TERRE HAUTE —
If Gov. Mike Pence gets his wish, incoming motorists will see “Welcome to Indiana” highway signs also bearing the phrase “the lowest taxed state in the Midwest.”
Let’s hope those visitors don’t hit a pothole as they momentarily divert their gaze.
We also hope the traffic inbound to the Hoosier state includes the Koch brothers — billionaires from Kansas and New York. It would be enlightening for both to physically drive a few dozen miles on the backroads and highways across our state, Indiana. Many of those byways are bumpier than any time in recent memory. Some are crumbling. Those problems matter here.
The Koch twins’ national right-wing political action group, Americans for Prosperity, is using its Indiana chapter to pressure Republican state legislators into submitting to the governor’s push for a 10-percent cut in the personal income tax. Those same GOP lawmakers, who control both chambers of the Legislature, crafted a two-year budget that commits $200 million more for education and $500 million more for roads than Pence’s plan. They left out the governor’s tax cut to reinvest in schools and highways, two areas hard-hit by recession-era cutbacks.
The state reps and senators live here, drive the neglected roads, and understand firsthand the impact of $300 million in cuts to elementaries, middle schools and high schools during the Great Recession.
In response, AFP plans a six-figure media blitz to scorn the defiant Republicans. Ironically, those GOP lawmakers are about to experience an assault from the same group that targeted national public officeholders who would not embrace a rigid, tea-party agenda — primarily Democrats, but also consensus-building Republicans such as former Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana.
To be sure, that pressure can be withering and occasionally successful. Ads painted Lugar as an out-of-touch liberal, of all things, and he lost in last May’s primary to compromise-averse Richard Mourdock. In November, though, the full spectrum of Hoosier voters rejected the ploy — and Mourdock — and instead gave the seat held by Republicans for nearly 40 years to a more Lugar-like moderate, Democrat Joe Donnelly.
Likewise, pragmatism should rule in the General Assembly. Republicans should stick by their budget proposal.
As this AFP campaign unfolds, Hoosiers will undoubtedly wonder why Republicans would snub a tax-cut plan by a governor of their own party.
Pence, then a congressman in Washington, came up with the tax-cut idea during his campaign for governor and didn’t consult the GOP state legislators who’ve labored through the austerity policies of recent years. They know Indiana already is a beacon of fiscal frugality. Taxes are among the nation’s lowest. Cuts have been made to K-12 education, colleges, social services, corrections and public safety, and environmental protection. Local governments and school districts have downsized. The state workforce hasn’t been smaller since the 1970s.
And now a new governor and a national super PAC want them to slice another half-billion dollars a year with another tax cut?
“It’s easy to bang a ‘Hey, let’s cut taxes drum,’” said Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma, a conservative Republican. “But you’ve got to be sure it’s a smart cut, [and] it’s sustainable in the long run, not just in an election cycle. That’s our goal.”
“Tax cut” looks good on a campaign platform, whether in 2012 or 2016, which the Koch brothers’ super PAC obviously knows. “Tax cut” may also look good on a “Welcome to Indiana” sign. Thousands of folks who plan to stay here, though, are ready to see “Road Construction Ahead.”
Editorials
EDITORIAL: State should stay smart about its tax resources
Investments needed in schools, roadways
- Editorials
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
Almost every Hoosier who starts college intends to finish. Unfortunately, those who arrive on campus unprepared in key academic areas are far less likely to fulfill that aspiration.
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Crack down on dumpers
There is a reason it’s called “illegal” dumping. It’s against the law. And there is a very good reason illegal dumping is against the law.
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Season of Day 2s arrives
Calendars in Cincinnati contain one extra holiday — Opening Day, traditionally the first Monday in April.
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Congress fails to recognize problem of education costs
Who hasn’t gotten this message yet? The cost of a college degree has become unaffordable for a wide swath of middle-class America.
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
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