INDIANAPOLIS – In a few more days, the 2014 session of the Indiana General Assembly will be over.

And the postmortems will begin. I fearlessly predict that the governor and his super-majorities in the House and Senate will grandly pronounce that the session was a resounding success.

Unfortunately for the citizens of Indiana, they are wrong.

They will attempt to make you believe they have improved our state’s economy by passing a “jobless creation” program that will serve only to increase corporate profits at the expense of putting Hoosiers back to work.

Instead of ending the divisive debate over who can marry whom in Indiana, they prolonged it for another two years.

They did nothing to reduce the burdens faced by our middle class or make the path easier for our children to prepare for a quality education.

But there were efforts this session to help Hoosiers.

Here is what Indiana House Democrats proposed:

…putting Hoosiers back to work and helping them earn a decent wage:

• Increasing the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25 an hour (House Bill 1126).
• Giving the people of Indiana a chance to say whether or not they supported an increase in the state’s minimum wage (House Bill 1126).
• Identifying our best and brightest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and encouraging them to stay In Indiana by giving them a break from paying state income taxes and helping them pay off their student loans (House Bill 1201 + Senate Bill 330).
• Studying Indiana’s wage equity gap that finds Hoosier working women earning only 73 cents for every dollar earned by a man (House Bill 1226).
• Restoring the state’s Small Business Innovation Program to help companies engaged in technological innovations (House Bill 1020).
• Establishing Manufacturing Reinvestment Accounts to help small businesses purchase equipment and hire new workers (House Bill 1020).
• Creating an Indiana Goes Back to Work Tax Credit to encourage employers to hire unemployed and underemployed Hoosiers (House Bill 1020).
• Increasing the state’s earned income tax credit, called “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure” by none other than Ronald Reagan (House Bill 1211).

…helping Hoosier families and workers:

• Asking Congress to restore unemployment benefits for more than 70,000 out-of-work Hoosiers (House Bill 1346).
• Increasing the exemption the state provides families with children to $2,000 per child (House Bill 1211).
• Studying the reasons behind Indiana’s appalling numbers of sexual assaults of teen girls (Senate Bill 227).
• Getting rid of Indiana’s failed wage suppression law (House Bill 1346).
• Funding solutions to find the best ways to reduce the number of child deaths in Indiana (Senate Bill 408).
• Creating a Hoosier Women Veterans Program to help those who have sacrificed so much for our country after they have completed their service (House Bill 1117).

…avoiding divisive social issues:

• Getting rid of the proposal attempting to amend the state Constitution to tell the world who can marry whom in Indiana (House Joint Resolution 3).

…helping our communities:

• Providing more than $500 million in state funding for streets, roads and bridges (House Bill 1002).
• Helping firefighters, police and EMTs purchase the everyday equipment they need to keep their communities safe (House Bill 1266).

…restoring trust in government:

• Requiring the state’s Inspector General to provide regular updates on investigations of fraud or abuse in state government (House Bill 1121).
• Studying the effectiveness of our state’s efforts at privatizing taxpayer services (Senate Bill 394).
• Requiring the State Board of Finance to keep the public better-informed whenever it transfers millions of your tax dollars from one account to another (Senate Bill 106).
• Prohibiting “pay-to-play” in Indiana by preventing people and companies seeking taxpayer-funded incentives from contributing to candidates for statewide offices and the Legislature (House Bill 1020).
• Requiring the Indiana Attorney General to keep us better-informed about cases involving your tax dollars (House Bill 1005).
• Asking the Indiana Economic Development Corporation to be more honest about the effectiveness of our state’s job creation programs (Senate Bill 394).
• Getting rid of excess educational bureaucracy in state government by eliminating the Center for Education and Career Innovation (CECI) (House Bill 1028).

Washington’s preoccupation with Ukraine has pushed the continuing decay of Obamacare from the headlines. And what little news about Obamacare there has been is just more of the same – delays, a lack of transparency and the usual efforts by Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare. Yesterday, the White House announced yet another Obamacare delay, this time waiving the law’s minimum health care benefit requirements to allow Americans to keep their canceled health care plans until 2017. This came as the House passed H.R. 4118, which would suspend the individual mandate penalty, by a margin of 250-160 (including 27 Democrats who voted for the bill). And the latest enrollment numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services will be announced in the next week, but the administration continues to hide the composition of the 3.3 million who have managed to sign up for Obamacare so far.

Anyway, from what we know about the president’s management style and his lack of interest in details, we can assume that President Obama either didn’t know or didn’t much care about what was actually in Obamacare. Who knew that the president was among those who then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was talking to when she famously said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”? Obama either believed that you could keep your doctor and your health care plan because that was what showed up in the prepared speeches he was given to read, or he willfully lied to the American people. Either way, because the president didn’t really know what was in the bill, he doesn’t mind changing it when it doesn’t fit his political purposes. The distraction of Ukraine and the media’s numbness to the stream of Obamacare travails is providing time and a smokescreen for Obama to prepare a big announcement for after March 31, 2014: The BIG PUNT, i.e. a delay in the individual mandate.

The White House and their Democratic allies must realize that they are on a trajectory to lose the Senate in 2014 and are likely coming to terms with the idea that delaying the individual mandate is one way to attempt to change that path. Look for the president to bite the bullet and give in to the vulnerable Democrats, consultants, pundits and other credible handwringers who are telling the president they must try anything and everything to alter the course of the elections. Otherwise, the last two years of the president’s time in office will be spent either vetoing or signing into law Republican legislation, and only conservative-approved nominees will be confirmed for any federal post by a Republican Senate.

Obamacare is a terminal political cancer for incumbent Senate Democrats, including senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Mark Begich (D-Ala.). Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) are showing early stage symptoms as well. Combine those races with the open seats in West Virginia, South Dakota, Iowa and Michigan and it’s obvious the Democrats are struggling.

Obamacare is not getting any more popular and neither is the president. It’s obvious that the incremental moves the White House has made to try and temper voters’ anger isn’t working.

Source: Washington Post

Scott,

Likewise, I have had numerous complaints about what Mr. Ziemer has charged our City. Please proceed with the request forthwith. 

John Friend

This e-mail was sent to the CCO by City Council Attorney Scott Danks.  Mr. Danks requested that the CCO posted this e-mail soon as possible.  This e-mail is posted without editing , bias or opinion.

Zach Stuard

In a bold move Monday night the Loan Administration Board voted in favor of a motion to extend the duration of the Earthcare Energy loan. The vote passed 3-1 with former City Council President Connie Robinson being the only vote against the 2 years extension proposed by Ted Ziemer and the rest of the Loan Administration Board. The two year extension will follow the same requirements of the original agreement; Earthcare will make interest payments of $380.00 until their first generator is attached to a pipeline. At that time Earthcare will begin to make principal payments as well as the regular monthly interest payments. The loan will be due, in full, on March 1^st of 2016.

City-Council members Riley and Council President John Friend were in attendance and posed some serious questions as to the benefit of extending the defaulted loan another two years. The benefit of the extension as put by Ms. Dewey and Mr. Ziemer were to continue to receive interest only payments for another two years in a “worst case” scenario while they maintained that there is a “fair chance” the city of Evansville could receive payment in full by the end of the proposed extension.

Despite a concurrent attitude around the room that this loan was a “bad deal” all around the Board failed to consider any vetting as proposed by President Friend and Councilwoman Robinson. Friend and Robinson suggested that the Loan Administration Board receive current financial statements from Earthcare before extended the period of the loan, as any banking institution would on a regular basis. Instead the four ( Lindsey, Riley, Friend and O”Daniel ) council members, excluding Robinson, in attendance were met with questions of being in violation of sunshine laws. It was also stated by Ziemer that because the financial statements of Earthcare had been reviewed prior to the loan being administered two years ago that current financial data was not required to extend the loan period.  In Mr. Ziemer’s words “We know they cannot pay us back the loan today. Receiving current financial records from Earthcare would tell us nothing different at this time. That is why I think it is best that we take this “bad deal” and continue to receive interest payments each month while giving them time to manufacture and install a generator while hoping for the best.”

The Mayor appointed Loan Administration Board seemingly failed to recognize that the Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund used to make the loan is indeed taxpayer money. Instead they continue to claim that the money was, indeed, not tax payer money even though the fund is a federally funded by the taxpayers of this country. When finally presented with Councilwoman Riley’s proposed measure to rescind the total 4.8 million dollar deal a series of scoffs broke out across the room and Mayor Winnecke’s Chief of Staff, Steve Schaefer tauntingly stated “Do it” in an almost threatening tone. Riley is expected to move on the measure Wednesday and is expected to have the support of the majority of City-Council behind her.

 

PAUL BITZ  Certainly “DID Do It His Way” – Some Few Memories of an Old Dear Friend

By. City Councilmen Dr. Dan Adams

I wanted to say a few words on Paul Bitz’s behalf yesterday at his funeral service, but the Padre said we would be there all day if he had opened the service up for comments from the floor.  So this memorata, written on the cold, next day full of sleet, has to suffice.  Born in 1923, Paul would have been 10 to slog through the Depression.  The people who survived that time were tough, as it really scarred them.   They knew what it was like to be in a time and place where no matter how smart, or how determined, or how hard a worker you were, some just failed and fell to the wayside.  If you made it, you retained a hard core, diamond belief of never giving up.  My Mom canned vegetables every Fall “just in case”…

Paul learned to type train schedules part-time after school during the week and on Saturdays, while going to Reitz High School.  That simple skill probably saved his life because he was assigned to be the company clerk of his combat engineering battalion during WW II.   Like many of his generation, Paul did not like to talk about his military experience.  Under the guise of a U.S. Navy doc, I got him to open up to me.  Joining the Army in March of ’43, he found himself in Burma some 3-4 months later with Japanese shooting at him at one end of the B-29 runway that they were building and tigers roaming in the jungle at the other end of it.  Some 10,000 Chinese coolies, both men and women, shirtless in the tropical heat, carried baskets of dirt on their heads on a continuous line steadily for long hours to bring material to the two bulldozers.  The battalion worked 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week for the years that they were in the Burmese combat zone.

About four months before his death, Paul began telling me more about his combat experiences.  For example, he shyly admitted that he had been wounded.  He and a sergeant were running a much needed, jeep full of mortar and Garand rifle ammo, out to the front lines that were under fire at dusk.  They decided to pull over to the side of the track because they were afraid of snipers.  Sure enough, just as they stopped, Paul took a bullet in his high lateral right calf, a through and through wound of his leg.  Frightened, they quickly took off driving again, delivered the ammo and then went to the battalion aid station, where Paul’s wound was treated.  Because there was no injury to any bone, artery or major vein, the wound was washed out, dusted with Sulfur powder, and wrapped.  Paul claimed that he never was flown out to a hospital; but rather he was treated just at the battalion aid station with limited duty for a week, before returning to full activity.

Paul’s Colonel, the head of the combat engineer battalion, was Jewish.  Paul noted that his boss was assigning all the new arrivals of that religion to the safety of the motor pool, even though their MOS did not rate that pigeon hole.   Paul, being the 21-year old, know-it-all guy he was, told his boss that he was making a big mistake.  Paul was told to shut up.  Sometime later, the Colonel was fired by the visiting Inspector General.  No one knew who turned the Colonel in… but I suspect we do…

Paul, like many veterans, felt that he had ALOT of catching up to do when he got back from overseas.  His nine kids, all of whom went to college, are maybe some indication of what he had in mind.  Of course long before the first child, being a good Catholic boy, he had married Tena, a wonderful Catholic lady who was way too good for him.  He quickly got deeply involved in Veteran affairs and their organizations right after the War, as a vehicle on which to cut his political teeth.  Paul told me that the candidate for State Senate was determined on a round robin system by each county, serially providing a one for each successive election.  When he decided to run, he was told that it was not Vanderburgh County’s turn and he would have to wait. Waiting was NOT one of Paul’s strengths, so he told the powers-that-be to go to hell, ran and won.

His early nickname in the State Legislature became “Bill-a-Minute Bitz” because he entered so many bills for consideration.  Paul also believed in not just reaching across the political aisle, but rather often walking across it.  He proudly told me that he had as many Republican friends as Democrats and tried very hard to read every bill in detail.  Often, many members of both parties would come to him just before a vote to ask his advice on how to cast theirs, knowing that he would tell them honestly what the bill’s essential issues were.

Paul’s classic campaign manager experience was taking Vance Hartke from Mayor of Evansville to the U.S. Senate in one leap!   I am told it had never been done before or since!   Paul had a touch of a political Forrest Gump in his life in that he was just a plain, very smart guy who met and aided many of the great political greats of late 20^th century, including both Kennedy brothers, their families and many others.  Lyndon Johnson’s famous bag man, Bobbie Baker, once opened a black brief case one morning and handed Paul $50,000 cash to cover Hartke’s TV expenses.  Baker then quickly left, saying he had another similar appointment in Kansas City, MO that night.  Paul certainly knew the peccadilloes of all the Hoosier politicians.

I personally did not get to know him until some ten years ago, during the Bryan Hartke campaign for Congress.  It was readily apparent that Paul felt that HE was the boss and the candidate was the puppet.  This philosophy caused much turmoil when he was kind enough to help me with my first campaign for Evansville City Councilman.  Paul could churn out 15-30 ideas a week and was great at spending my money !   Our egos clashed often, but never our friendship.  One time, I recall we got mad at each other so intensely that he would not answer his phone after he had hung up on me in a huge fit of pique.  Finally, I got his answering machine and quietly told it, knowing he was listening, that if he did not calm down and call me right back, I was going to call his kids and tell them all that he had had a psychotic break and needed to be committed to a psychiatric ward !  He did call right back and was very polite for a few days.

Paul used to think he was a great driver and loved to take trips.  He persuaded me often to go with him to Indianapolis, when he would visit his wonderful cardiologist, Dr Richard Kovack, at IUMS.   He would ask the Judge O’Connor to go too.  The Judge would sit in the right front seat and I often would sit in the right back.  The poor Judge had more difficulty putting up with Paul’s driving antics than I.  Finally, I thought the Judge needed some moral support, so on one particular Indy trip, I too pretended to be apprehensive and yell out corrections often at the slightest suggestion of any vehicular infringement.  One could easily tell Paul’s internal ire was climbing due to my chipping away at him.    Finally, just after we swept onto I-64 east of Louisville on our home leg, he reared around and fixed me in his maniacal sight for a full fifteen seconds.  Who knew where the car was going …?  “YOU SON of a BITCH, I am NEVER going to take you on ANY more trips !!!”, he spewed.  By then, Judge O’Connor had one hand on the wheel, driving for Paul.   Paul’s driving and vision got somewhat better once both his cataracts were removed, demystifying his sight.

Over his last few years, Paul developed a benign, but progressively growing Warthin’s right parotid tumor.  I told him his brain was going mushy so God was having him grow a new one on the right side of his face !   The mass got so big that the skin began to stretch in one area up behind his ear.  I was worried about an impending skin rupture.  As surgery was thought to be not possible due to tumor removal nerve damage, I went online to see if I could find any mention of possible radiotherapy for this non-cancerous condition.   And finally, I found ONE obscure case in the literature of someone who had tried it with modest success.

Dr. Steve Becker was consulted; and with great effort, he kindly found a young radiotherapist who agreed to see Paul in consult in Bloomington.  Of course, Paul insisted that I go with him.  We arrived and were ushered in.  A thorough, complete consult was done.  The physician laid out a course of radiotherapy of some many rads a day for five days a week for five weeks.  Paul immediately told the guy he was too busy to commit to that tight a schedule.  He would come up to Bloomington three days a week …Monday, Wednesday and Friday every other week for twelve weeks.  The doc and I cracked up.  Here the MD was giving Paul a break in doing the treatment at all, and classically Paul was telling him how it was going to come down!  They finally worked out a compromise…

Over the years, Paul taught me many things about politics. He was my Merlin for my new humanistic career…He was certainly not perfect, slightly flawed, never lost for an opinion, lovingly profane as I, indefatigable, and always with a laugh.  In addition, he gave me a new, acquired loveable family.

Many, many lessons were learned on the run. A few were:  There are no emergencies in politics.  It is ALWAYS the issue, never the individual.  Be aware of an issue’s constantly changing consensus. If you give your word to vote on an issue, you keep it.  If you cannot, you say so as early as you can.  If some new data comes in that forces you to change your opinion, you go to the promised person and tell him/her up front why.   Never forget who you work for…every tax payer out there.  Work to constantly develop Value for each a tax dollar. Answer every call and listen hard.  Go see every complaint that you can.  Do your homework.  Get independent data on every issue and vote your conscience.   Finally, exasperated with me, Paul once loudly blurted out that he had created a “Political Monster!”  No better accolade from Paul Bitz could have been given me.  All thanks to him…

H. Dan Adams, MD FACS MBA                                                                                                          Evansville City Councilman At-Large