Recent editorials published in Indiana newspapers
The (Munster) Times. January 18, 2017
Learn about rail's many benefits
Neighboring Illinois boasts 500 miles of commuter rail tracks, with many of those stretches linking affluent suburban communities to high-paying Chicago jobs.
Indiana, meanwhile, has a paltry 33 miles of such tracks.
If you're still seeking information regarding one of the most important Region economic development plans in decades, public hearings today and tomorrow could provide answers.
We encourage anyone who wants to learn more about an initiative to expand South Shore Line commuter rail in Northwest Indiana to attend public hearings slated for Wednesday and Thursday.
One hearing is slated for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Washington Irving Elementary School, 4727 Pine Ave., Hammond. The other is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Centennial Park, 1005 S. Centennial Drive, Munster.
A public hearing for the project's environmental impact statement already occurred Tuesday evening in Dyer, but there remain two more opportunities in this series of hearings.
The hearings pertain to a $600 million, nine-mile extension of commuter service from Hammond to Dyer. The project will allow access from Dyer to Chicago's Millennium Station in about 47 minutes.
You know where we stand on this issue. We can't think of a more meaningful economic development project proposed for the Region in many years.
Commuter rail enhances connectivity between our Region and one of the world's largest economies. It attracts young professionals and thus could serve as a population cultivator in a Region that has hemorrhaged too much of its tax base in recent decades.
In September, proponents of the plan intend to present it for purposes of garnering federal funding for constructing the extension.
If you're on the fence or just want to know more, please consider attending one of the two public hearings today or tomorrow.
Pro and con arguments can sometimes become nothing but competitive noise. Educate yourself about this opportunity.
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The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. January 19, 2017
Hoosier values
Holcomb sets out a sensible path forward.
There were no surprises in Gov. Eric Holcomb's first State of the State speech Tuesday - and that's a good thing. Hoosiers need a steady, focused approach to solving Indiana's problems, which the new governor seemed to acknowledge, even if his focus was almost entirely on the state's strengths.
The priorities Holcomb laid out last week and repeated in his address show he's aware Indiana has some serious shortcomings. After the address, Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody criticized the governor for failing to address a major one: Hoosiers' paychecks.
"Gov. Holcomb discussed many of our state's challenges, but he left out one major issue: wage growth," Zody said in a statement. "The word 'wage' never appeared in his speech at all. If we are truly going to take Indiana to the next level, the governor needs to have a plan for growing wages that continue to fall behind the rest of the nation."
While cost-of-living measures are favorable here, Hoosiers earned 87 cents for every dollar the average American worker earned in 2015, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The state ranked 36th in the nation for per capita personal income, up just two spots from a decade earlier.
Higher salaries in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Statistical Area mask smaller paychecks elsewhere in the state. Earnings in the central Indiana region matched the national average in 2015, but the Fort Wayne MSA was at 85 percent of the national average. The Terre Haute MSA was at 71 percent, while the average wage-earner in the Muncie region earned just 68 cents for every dollar the average American earned.
By making "a strong and diverse economy" the top priority on his "Next Level" agenda, however, Holcomb tacitly acknowledges we're not there yet. He didn't criticize the lawmakers he was addressing - or his two Republican predecessors - for falling short in efforts to raise Indiana wages, but he came close in his inaugural address a week earlier when he said, "Too many Hoosiers and their families feel they've been left out or are in danger of being left behind."
Doubling down on the policies that have done so little to raise wages over the past 10 years will likely yield the same results, but Holcomb's proposal to invest in "Jobs Ready Grants" to help employees earn credentials in high-demand, high-wage fields is encouraging. Displaced or underemployed workers should not be trained and steered to jobs that pay little, and taxpayers should not foot the bill for training workers to fill those jobs - regardless of the employers' pleas for skilled labor.
Likewise, the governor's assertion that "education is key to our state's future" is promising. It falls to parents, educators and the taxpayers who agree to convince Holcomb that his proposed budget, with a $250 million increase in K-12 spending over two years, doesn't support that assertion. The proposed 1 percent increase falls short of the inflation rate, meaning schools won't be able to maintain what they now have, let alone meet the demands of a growing teacher shortage.
Holcomb's goal of creating a long-term plan to pay for roads and bridges lacked detail Tuesday, but that might just mean he's leaving those details to the lawmakers who have long been studying the issue. The governor said what mattered most about current funding: "The fact is, existing sources of revenue are just not keeping up."
The statement was a powerful message to the anti-tax forces already working to kill options under consideration. Holcomb can do more to advance a sound infrastructure plan by ensuring the final transportation bill is fair to all and using his strong political skills to get it approved.
In the end, it is encouraging to hear the governor sound the right themes. He's new to a policy leadership role, but we're hopeful he'll dig into the details of his broad priorities and find the means to achieve them in a way that all Hoosiers benefit, beginning with better earnings.
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South Bend Tribune. January 20, 2017
Change would be proactive, smart
Well, that didn't take long.
In his first days on the job, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has issued an executive order creating a drug czar. The goal of the new position is to marshal the resources of various agencies that are fighting the drug epidemic that has devastated many Indiana counties. Jim McClelland, former president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, will serve as executive director.
Holcomb has also pledged that giving local communities more freedom to set up needle exchanges is part of his legislative agenda. A departure from former Gov. Mike Pence on a critical public health issue, this is good news for Hoosiers.
Currently, counties can set up needle exchanges only after outbreaks of disease. And that's after they receive approval from several state agencies. This bureaucratic-heavy policy represented progress under Pence, a longstanding opponent of needle exchange programs who has said "I don't believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia."
Holcomb said he believes that local communities, not the state, should be able to authorize needle exchanges. Who better to determine when and if such a step is necessary? Difficult not to think of the recent HIV epidemic in Scott County, linked to intravenous drug users sharing needles. The outbreak drew national attention when nearly 200 people tested positive for the virus, but it was only after the situation raged out of control that the state's first needle exchange program was set up. One legislator perfectly summed up the problem: "We're trying to contain something that is already out of control. We ought to be enacting policies that help keep things from getting out of control in the first place."
The policy change would allow officials in communities throughout the state - including here in St. Joseph County, where heroin and related painkillers have killed dozens within the last year - to get ahead of a problem before it reaches crisis stage. In a Tribune report last year, county health officer Luis Galup expressed concern that an increasing heroin problem put the county at risk for a disease outbreak but lacked the statistics to prove it. Holcomb's order changes everything.
The governor believes making such a change "a prudent step" - and he's right. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sent a team to the Scott County area to help combat the outbreak, endorses needle exchange programs as an effective way to halt the spread of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B and C. A study by the World Health Organization reported that the programs "substantially and cost effectively reduce the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs and do so without evidence of exacerbating injecting drug use at either the individual or societal level."
Creating a drug czar position and pushing to roll back needle exchange limits are smart, proactive ideas. And they're sorely needed in a state facing a mountain of public health challenges.
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The (Bloomington) Herald-Times. January 18, 2017
Bills filed by local lawmakers appear to be worth support
Both humorist Mark Twain and Gideon J. Tucker, a 19th Century journalist from New York, are said to be the source of this quip:
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."
The fact that more than 1,200 bills have been filed in the Indiana General Assembly gives some heft to the sentiment. The good news, though, is that not nearly that many bills will get a hearing; and many of the bills filed by our lawmakers would be of benefit to Hoosiers rather than threatening life, liberty or property.
Several of the bills brought forth by local and area legislators relate to narrow subjects rather than global issues that would significantly affect all Hoosiers.
Here are a few that sound good.
State Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, is co-author of a bill that would reinstate the state's film and media production expenditure tax credit. This bill would make it more likely production companies would be able to make movies such as "Hoosiers" or "Breaking Away" in the state once again.
State Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, has filed a bill that would require school corporations, charter schools and accredited nonpublic schools to offer Indiana studies as a one-semester elective course in their high school curriculum at least once every school year. It seems like a sound idea to make sure high school students have an opportunity to learn about the state in which they live.
Koch also has filed a bill that would require the Indiana Department of Education, once each school semester, to give each school corporation the name of each school in which eligible choice scholarship students who live in the corporation are enrolled, and the number of eligible choice scholarship students enrolled in each eligible school for the current school year. School corporations need that information to plan, prepare and compete in this new world of choice and vouchers.
State Sen. Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, has filed a bill that would greatly increase the state's commitment to voluntary prekindergarten opportunities for children. That's badly needed.
Stoops also has filed a bill that would require the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to prepare and publish a cost-benefit analysis of removing marketable timber from state forests and prohibit the DNR from advertising or soliciting bids for that timber until the report has been published for a period of time. The bill is a reasonable attempt to get more information about the costs and benefits of harvesting timber on state lands.
He also has filed a bill that would allow the Monroe County Council to impose a local income tax between 0.1 percent and 0.25 percent to fund one or more county transit projects, along with a broader bill that would allow counties, other than those allowed to hold a referendum on funding transportation projects, to impose a local income tax between 0.1 percent and 0.25 percent to fund one or more county public transit projects. Those are good home-rule bills.
State Rep. Bob Heaton, R-Terre Haute, has a home-rule bill worth supporting as well. It would allow the Vigo County Council to adopt a food and beverage tax of up to 1 percent and specifies how revenues could be spent.
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