The following guest column is a column Speaker Bosma wrote that appeared in multiple news outlets across the state. To view the Speaker’s column in its entirety, click here.
When the General Assembly began its work last November, as Speaker I pledged a session driven by five main issues: increased road funding, enhanced job training, early childhood education, fair business taxation and cutting government red tape. With the 118th General Assembly behind us, it is clear Republicans accomplished each of these priorities, and much more.
Due to conservative Republican budgeting principles, Indiana is in one of the best fiscal positions of any state in the nation. This fiscal strength gave us the ability in a nonbudget year to allocate up to $400 million to new major highway construction projects. These state funds could leverage an additional federal funding to bring new construction to bear on major interstate highway choke points, creating thousand of Hoosier construction jobs and greatly improving the safety and economic benefit of our self-styled Crossroads of America and our growing logistics sector.
And while our unemployment rate as a state is the lowest since 2008, we still must continue to attack the “skills gap†between the training Hoosiers are currently receiving and the 21st century jobs available to Hoosier workers. This session, we successfully championed new incentives for employers who partner with schools and universities to encourage on-the-job training internships that result in high wage, high demand employment, especially in the high tech manufacturing sector.
Our three-year effort to provide high-quality preschool opportunities to low-income Hoosier families was successful this year with the adoption of a pilot program combining $15 million in state and private sector funding to provide thousands of low income students with an early education opportunity they would not otherwise receive, preparing them for success when they begin kindergarten. This common sense program aimed at Indiana’s poorest children has the potential to reap great benefits for the future.
An additional short session goal was to continue making Indiana’s tax climate one of the best in the nation for job creation and new business investment. We cut individual and inheritance taxes in 2013 and this year further reduced financial institution and corporate taxes to give Hoosier businesses the second lowest corporate tax in the nation when fully phased in by 2022.
We also gave new tools to local government to exempt employers from business personal property taxes on an optional basis beginning next year. This will grant cities, towns and counties the opportunity to spur new investment and employment throughout the state.
Detractors no doubt will claim this year’s session was dominated by social issues, or that little of substance was accomplished. Privately, however, even our Democrat colleagues have stated their appreciation for the bipartisan tone of this session and the exceptional work accomplished in a short 10 weeks.
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