If your contention is we should return to an inventory tax because events did not unfold as we were assured, I don't know what to say. I think business is in business to make money. I don't see business thriving by sitting on the sidelines, being afraid to invest. Business drives government and the associated benefits from tax revenues created. Government doesn't create the benefits, they're created from the success of business. Whether we have zero unemployment benefits over X length of time versus Y, comparing state Z to Indiana is irrelevant if business doesn't want to risk investing capital- whether it be this state or this country.

The crux for me is spending has to be reduced on any level of government if economic flourish is no longer there, as it has to in any household if a job is lost. Government seems more attuned to this adjustment at the lower levels than the Federal. It's not that compassion and benevolence as practiced by goverment is or isn't a legitimate role (debatable, for sure), it's that the magnitude we've reached is no longer affordable. Undebatable, I contend.

To get us out of this hole, should we raise taxes? Ideally, yes.
But, we don't get out of the hole without a return to tax revenues coming back in. When is the moment to raise taxes again versus impairing business to refire the tax revenue engine? I don't know, but it seems too early.

In a nutshell, spending has to be reduced. Tax increases are probably coming down the road to help reduce our debt and deficit- I hope to heck not to (re)increase benefits. We ALL have to participate as citizens as well. Look what we got from expecting "somebody else" to do it.

Short of the participation angle, read the economics professor article in the Star today (Sunday) & see if he isn't in about the same ballpark.

Abdul, thank's for your forum and the collective intelligence of your participants.

Normally I'd agree with you Taxpayer...but the Indiana legislature for 35 years has been bending over backwards for corporations. One of America's lowest UI and tax rates. That's just a fact.

But whether you like that or not, when we did away with the inventory tax, it was because the Chamber told us it inhibited job creation.

Which turned out to be untrue...partly because of a lousy economy. And partly because it was a pipe dream to begin with.

Just sayin', I don't see a collective economic climate that encourages investment. I concede economic cycles don't recover from investment (real tax revenue or freshly printed debt) any more quickly than current following voltage on a sine wave. But, just as all my taxes for government come from one wallet, so does the influence of those layers influence investment.

I'm not nearly as worried about the machinations of Indiana gov't, nutty as it is, as realizing and implementing trimmer Federal government. I believe we'd all acknowledge that's the elephant in the room.

How about corps giving back some of the break they got in 2003-2005 and last year, Taxpayer?

This has always been, and continues to be, a corp-friendly state. Nothing wrong with that, in the long run...but let's keep our facts straight. Dropping the inventory tax was a great idea, and it was a huge corporate windfall. We didn't back off of it over 2-3 years: at the insistence of the Manufacturers Association and the Chamber, we dropped it all at once. Not one new job was created with that savings because we got smacked with the worst recession in 60 years right afterward.

Looks like the compromise rolls back the scheduled increase, one year, not two.

Too many decades of 'a tax is the solution' has reached the point where finally they may realize it actually isn't, but they have no clue what to do instead.

'Reduce spending' is as comprehendable to today's politicans as is the phrase 'ลด ค่า ใช้ จ่าย'

Trying to squeeze 500 million from business that's already scared to invest? Where's the money suppossed to come from? I understand there's some chicken-and-the-egg to be debated here. But, can anybody understand how in the present mode of government expansion back East, with assimilation of health care ready to knock down the front door and cap & trade coming up the rear (so to speak)- most companies are not particularly, shall we say EAGER to lay their money down?

I'm much bigger on believing successful business can fund government from tax revenue than government can create jobs without it.

How wonderful is this that America has become a huge petri dish and we'll get to find out?

Well, here's a fact: the unemployment insurance "fix" last year has dramatic fiscal implications. If it isn't repaired it will cost a lot of money. I don't know if the half billion is realistic--but it wouldn't surprise me.

This is an age-old argument that goes back to Joe Harrison's days in the Senate. It allows each party to thump their chests for their favored constituencies: labor and big business.

This time, the democrats are slightly more truthful. But only by a smidge.