Comments on: Get Bi(partisan) With a Little Help From Your Friends

By: Bart Flies

Bart Flies — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:15:57 +0000

Someone should politely ask Marion Co. GOP Chair Tom John to close his mouth.

Mayor Ballard is going to need an awful lot of Democratic votes, at the Statehouse and City-County Council, to get anything passed.

His letter, assailing former Mayor Peterson and the Democrats on the Council, for the CIB mess is NOT going to endear him to the very folks he needs votes from.

Aside from the fact that he is dead wrong on each point (the state bears the responsibility for this one), it’s a bad, bad, political move.

It’s clear there are nowhere enough GOP votes to pass anything. Why would you want to antagonize Joanne Sanders who will have to give Ballard votes for him to be successful?

By: pascal

pascal — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:28:47 +0000

http://inpolicy.org/ is actually a good article but misses the point that economic competition is slowly turning Indiana into a right to work state. It would be better if our legislators were not paid for but there is no stopping the acid of competition, at least in private sector.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:37:28 +0000

Indiana Policy Review’s Craig Ladwig, has written a piece worth reading. See: inpolicy.org

By: Paul K. Ogden

Paul K. Ogden — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:47:12 +0000

I have to agree with Welsh when it comes to Hinkle. This city is sorely lacking in elected officials with backbone. Hinkle is one of the few who does have the courage to stand up to the status quo. I haven’t worked on projects with Phil, but my dealings with him always leaves me the impression that he is intelligent and certainly one of the more articulate elected officials we have. Not that I agree with him on every subject. Certainly not.
.
The bottom line to me though is backbone. Regardless of Hinkle’s positon on this issues, he’s one of the few Indy elected officials who is willing to tell it like it is. We need more like him.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:35:59 +0000

Correction:

The CIB is in default to its bond holders as of yesterday morning when they prepaid $17 million to the state that is due June 30th according to Channel 6.

Wonder how much taxpayers are paying in penalties, fees, and higher interest to bondholders because of the covenant default.

http://rtv6blogs.com/rtv6_capitol/author/norman/

By: Think Again

Think Again — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:29:54 +0000

Gary, I typically respect your opinion. Two things:

I’ve worked with Hinkle, in and out of the legislature. Let’s just say I won’t do it again unless forced. It’s almost always a tutorial. And he retains very little.

And–I never said “my” Democratic legislators were brilliant or good. Some are, some aren’t. Basically, anyone there over 15 years, of either party, needs to go, in my humble opinion. Ed D. is doing a good job in his first year. Time will tell. He succeeded a fantastic rep, who, while too liberal for me on some issues, was a model of constituent service and contact.

Still trying to figure out why you saw the need to cross over and bash one whole party…kinda bush league, frankly. By that I don’t mean George W. Bush.

By: Shorebreak

Shorebreak — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:52:25 +0000

Recession + Increased taxation = Depression

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:35:42 +0000

What do we get for $470 million?

($47 million annual tax increase for at least 10 years)

Maybe keep the Colts and Pacers with no additional investment from them at all.

What did Michigan get for approximately $470 million of tax credits?

$2 Billion of private capital investment and 7,700 jobs from four Advanced Battery Manufacturers.

Who do you think is smarter?

Source:
http://themedc.org/News-Media/Press-Releases/Detail.aspx?ContentId=335cdabf-dd8c-44da-9cc6-c361347b65d3

By: NO new taxes

NO new taxes — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:20:26 +0000

There is no chance that the city council will enact any tax increases so the state legislature better clean this mess up or it will get worse.

By: Taxpayer 834512

Taxpayer 834512 — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:58:50 +0000

Yeah, this looks like a dandy proposal. In the midst of our biggest economic downfall since the Great Depression, let’s triple the unemployment taxes for employers. They can afford that, right? Why this pussyfooting around if the intent is a better initial bargaining position? You could bypass this fiscal minutia and just ask for a donated kidney from employers, or maybe one of their children become a slave to the Department of Transportation for trash pick-up. C’mon, Indiana Assemby! It’s obviously beyond reason to cut spending across-the-board to fund unemployment- Naaaawww, why do that? You’ve just got to use your imagination a bit… But, wait- come to think of it, why do that when you can hand this off to the Feds? They can fix this with some of their magic endless buckets of money! They’ll have p l e n t y since our President decided to cut spending enough to pay a day’s interest on the stimulus spending! Don’t worry your pretty heads about it! You just worry about the important stuff- like how to save our sports teams. Thank goodness we have you here for what’s really important!