Rep. Ed DeLaney: Big budget-busting bills become law, will hurt state

Someone is going to suffer from the recently adopted federal and state budget bills and administrative actions that hold back funds. There will be fewer folks with health insurance through Medicaid. Hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers could lose food stamps. Grants that support universities, medical research and scholarships are going to be reduced by a combination of budget cuts and administrative refusals to spend funds authorized by law. Preschool support and enrollment will decline. Will Indiana’s supermajority notice? Not likely.

The Indiana General Assembly should be on fiscal alert for next year but isn’t likely to be. We left town in April, having reacted to a shortfall in our revenue forecast by cutting revenue. That’s right cutting. We addressed lost revenue by cutting revenue. We cut state income taxes not only for now but also for the future. That was our response to a budget shortfall of over $2 billion.

We tried to limit the shortfall by asking parents of college students to get by with less financial aid. We cut our recently enhanced public health care budget from $150 million to $40 million. We passed the buck to local government by making cuts to property taxes they receive while encouraging them to raise local income taxes.

We consciously ignored the threat of cuts from the president’s so-called one big, beautiful bill. That law will bust the budgets of ordinary Hoosiers: no food stamps, no health insurance through Medicaid and no preschool. Let’s not even mention the state employees being let go or the job training programs shut down. There isn’t even a hint that we might try to preserve some of the jobs that solar and wind energy programs were creating before Congress cut them to nothing at the whim of the White House.

While some state legislatures tried to build up reserves to deal with the projected impact of federal cuts, Indiana capped off years of cutting back on our surplus by passing a budget that is likely to leave us with a surplus hovering around 10%, low by our own standards.

Of course, we created no special reserve for anticipated cuts in federal funds. This hampers our ability to respond to federal cuts. It is more important to our supermajority to align with the White House than to align with Hoosiers. We won’t fight federal cuts, and we will pretend they didn’t happen. Let’s look at how other states reacted. 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska saw what was coming in a bill that would have hurt rural hospitals and fishing fleets in her state. She got changes in the bill that protected her state, not ours. Our Republican senators and congressmen went into sheep mode. Our rural hospitals will be hurt or closed. Happily, we have no whale hunters to lose their jobs.

Other states (“blue” ones) either built up special reserves or are looking into special sessions to address the impacts of the federal bill on ordinary citizens. Our supermajority is in silent mode. If the rollout of the promised tariffs occurs, they might need to hide in our southern Indiana caves to avoid discussing the impacts.

How did we get here? Why is there no sense of urgency in our Legislature? First, there is willful ignorance: If we don’t look at the risk, maybe it will go away. Second, there is the herd instinct: If we huddle silently together, maybe the wolf in the White House will let us alone. Third, there is anger: Why should they support struggling families who can be excluded from benefits at no political cost?

Hoosiers need to raise the cost of this inaction. We need to demand that the Legislature and the governor look now at the impact of our laws and Trump’s big bill on ordinary Hoosiers.•

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DeLaney, an Indianapolis attorney, is a Democrat representing the 86th District in the Indiana House of Representatives. Send comments to [email protected].

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