce Armstrong want the city to tighten its zoning regulations, too. Greenwood’s ordinances allow a developer to change his commitments without penalty.

“It’s the wrong way to go about what needs to be done,” Armstrong said of the ordinance. “Unfortunately, there are too many loopholes developers are using.”