Indiana’s struggling gambling industry didn’t get the relief it sought during the special session of the Indiana General Assembly. But embedded within the budget bill approved June 30 is a provision creating a gambling summer study committee. Its recommendations, due by Dec. 1, may make or break several of Indiana’s casinos.
As both House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, and House Republican Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, see it, this is definitely a "Republican-flavored" budget. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels laid the framework, and legislators from both sides of the aisle largely abided by his bottom lines of spending, state agency cuts and surplus.
The legislative session that concluded June 30 with passage of a two-year budget left a bad taste in our mouths. For starters,
legislators lacked the courage to tackle local government reform—even though cash-strapped units of government
desperately need the millions of dollars in savings they would generate. In short, they put political cronyism ahead of the
interests of the state.
If we are lucky, by the time you read these words the Indiana General Assembly will have passed a new budget. Democrats use
tarot cards and Republicans chicken innards to determine how much to spend. There are alternatives.
The sniping over the state budget follows the time-honored script of partisan politics. Fear not: A timely climax and resolution
are all but guaranteed.
With the help of outside economists, Indiana government undergoes an economic forecast every other yearâ??a process that’s taken on increased importance this spring, as Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Legislature attempt to craft a two-year budget amid the deepest recession since the early 1980s.
Put some progressivity into Indiana tax rates when passing the Indiana state budget.
Which group should make the spending decisions? Consumers or elected officials?
Ind. Gov. Mitch Daniels will call the Legislature into special session to pass an acceptable budget, but some legislators think a budget that would satisfy the governor cannot be crafted by the contentious partisans in this developing fiasco.
Sometimes the news is just so good you can’t believe it, and that is just what happened with the state revenue forecast this
month.
The two principal matters that all agree must be resolved are the biennial budget and a plan to return the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund to solvency.
When we read that all the Democrats in the House voted against all the Republicans in the House on a given issue, we know independence has been cruelly killed by the leadership of each party. The same applies to the Senate.
The Indiana General Assembly session will end with a focus on what has dominated discussion since Organization Day back in November: fiscal issues.
Indiana lawmakers are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to fixing the state’s bankrupt unemployment insurance fund.
In the past, lawmakers ignored the need to fix financing for the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, and now they must come
up with solutions that will be difficult for both Democrats and Republicans to accept.
Difficult economic conditions have been faced before and we have both the tools and will to overcome our problems.
Brace yourself, because things in this legislative session are destined to get messy: the politics, the process, the personalities,
the context, and the issues and their substance, all at once.
The key legislative item at this point remains House Bill 1001, the budget bill.
Although the Kernan-Shepard report focused on local government efficiencies, it is also clear that the management of Indiana’s
public resources and assets at the regional and state level has not kept pace with the technological and socioeconomic advances
of the last century.
The state’s two biggest pension funds are poised to combine into one Indiana Public Retirement System, with a single executive
director and board.
