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.