Tag Archives: Mitch Daniels

Selling Indiana: Update

This past weekend, the LA Times and the Northwest Indiana Times both had stories about Mitch Daniel’s privatization initiatives.

The Northwest Indiana article reported on the impending default of the private operator of the Indiana Toll Road. While a default would probably not cost Indiana taxpayers–the private operator paid us in advance–it might well cost us what little control we retained over the Toll Road, and depending upon how the default played out, might require some legal fees.

The LA Times article, on the other hand, was the sort of in-depth reporting that has become all too rare nationally, and virtually non-existent here in Indianapolis.  It traced the disaster that was Indiana’s effort to contract out welfare intake, and it is well worth reading in its entirety. High points include a description of ACS ties to Indiana political figures and “movers and shakers”–especially Stephen Goldsmith, Mitch Roob and the Barnes Thornburgh law firm–together with a list of associated campaign contributions, and several examples of the harm done to vulnerable elderly and disabled people who depended on the program.

The Star did do several stories early on, when the failures of IBM and ACS were at their most glaring, and again when Daniels admitted defeat and pulled IBM’s (but not ACS’) contract. And it ran a story when IBM sued the state. But there was no effort to “connect the dots” and nothing even close to the comprehensive investigation provided by the LA Times.

That lack of a full picture matters, because without it, reporters fail to recognize the context within which we must understand related information.

A couple of weeks ago, the Daniels Administration announced that it had received an award from the federal government for cutting the food stamp program’s negative error rate–how often cases are incorrectly closed or denied. The Administration bragged that Indiana’s error rate was below the national average.  The Star dutifully reported the (accurate) claim. What didn’t get reported was the fact that from 2001 to 2007–prior to welfare privatization–Indiana’s error rate had also been below the national average, but in 2008, one year after IBM and ACS took over, the error rate had more than doubled, to 13%.  It was the largest increase in the country, and the celebrated “improvement” was measured from that high point.

Context matters. So does journalism.

Charlie White, the GOP, and the Rule of Law

After the Republicans in the Statehouse passed House Bill 1242, changing the election law in order to avoid the consequences of having run an ineligible candidate, my husband shook his head. “It’s enough to make you ashamed of ever having been a Republican.” This from a man who worked for the GOP for over fifty years–working on campaigns, working at the polls, driving people to vote, and serving in a Republican administration.

We have both bemoaned the radicalization of the party we used to call ours: the mean-spiritedness, the shortsighted focus on tax caps at the expense of public goods, the homophobia and the thinly veiled racism that emerged in the wake of Obama’s election. But HB 1242 is nothing less than an attack on the rule of law.

John Adams famously said that our constitution established the rule of law, not the rule of men. The Founders gave us limited government. That didn’t mean that the size of government was to be limited, as many seem to think. It meant that the same rules have to apply to everyone, that there are limits to the ways in which official power can be used.

Scholars identify eight elements of the rule of law:

  • Laws are necessary, and must apply to all–including government officials.
  • Laws must be published.
  • Laws must be prospective in nature so that the effect of the law may only take place after the law has passed.
  • Laws must be reasonably clear and specific, in order to avoid arbitrary enforcement.
  • Laws must avoid contradictions.
  • Laws cannot require people to do impossible things.
  • Law must stay sufficiently constant through time to allow rules to be understood; at the same time, the legal system should allow for timely revisions when the reasons for the law have changed.
  • Official action should be consistent with the declared rule.

Our sense of fundamental fairness is offended if someone is punished for violating a rule that was passed only after he acted. We would be outraged if a person who violated an existing law managed to get it changed so that he escaped punishment. We might not be able to point to the precise element of the rule of law that had been violated in such cases, but we’d know instinctively that it was wrong.

This over-reach by the Indiana GOP has generated a petition drive, asking Governor Daniels to veto the measure. I don’t hold out much hope, but I signed the petition, and I hope many others will as well.

If the legislature ultimately decides that current laws governing electoral vacancies should be changed, fine. Those new rules can be applied prospectively, to future cases. Changing the rules when they fail to favor you, so as to escape the consequences of your own misbehavior, isn’t just unfair. It isn’t just contrary to the rule of law.

It is unAmerican.

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The Things You (Sometimes) Learn from the Newspaper!

This morning’s Indianapolis Star had a bit of real reporting amid the multiple sports and “human interest” stories. Apparently, a bill being shepherded through the legislature would give sole authority for establishing new toll roads to the Governor. Well, not to just any governor–the measure would remain in effect for only four years.

As many of us recall, a couple of years ago Governor Daniels unveiled a plan to build a toll road around Indianapolis–outside I465. The public response was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. City planners pointed out that “ring roads” of this sort suck traffic away from city centers, and that such a project would likely deal a blow to the resurgence of Indianapolis’ downtown. Environmentalists argued that the billions expended on such a project would be better spent on rail and mass-transit. The general public opposed it for a variety of other reasons.

Our Governor may be small, but he’s determined. And he’s serenely confident that he knows better than the public what the public needs. Hence, a bill that will let him do things his way, without the distractions of that pesky “democracy” thing.

What lessons might we take away from this morning’s article?

  1. Jefferson was right: eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. People in power may give lip service to democracy and the “will of the people,” but given half a chance, they’ll dump democratic processes for unrestrained power in a heartbeat.
  2. Citizens need journalism. We need to know what our public officials are doing, what they are proposing, how they are conducting themselves in office. Increasingly, in our internet age, we need to know who is telling the truth, and who is lying to us. That need is particularly acute at the state and local level. But real reporting costs money, so our local newspapers are thinner and thinner, and more and more of what’s left is fluff: recipes, fashion, weight-loss advice and, of course, sports.

This morning’s story reminded us why “the press” has constitutional status. It is supposed to be the eyes and ears of the public–our watchdog. When it does its job–like this morning–we the people have at least a fighting chance.

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Politics and Propaganda

I opened the Sunday Indianapolis Star to a front-page story about Governor Mitch Daniels’ claim that public employees make more than their private-sector counterparts. The article discussed the issue in the “fair and balanced” way we’ve come to expect from “journalists” today, dutifully reporting on the “he said/she said” dueling studies–without bothering to tell readers which studies were sound and which were utter garbage.

I am absolutely confident I could conduct a study demonstrating that people who exercise less break fewer bones–if i didn’t bother to control for things like overall mobility and severity of breaks that did occur. I can see the headline now: Study shows that less exercise leads to better bone health.

There’s a reason academic journals insist on peer reviews.

The Star gave equal weight to two studies. One simply compared overall wages of private and public employees. It found public employees doing slightly better. The other study controlled for factors like education, duration of the workday, etc. In other words, it compared people with similar skills and educational training to each other. (What we used to call “apples to apples” comparisons.) That study–surprise!–did not confirm the Governor’s charge.

The article also reported that Indiana has fewer public employees than it did when Daniels assumed office, and it attributed that decline to privatization. But privatization, an inaccurate term for contracting out for services, does not reduce government employment, except in the very narrow sense of “on the State’s payroll.” If the government is paying someone to perform a task, that person is effectively an employee of the government. It may be harder to recognize that fact, because his compensation is being paid through an intervening party (who gets a cut, not incidentally, called profit), but when government is paying someone for providing services and dictating the nature of those services, that someone is effectively a government employee.

A study that really should be conducted would investigate just how many of these de-facto state employees there are in Indiana. (Several years ago, at an academic conference, a well-known scholar explained to me that the federal government had the equivalent of 18 million additional employees. They weren’t counted as federal workers, because they worked for private contractors, but they were employed full-time providing public services.)

Whether you are a proponent or opponent of government contracting–and as readers of this blog know, I’m firmly in the “it depends” category–this sort of game-playing goes beyond disingenuous. It’s not just inaccurate; it’s propaganda.

It would be nice if we had journalists who could tell the difference.

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There’s the Talk, and There’s the Walk…….

I continue to be amazed by how blatant right wing hypocrisy has become.

The most recent example (okay, one of the many recent examples) occurred last week in Washington.  House Democrats offered a motion to cut the budget by putting an end to taxpayer-funded subsidies to large oil companies. Rep. William Keating (D-MA) offered the motion on the House floor saying “let’s stop sending taxpayers’ money to the most profitable companies in the world.”

Republicans voted unanimously against the motion, defeating it by a vote of 176-249. Those would be the same Republicans who are constantly talking about the need to reduce the deficit. Evidently, what they mean by “reduce the deficit” is “reduce the deficit to the extent we can do so on the backs of middle-class taxpayers.”

And speaking of talks and walks, it will be interesting to see what Indiana Governor Mitch “Social Issues Truce” Daniels does when the anti-immigration bill hits his desk.

Daniels has certainly talked the talk of fiscal responsibility. Lately, in fact, he’s “talked the talk” incessantly, as he clearly is positioning himself to run for President. The Indiana business community, Indiana’s Mayors (with the curious exception of Greg Ballard), Indianapolis’ convention bureau and many others–including Mitch’s former employer, Eli Lilly & Company–have all argued that Senator Delph’s bill would hurt Indiana’s economy and intensify the state’s fiscal woes, and Daniels clearly knows that they are correct. In any sane world, the Governor would veto the bill. But in order to have a shot at the Republican nomination, he has to play to the prejudices of the far right zealots who have for all intents and purposes captured the party.

We know he can talk the talk. It will be interesting to see if he can also walk the walk.