Tag Archives: Mike Pence

Pence, Pre-school and the Right-Wing Base

In case you were wondering why on earth Indiana’s Governor would refuse to apply for 80 million dollars in federal funds for preschool development, I point you to the most recent newsletter from the Indiana Family Association’s Micah Clark.

After urging his readers to “thank Governor Pence” for refusing that terrible, intrusive federal government support, Clark wrote

I disagree with the Governor and many others who support state preschool programs. I have yet to be convinced from the research that any benefits from the expensive programs attempted in other states are lasting and, therefore, the best use of Hoosier’s taxdollars. However, I completely agree with Governor Pence telling the federal government “no thanks.”

Here’s a key point. If the government offers “free” preschool only to those it approves, then churches, homes, and private alternatives are crowded out of the market. Over time, parents could actually have fewer choices.

As I heard one inner city pastor say, “the governor saved our preschool with this move.” AFA of Indiana supports parents having as many choices as possible, not just a one-size-fits-all. government dictated option.

It doesn’t take a lot of skill to read between those lines. Just follow the money.

We’ve seen this movie before. Every time the state legislature tries to pass minimum health and safety standards for daycare and preschools–usually, after a tragic accident at some unregulated, unsafe facility– conservative churches mount a hysterical assault on “big government,” and claim a religious right to be free of pesky (too-expensive) rules about nutrition, fire safety, minimum ratio of caregivers to infants and the like.

Churches operating daycare and preschool operations that don’t want to comply with health and safety standards are a big part of Governor Pence’s base. Those churches clearly didn’t want federal money funding safer competitors, and the Governor just as clearly got the message.

If poor Hoosier families lose out, so be it.

Ironically, the usual message of AFA of Indiana is: we don’t need no stinking preschool. Mothers should be home (preferably barefoot and pregnant) taking care of their own children, like God intended.

But if some mothers absolutely must work, and really have to leave their kids somewhere, it needs to be in a “bible-believing” facility that makes us money. If accepting federal dollars might threaten that business model, Indiana should refuse those dollars.

It’s always instructive to follow the money.

In this case, you can follow it to the other states whose children will benefit from 80 million dollars that our bible-belt state was too “pure and independent” to accept.

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Can We Spell “Short-Sighted and Stupid”?

In Indiana, we seem well along the way to achieving Grover Norquist’s wet dream of a government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The IBJ recently reported:

The State Board of Accounts no longer is auditing the financial records of Indiana libraries, conservancy districts, some public school accounts, and small towns and townships, its leader says.

The agency doesn’t have enough money or staff to perform those audits, State Examiner Paul Joyce told The Herald Bulletin for a story Sunday. Instead, it will concentrate on local governments with bonding authority or federal grants worth at least $500,000.

“I only have so many people to do a job. It’s not that I don’t want to do them,” Joyce said of the audits. “I have places that have not been reviewed in five years.”

If the Indianapolis Star noticed this, I missed it.

So let’s see….we don’t have enough money in our “low tax” state to police units of government. Will we have enough money to prosecute the people who see this as an invitation to siphon off funds for their personal use? Will we have enough money to replace the funds that get “misplaced”?

Governor Pence has been praised by law-and-order Republicans for amassing a 2 Billion Dollar “surplus.” I can run a surplus at my house, too, if I just decide not to pay for mowing the yard or repairing the roof…..

This is pathetic.

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I Actually Agree with Mike Pence about Something

And no, as you might imagine, the subject of that agreement is most definitely not same-sex marriage.

I’m referring to a recent story in The Indianapolis Star reporting that Governor Pence will confer the Sachem Award on P.E. MacAllister.

According to the report, “The award is given once annually to a Hoosier who demonstrates wisdom, judgment and grace, and whose character shows the importance of providing a moral example. The name comes from the Algonquin term given to leaders who exhibit those qualities.”

I have known–and treasured the friendship of–P.E. MacAllister for well over 35 years, and I can think of few Indianapolis citizens more deserving of an award recognizing wisdom, judgment and grace. Governor Pence quite properly praised P.E.’s impact on the life of the city–an impact far more extensive than many people recognize. P.E. has been a patron of the arts, a valued counselor to elected officials (including, despite his strong Republican bona fides, Democratic elected officials) and a longtime and effective advocate for good government and the value of public service.

Once, when I complimented him on his support of some civic enterprise, he responded with a biblical phrase–something along the lines of “From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.” That phrase, and much of his quiet, extensive and modest philanthropy, reflects a deep and nuanced scholarship that extends well beyond the bible. He is one of the most intellectually curious people I know, with interests in everything from history to anthropology to constitutionalism and civil liberties. The phrase “a gentleman and a scholar” is apt.

Indianapolis and Indiana have been very fortunate to have a citizen like P.E. MacAllister. I would be remiss if I failed to congratulate Mike Pence for recognizing that fact. (Of course, as the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every so often….)

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Correlation is Not Causation

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Indiana’s Governor has been emphasizing the importance of strong families, and promising that measures taken by his administration will be “family friendly.” (Well, to be accurate, they’ll be friendly for heterosexual families…)

Family is a key indicator of success and we’re looking for ways that we can encourage more young people to get married, to stay married, to wait to have children until they’re married is very important,” he said.

Very nice. Unfortunately, the Governor’s cart is in front of his horse.

There is a raft of research showing that people who enjoy financial security are more likely to stay married. There’s a reason for the statistic the Governor shared, to the effect that upper-income folks and college graduates are more likely to have stable marriages–people who aren’t sweating the rent are more likely to stay married.

The Governor also said that his administration has been putting “the interests of strong families at the very center of our policies on development.”

Sorry, but without policies that help the working poor make ends meet, that’s just blowing smoke.

A living wage is what enables and facilitates stable marriages. It isn’t the other way around.

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Politics 101

Governor Mike Pence has unveiled a proposal to expand Medicaid using Healthy Indiana, prompting blogger Steve Benen to suggest that Indiana’s Governor might be “evolving.”

Although I’m sure Pence would reject terminology that even slightly referenced evolution, his plan to expand Medicaid through Healthy Indiana is a good thing. That it is also a brave thing is a sad commentary on the current GOP, which is where most criticism of the proposal has come from.

It seems to be slowly dawning on Pence that there is a considerable difference between pontificating in DC and actually running a state. In Washington, the man who has been described as “a Tea Partier before there was a Tea Party” could–and did– sermonize ad nauseum without paying a political price. He could–and did–ignore the nitty-gritty of actual lawmaking (he served 11+ years without passing any legislation). A chief executive doesn’t have that luxury; he’s expected to actually do something.

And a chief executive with ambitions/delusions of higher office will be evaluated on the “somethings” that he did.

The problem is, when you are a Republican Governor, you have to satisfy a base that demands ideological purity and ever-more-red meat, at the same time that you have to deal with real budgets, real challenges and the real consequences of bad decisions.

Pence–and several other GOP officeholders–think they’ve figured a way to thread that needle.

We saw it earlier with Common Core. When the GOP suddenly turned on a dime and decided that Common Core was evil (right after the scary black dude in the White House embraced it), Republicans who’d previously been very supportive of Common Core faced a dilemma. They solved the problem by passing  “Indiana” standards that looked a lot like Common Core, but were called something else.

Now we have Medicaid expansion by a different name.

Mind you, these strategies are A-OK with me. There really is no “Hoosier” version of math (unless you count the time our legislature passed a measure changing the value of pi…); and 350,000 Indiana citizens desperately need access to affordable health care. If the current Administration has to engage in a bit of misrepresentation to get it done, I won’t complain.

It’s just a shame that these gyrations are necessary in order to avoid being eaten alive by the angry, uninformed people who now control the party.

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