It’s Only Money

As P.J. O’Rourke famously observed, “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”

P.J., you were prescient!

The headline in the Star tells the story: “For the second time in only four months, the state is admitting it made a massive revenue error.”

“This one cost counties $206 million in revenue that they have been owed from January 2011 to now and which will be repaid with interest as of April 5. The first, announced last December, resulted in a $320 million windfall to the state’s general fund.”

After the news of this latest “programming error” broke, a couple of heads rolled–appropriately, in my view. But the folks taking the fall are hardly the only incompetents in this situation.

As a disgusted (Republican) businessman friend of mine emailed me earlier today,

“So much for fiscal discipline and competent management.  If you recall, late last year the State “found” $320 million just sitting in a bank account, having not been “swept” into the general fund as all other tax revenues have/had; now they “find” – oops – that they failed to pay local units of government hundreds of millions of dollars they were owed.
Riddle me this: How can policy makers and legislators pass good/sound budgets when the governor/administration provides such wildly incorrect information on the state of the budget?  As just one example, Mitch pushed for the “automatic taxpayer refund” because our fiscal house is in such great shape – the State even calculated that taxpayers will get a whopping $70/person (whoopeee)… Will the state still pay that out and further starve govt and localities of needed revenue for essential services like crime control? And how do we know that calculation was even close to correct?”
The scorn heaped on the “lets run government like a business” Daniels Administration is well deserved; no real business would survive fiscal mismanagement on this scale.  But local governments aren’t exactly being run by  the sharpest knives in the drawer, either.  Didn’t the Ballard Administration notice the city had been shorted $41 million dollars? It’s not like Indianapolis was so awash in money that a missing $41 million simply escaped the notice of those charged with managing the City budget.
When the Daniels Administration “found” 320 million dollars it had overlooked a couple of months ago, the Governor brushed away calls for an independent audit. This latest “whoops!” suggests such an audit is considerably overdue.
State Senator Vi Simpson summed up this whole sorry mess in an email sent out today:

Today, we found out that Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has mishandled more than half a billion dollars of our money.

While he was out of the country, the Governor’s Office said the state has deprived counties of $206 million in revenue between January 2011 and now. That money will be repaid with interest, and several top officials are resigning in the wake of the scandal.

Last year, Daniels jokingly told reporters that “finding” more than $300 million in missing revenue was like getting an early Christmas gift.

It was no joking matter then, and now that the problem has grown $200 million more serious, it’s starting to feel like Hoosier taxpayers have been the victims of a cruel April Fool’s prank.

I was one of several Democrats who publicly called for an outside audit after the first round of missing money was discovered. At the time, Daniels dismissed it as a partisan plea.

He was wrong then, and now we know his frequent cries for “fiscal responsibility” have never applied to his own administration.

The worst part of this story isn’t the horrendous mismanagement of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars – it’s the fact that local governments have had to lay off police officers and firefighters and reduce services to make ends meet because Daniels was hording their money.

It’s hard to argue with that assessment.


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In Other News, the Sun Rose this Morning….

According to reports in the IBJ and elsewhere, the trial pitting IBM against the State of the Indiana is winding down. At issue are cross-claims about the reasons for and propriety of the termination of IBM’s contract to provide welfare intake services.

According to the IBJ, IBM’s lawyer argued that the real reason for the termination was state budgetary woes. The State’s lawyers defended the termination by complaining that “IBM was more concerned about profit than getting assistance to needy people.”

And the sun rises in the east….

Those of us who study outsourcing have repeatedly made the point that–while contracting can be a useful tool in many circumstances–it is not appropriate in areas where government is providing essential services to vulnerable populations. Despite lots of irresponsible rhetoric to the contrary, government is not a business. It’s purposes and aims are different. Private, for-profit organizations have a duty to shareholders; government agencies have obligations to citizens.

Evidently, this essential distinction escaped the notice of the Daniels Administration, which is now shocked–shocked to discover that a business would prioritize the pursuit of profit.

In other breaking news, it appears that rain is wet.

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Incomprehensible

The United States is rooted in the Enlightenment–an era that gave us empiricism and the scientific method. Our approach to government was forged by philosophers who extolled reason and evidence. We have always looked up to scientists, and scientists–who are best able to pursue their ideas in an open culture–have historically flocked to our shores.

“Yankee ingenuity” produced a constant flow of important inventions. Fulton gave us the steamboat; Samuel Morse the telegraph, Eli Whitney the cotton gin. Thomas Edison was credited with more than 1000 inventions. The Wright brothers gave us the airplane. The list goes on and on.

Americans were first to set foot on the moon.

Technology–from the telegraph to the IPhone, from the automobile to your television set– builds upon basic scientific principles. The  inventions and advances we take for granted would not have been possible had the country remained rooted in the superstition that characterized pre-Enlightenment Europe.  Just as the early colonists rejected the proposition that monarchs were divinely ordained, they were open to the example of men like Benjamin Franklin who engaged in empirical experimentation and scientific investigation.

Okay, I hear you saying. Well and good. What has prompted this particular rant?

I just read a recent survey of the American attitudes and beliefs.  It found that 39% of us believe in evolution.

At a time when we are spending billions of dollars on medical and biological research–all of which is based upon evolution–only 39% of Americans accept a settled scientific theory. Indeed, if political rhetoric is any indication, very few Americans even understand the difference between scientific theory–an explanatory framework constructed after painstaking empirical testing–and a wild-ass guess, which is the conversational use of the term.

Thirty-nine percent of Americans are scientifically literate–or at least scientifically literate enough to understand and accept the operation and importance of evolution.

There are many indicators of a nation in decline. The Creation Museum–where Adam and Eve saddle up their dinosaurs to romp through  a world created in its current form less than 10,000 years ago–may be the most significant such indicator.

And the most tragic.

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Speaking of “Agendas”

A friend sent me a copy of this year’s American Family Action Pac political questionnaire. Rather than characterize it, I decided to let it speak for itself. (The odd numbering and format are original.)

Indiana Family Action PAC  2012 Questionnaire for State Candidates

Please circle the response that most accurately reflects your position on the following issues.

(SF=Strongly Favor; F-Favor; U=Undecided; O=Oppose; SO=Strongly Oppose; Y=Yes; N=No)

  1. 1.   Education – Protect and expand parental choice options provided in current law to allow all parents

the opportunity to receive a voucher to send their children to any public, private, religious or home

school of their choice.                                                                                                                  SF     F     U     O     SO

  1.  Education – Allow parents dedicated to their children’s education to home-school their children

without imposing additional state regulations, other than that which is already required in state law.   SF     F     U     O     SO

3. Education – Redefine “bullying” so that students who express opposition to the public promotion of

homosexuality in public schools will be guilty of “bullying” if they offend students who have taken

 on a homosexual identity.                                                                                                                     SF     F     U     O     SO

4.Academic Liberty – The teaching of evolution is currently an educational requirement for teachers in

Indiana public schools.  Protect Indiana teachers within state law so that they can also discuss the

problems and weaknesses of evolutionary theory.                                                                                   SF     F     U     O     SO

5.Business – Some Indiana cities have increased regulations on businesses by adding “sexual orientation” and

“gender identity” to the list of protected classes that get special rights. State law does not require businesses

to treat these groups as protected classes.  Require all levels of government to recognize the list

 of specially protected classes within state law in order to give businesses uniform regulations. SF     F     U     O     SO

6. Faith – Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior.  I believe the God of the Bible is sovereign

over all of life, including public policy, and I will use biblical principles to guide how I vote.                       Y              N         

7. Homosexual agenda – Change state discrimination law to protect an employee’s sexual

    preferences in the same way that race, religion, age, gender and ancestry are protected.                  SF     F     U     O     SO

8. Marriage – Increase the time a married couple with minor children must wait for a divorce

(current law is 60 days) in order to give them a longer opportunity to work toward reconciliation.          SF     F     U     O     SO

9. Marriage – Amend the Indiana Constitution as follows:   “Only a marriage between one (1) man

and one (1) woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana. A legal status identical or

substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.”     SF     F     U     O     SO

10. Abortion – Prohibit abortion by law except when the life of the mother is in danger.                         SF     F     U     O     SO

11. Abortion – As the medical abortion field explodes (abortion pills like RU486), make Indiana law apply

the same standards for dispensing abortion pills as it does for surgical abortions (i.e., define it in the law,

require licensing and regulatory standards, require key health and safety standards, and require

informed consent/patient information standards).                                                                 .                    SF     F     U     O     SO

12. Taxes – Increase state taxes in order to provide more services.                                              SF     F     U     O     SO

13. Taxes – Discontinue all direct and indirect state support of the Kinsey Institute

 (controversial “sex research” organization in Bloomington, IN)                                                    SF     F     U     O     SO

14. Gambling – Prohibit Casinos in Indiana.                                                                               SF     F     U     O     SO

15. Sex industry – Require strip clubs to close at midnight and make them ineligible for

Liquor licenses.  Require dancers to remain at least 6 feet away from customers at all times.             SF     F     U     O     S

Anyone who “favors”  numbers 5, 7 and 12  will clearly be opposed; the language of the others–especially #6–is simply jaw-dropping. These folks are the ones with an “agenda”– and it is anti-science, anti-gay, anti-sex and deeply, profoundly un-American.

When the American Family folks endorse someone, remember that these are the positions that candidate has promised to support.

As another friend put it–so many Christians, so few lions….

 


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…With A Little Help from My Friends

On my way to work this morning, WFYI informed me that today is the day Mark Massa will be sworn in as the newest Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court.

When Governor Daniels announced that he had chosen Massa, there was a good deal of criticism. Some observers expressed surprise that–once again–the Governor had ignored an opportunity to diversify the Court, that–once again–he had declined to appoint an eminently qualified woman. Adding insult to injury, Daniels claimed that his choice was based upon the candidates’ relative qualifications for the job, a manifestly bogus excuse.

I was not surprised by the choice, which I’d predicted well before the commission charged with winnowing the field even sent three names to the Governor. Nor do I believe it had any more to do with sexism than it did with merit.

This is Indiana–the crony state.

There’s a pretty robust academic literature dealing with political culture. Some states (Massachusetts, say) have a liberal culture that promotes public service; others (Arizona, Texas) take a considerably more conservative, parochial approach to the role of government. When I was researching state differences in political culture for a book on the Faith-Based Initiative, I asked George Geib–past Dean of History at Butler University and a long-time Indianapolis Republican operative–how he would describe Indiana’s political approach. His answer was that the framework within which we conduct our affairs is quid pro quo. 

Look around at the so-called “privatization” initiatives. Lucrative deals for parking and welfare intake have gone to well-connected ACS. The developer of the parking garage being built in Broad Ripple used to work for the Ballard Administration. A PR firm that gets city business just “happens” to employ Ballard’s son. These are just a few examples that come readily to mind; there are literally hundreds of others.

This isn’t new in Indiana, and it isn’t the exclusive provenance of Republicans. Both parties have practiced politics as spoils system, both have favored their cronies with appointments and contracts.

The problem women have in a crony system is that we are late to the party, and less likely to play the game–less likely to be one of the favored cronies. Nothing against our gender–if we were playing by the good old boys’ rules, we’d probably be equally likely to be rewarded with the plum jobs and/or contracts.

Mark Massa was counsel to the Governor; by all accounts, the two are friends. And in a state where doing business with your friends is the way business is done, his appointment was a foregone conclusion.

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