In case you missed it, my following letter to the editor appeared in the July 14 issue of the Indianapolis Star. It is a response to a story they published on Mitch Daniels' favorite books:
What is Daniels reading? His list is chilling
I see our governor has turned scholar on us ("Gov. Daniels' reading list tilts to the right," July 9). His favorite authors? No surprise here for a governor who promotes America's dumbing down.
As the late/great honcho of the Chicago School of Economics, Milton Friedman's ideas have led our country to corporate welfare. Little better could be said of Daniels' hero, Charlie Murray, who slings hate speech against African-Americans and believes that rich elite children should be the only ones allowed in our schoolrooms. Didn't Our Man Mitch pass out one of Charlie's books at a meeting with the Indiana Educational Roundtable a while back? Didn't go over too well, did it?
I would suggest for self-awareness' sake that Daniels read the brain studies Dr. Kent Kiehl is doing on psychopaths, because the Ted Bundy-corporate-CEOS and politicians continue to kill in the name of cowboy economics, privatization and the flag.
Nonetheless, I'm glad to see that Mitch Daniels can read. All along we thought those bad ideas of his were his own.
Governor Mitch Daniels has made it abundantly clear that his road to higher office will be painted black -- you know, the color of his oft-touted budget numbers. Surplus! Fiscal responsibility! The war in Iraq will only cost $50 billion!
Whoops. Sorry about that last one.
Anyway, the truth of the matter is a bit more bleak looking in Mitch for America land. Sure, Indiana has "balanced the books," but much of this balancing involved shifting huge burdens off the state and shouldering local governments with crippling debt and a political suicide pact that required either slashing local services or enacting a local tax increase.
Tax increases that the purportedly anti-tax Governor Daniels was all-too-willing to support, it's worth noting, along with his sales and cigarette tax increases.
In this morning's Star, Maureen Groppe takes a look at yet another area of state services that has fallen into disrepair while Mitch's Golden Age proceeds unabated in the realm of carefully-managed public relations. Here's the latest story the Governor's office doesn't want to talk about:
Indiana has an unemployment rate above the national average, but its welfare rolls are getting smaller. Why? Indiana has some of the toughest eligibility rules and smallest benefits in the nation, state officials say.
"You have to be poorer than poor," said Jim Dunn, policy manager for Indiana's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash aid. "Even though Indiana has been hit hard with the employment loss, anyone who continues to get unemployment benefits has too much income to qualify for cash assistance in Indiana."
A family of three can't earn more than $378 a month in Indiana to get cash assistance from the federal-state program. Only Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana have stricter limits.
"It's ridiculously low, and we should adjust it," said state Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville.
One would think that Daniels' hard-earned "preservation" of a nearly $1 billion state surplus might have, you know, resulted in some positive developments for those who have been hardest hit by the economic collapse that Daniels maintains he is protecting us from. As it turns out, though, Indiana has maintained an absurdly meager program for needy Hoosiers. From the Star's sidebar:
Cash assistance limit for a family of three:
» Indiana: $288 per month, 11th-lowest in the U.S.
» Ohio: $410.
» Michigan: $489.
» Alaska: $923, the highest amount in the nation.
Change in number of Hoosiers receiving benefits, 2005 to April 2010:
» Medicaid: 27 percent increase, to 1,076,522.
» Food stamps: 45 percent increase, to 811,061.
» Welfare cash assistance: 26 percent decrease, to 104,591.
Mitch Daniels' state budget surplus victory: Political gold for his future ambitions, and that's all that should matter to us, right?
Cross-posted from the Capitol Watchblog for lack of time, my friends.
It is not enough to say Indiana's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund is insolvent, as the governor and his Department of Workforce Development (DWD) have and will deflect this by saying 1.) This is a recession and 2.) But Michigan, California, Ohio, New York and Illinois' funds are much worse than ours! Those states' funds are worse, but those states are also much more heavily populated than ours.
No, the best way to look at DWD's UI problem (and having one of the worst UI programs in the country) is by digging into the truths that have not been appearing in the media and have not been sent-out in press releases by the governor's press representatives at DWD and elsewhere. Most of the information below is open for public inspection (after all, as some of the "Lead Team" at DWD forget, they are a public agency).
I would, therefore, like to put some of the pieces together for whomever would like to see.
1). Indiana was the third state to have an insolvent Trust Fund (Michigan's went insolvent in 2007, South Carolina's right before ours) during the current recession (we went insolvent in Nov. 2008). Next year, Indiana (along with SC) will have an increased federal UI tax for employers, who will have to pay $21 more/per employee (undoubtedly causing more lay-offs/terminations).
2). How did IN's Trust Fund get so low so fast? Since 2000, as is known by now, benefits were increased (our weekly amount is still not very high at $390/week, although Daniels said it was "Rolls Royce" high) and taxes on businesses were severely reduced. In 2005, Indiana had a Trust Fund balance of $600,000,000 or so; by November 2008, Indiana's fund was bankrupt, and currently, the federal government is bailing-out Indiana with $1.7 Billion (and expected to be over $2 Billion by the end of the year).
Did the recession cause this massive loss of money? Oh, surely it was a major factor; but, incompetence and corruption at DWD have also drained the fund of hundreds of millions from the fund with no oversight by Daniels at all. In 2008, DWD was responsible for OVER-paying $261 Million to claimants who did not deserve to be paid UI benefits (an error rate of 26% of the total amount of benefits for all of 2008). This amount was the highest in the US and $150 Million more than the next closest state, New York.
Click on "Agency Responsible Overpayment by cause - all states".
2009's numbers should be out soon, and I can guarantee the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Trust Fund due to incompetence and negligence at DWD will be to blame.
The people running DWD (none of whom have been with DWD more than 4 years and none of whom worked their way up, but were instead appointed by the governor) have been warned numerous times of problems by inside staff (who DO have UI experience), the US Department of Labor who oversees DWD, the US DOL's Inspector General who did an investigation of ethics problems, the Indiana State Board of Accounts who did an audit last year, and the Indiana Inspector General's office who completed an investigation in December last year and cited many ethics and accounting problems.
3). Indiana's DWD is being sued by the ACLU of Indiana because of poor UI Appeals backlogs (people waiting months for an appealed hearing). The backlogs are certainly caused because the initial-level "adjudication" is THE WORST in the country, and has been among the worst in the last 3 or 4 years. In the first quarter 2010, Indiana had the worst adjudication quality scores for separation cases (firings, voluntary quits, etc.) and non-separation cases (work searches, vacation pay, pensions, etc.). Out of 100 randomly-sampled issues, Indiana's "Adjudication Center" got only 18 correct.
So if you file for unemployment and receive a determination stating whether or not you should get UI, could be an 82% chance your determination is wrong!
Check the boxes for "Nonmonetary Separation Quality" and "Nonmonetary Nonseparation Quality", and be sure the quarter is from January 2010 to March 2010. You can also do any quarter this way and see that Indiana's has been bad for the last 4 years and getting worse.
There are many good lay-people working at DWD and especially with UI, but the training is poor (there is no standardized training program for claims adjudicators), claims deputies/adjudicators are still held to a de facto, very high quota to "take care of issues quickly", and the focus on quality has only somewhat recently come-up (but is still being done poorly). Nepotism and cronyism are big at DWD, which is impactful, and anybody with ideas or suggestions to improve the system (who are not sycophantic brown-nosers) are deemed radicals or troublemakers and are punished, harassed and terminated (there have been many people canned from DWD just to shut them up).
So if anyone out there buys the lines of "the recession caused the Trust Fund debt" or "we're doing better than other states", need to be told what I have provided above and educated about what the people running DWD have done to the UI program. Under Governor Daniels, DWD has developed one of the worst workforce development agencies in the country. The Governor has assigned friends from high places or good connections, not to mention former staff members, to run DWD, and they have run it into the ground.
When the Indiana UI program is this bad, businesses, claimants and taxpaying citizens are the ones punished for it with higher UI taxes, denying claimants who should have been paid UI, and costs that are passed on to taxpayers as well. Every Hoosier needs to remember this has happened SOLELY on Governor Daniels' watch. DWD's UI program is the antithesis of "fiscal conservatism" and is a disgrace to the laws and regulations of both the US government and State of Indiana.
(An excellent, excellent post. - promoted by Thomas)
I was disappointed to see the usually-sharp Ed Kilgore fall into the trap of buying Mitch Daniels' spin - in a recent piece on Mitch Daniels' presidential prospects, Kilgore wrote that "his state's positive fiscal record stands out sharply against a national landscape of state fiscal disaster." Ed, if you believe that, I think Mitch has a bargain-priced $50 billion invasion of Iraq to sell you.
Far from being the "island of growth" that Mitch Daniels likes to pretend we are, Indiana is struggling just as much as the rest of the region. And it's not just Daniels' phony jobs announcements that are the problem - Indiana has a real problem with unemployment. And I don't see any hope of fixing that when the party that controls the state executive branch and the state Senate won't acknowledge that there's a problem.
A cursory glance at Indiana's unemployment rate gives you the outlines - 10% unemployment, using the standard U-3 measure. When you look at the bigger picture, it gets even worse. Using the broadest measure - U-6, which includes "marginally attached" workers and those working part-time who would rather be working full-time - more than 18% of Hoosiers can't find a real job. That means Indiana is worse off than our neighbors in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky.
Just yesterday, the Indianapolis Star ran a piece on how Indiana's job picture is worse than our neighbors. A recent study by the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project shows that Indiana ranks 6th-worst in the nation when they measure declines in employment from November 2007 to May 2010. It's simply unacceptable for the Governor of the state that ranks 44th in employment growth to be celebrating our nonexistent jobs. The objective reality is that Indiana's employment growth trails Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky (and almost every other state in the US).
It's easy for Mitch to spin Indiana's unemployment when our neighbors to the north in Michigan are facing the worst unemployment rate in the nation. But he shouldn't get a free pass just because Hoosiers are marginally better off than the hardest-hit state.
But what about Indiana's budget? It's often asserted that Indiana has a "positive" budget and that we have a surplus. And that's true - if you choose to selectively leave out a large chunk of Indiana's finances.
Indiana is one of 26 states who are in debt to the federal government because they can't afford to pay out their unemployment insurance benefits, according to ProPublica. Indiana's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund has been insolvent since at least 2008, and we currently owe almost $2 billion to the federal government for the state's share of UI benefits. Just a couple of months ago, at Mitch Daniels' urging, the state postponed a law that would raise UI rates to start paying off that debt.
Sales tax collections, though higher than April 2009, are lower than FY 2008, FY 2007 and even FY 2006 levels. Year to date sales tax collections are 5% below prior year. If the -5% trend continues for the full fiscal year it will be the worst performance in state history, exceeding FY 2009's record of -4.7%. The budget as passed projected sales tax collections equal to prior year. April individual income tax collections are the lowest in five years. Year to date income tax collections are 11% below prior year-on top of an 11% decline for FY 2009. The budget as passed projected a 1% decline in individual income tax collections for FY 2010. (Source: Indiana State Budget Agency)
May's monthly revenue report showed that "revenue collections through eleven months of the current state fiscal year are now $1.032 billion or 9% below the budget passed by the General Assembly."
My computer woes -- apparently now solved after an epic five day chkdsk scan -- have me a few days behind the curve, but I couldn't bring myself to ignore this past weekend's best bit of journalism. Kudos to Angela Mapes-Turner of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette for another great piece of investigative work.
The skinny is this: Republican State Rep. Eric Turner really, really loved the privatization of Indiana's welfare services. He especially loved advocating for the now-infamous centralized call-centers, specifically the one located in Marion at the Jones Middle School. Notably, he was an outspoken and staunch defender of the program after it started its immediate and well-documented slide into disaster, perhaps raising eyebrows with his particularly rose-colored outlook on the clearly degenerating privatization scheme.
Misguided? Definitely. But unethical, surely you jest?
Oh, did we mention that he and his son might have had a wee bit of private interest in the endeavor?
By May 2008, 59 of Indiana's counties had been brought into IBM's system. Concerns about clients not being served well by the call center had caused state officials to halt the transition of Indiana's remaining 33 counties.
That's when Turner toured the call center in his role as legislator and told the Marion Chronicle-Tribune he was impressed.
Turner told the newspaper there could be legislative committees to look into the issues, but the cost of reverting to the old system would be "astronomical" and call center workers were doing their jobs.
At the same time, his son Paul Ezekiel Turner's company was in negotiations to buy the former Jones Middle School from Marion Community Schools.
On May 5, 2008, the school board voted to sell the building for $350,000 to Mainstreet Capital Partners LLC, a joint venture between "Zeke" Turner and his father.
Now, just two years later, and after receiving nearly $200,000 a year from ACS -- the same company who Turner has been defending publicly for years -- the property has been assessed in excess of $7 million.
And, despite all of this, Turner hasn't even once mentioned any of this on his required financial disclosure forms.
For his part, FSSA whipping boy spokesman Marcus "Pay No Attention to the Disaster Behind the Curtain" Barlow's main excuse for all of this is that we shouldn't care, because the private company really got a great lease.
The rent is similar to the cost of less expensive industrial warehouse space, not more expensive commercial real estate, Barlow said.
"They actually got a really good deal," he said.
Speaker Bauer argues it's hard to know whether something's a good deal if it's brokered privately, behind closed doors.
"We're having trouble in general getting information out of these private contractors," he said. "Let the people judge."
If Governor Mitch Daniels and Indiana Economic Development Corporation lackey Mitch Roob thought that the fallout from WTHR's scathing investigative pieces had finally settled, they are sorely mistaken. This morning's Courier & Press covers the continuing aftershocks emanating from Democratic leaders.
Bauer, D-South Bend, sent Indiana Secretary of Commerce Mitch Roob, who is also the head of the Indiana Economic Development Corp., a formal request under the state's open records laws for more information on the number of jobs created in Indiana and the financial incentives the state has traded for those jobs in recent years.
Bauer acknowledged the Indiana Economic Development Corp.'s authority to keep details of its negotiations with companies secret, but he said Hoosiers should be able to scrutinize how state dollars are being spent in a year the state has slashed K-12 education spending by $300 million.
He cited the Indiana Economic Development Corp.'s obligation under a provision of a law passed this year to provide details on how many jobs companies promised, how many they actually created and what incentives they received.
For his part, Roob has abandoned his earlier strategy of "I don't have to tell you anything" to a more flexible "I'll tell you something when I get around to it." Daniels continues to assert -- surprise, surprise -- that he thinks this whole thing is just a bit overblown.
Keep an eye out for even more pressure in the coming weeks, especially from two of our top-notch statewide candidates: Pete Buttigieg and Sam Locke.
As WTHRhas been reporting for what seems like months now, Governor Mitch Daniels and his failed FSSA chief head economic development officer Mitch Roob have been -- ahem -- less than forthcoming with what most would call "the truth" about Indiana's job creation statistics.
Put another way, they've just been making crap up for quite a while now.
Bauer said he is concerned that Indiana is spending scarce state resources to lure companies to Indiana with incentives and tax breaks and then not getting all of the jobs promised by those companies.
"As you may know, K-12 education has been cut by $300 million. Some estimate that as many as 7,000 teachers will lost their jobs," Bauer said in his letter. "I would urge the IEDC to exercise its discretion in favor of sharing vital information with Hoosier taxpayers about Indiana's true level of job creation success."
Under a new state law, the IEDC is required to provide job promise, creation and incentive data, upon request. The economic development agency has been reluctant to release that information to avoid jeopardizing future business deals.
A quick look at Mitch Daniels' schedule for the day shows a few stops to herald economic development victories of one sort or another. Aside from the fact that half the time these ribbon-cutting ceremonies don't amount to squat, it's interesting to note what isn't on the Governor's agenda for the day -- any stops in Kokomo, where Chrysler has just announced a historic $300 million modernization of the company's Indiana plants. Some key facts:
Investment is the largest in the U.S. since the new Company was formed in June 2009.
Chrysler Group reaches agreement with ZF to produce new eight-speed automatic transmission
All-new eight-speed automatic transmission will contribute to company's overall fleet fuel-efficiency improvement of more than 25 percent by 2014.
Plant investment will help retain nearly 1,200 jobs.
Brings total powertrain investment to nearly $1.3 billion since 2007.
For those with short memories, the silence on the part of Daniels and his administration might have something to do with Mitch's endorsement of State Treasurer Richard Mourdock's personal (and publicly-funded) campaign against the Chrysler bankruptcy deal that ultimately allowed these jobs to stay safely in Indiana.
For those keeping score at home, these are 1,200 jobs that actually exist, and were saved largely through the hard work of President Barack Obama and your Democratic delegation to Congress.
The governor refers to Indiana as the island of prosperity. We're the island of secrets. - Senate Democrat Leader Vi Simpson
On Tuesday, Indiana Senate minority leader Vi Simpson (D-Ellettsville) called out Governor Mitch Daniels and his administration for their culture of secrecy around state budgeting and spending. Specifically, Simpson and State Rep. Bill Crawford (D-Indianapolis) want to know what services, programs, and personnel have been cut under Daniels' repeated budget crises.
Daniels' budget director, Chris Ruhl, told Simpson that "a comprehensive list of executive branch budget reductions wasn't available". If our leaders don't have access to this information, how can they make informed decisions? And how can citizens cast an informed ballot if neither voters nor lawmakers have any information?
Of course, it isn't just budget information that the Daniels administration has been unable or unwilling to provide.
Indiana reporters, especially the team at WTHR in Indianapolis, have spent months trying to confirm the jobs numbers that Daniels has been touting, to no avail. Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) head Mitch Roob - last seen presiding over the disastrous privatization of Indiana's welfare system - said of the jobs data, "We don't share it with the public. We don't release it to the news media. That's confidential information." States surrounding Indiana, including Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, make that information public.
It's no surprise that Mitch Daniels doesn't want the public to have this information - when WTHR went to investigate some of the jobs that Mitch Daniels says he's brought to Indiana, they found abandoned factories and empty fields.
Mitch Daniels' culture of secrecy also extends to the much-maligned Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). The Gary Post-Tribune's Gitte Laasby has done some incredible (and award-winning) work investigating stories about BP's environmental permits and the pile of toxic steel waste named after former steel executive and current IDEM director Tom Easterly. Laasby's editor, suspecting that the agency was "intentionally withholding and otherwise seeking to squelch information," asked her to request records from IDEM that mentioned Laasby. The result?
Note that, other than the note at the top, every single word is redacted because the words are of ultimate import to the secrets of the state Indiana that all words cannot be released. Every article, noun, verb, dependent clause, all fall under the heading of being so much of a sensitive nature that no one should know about it. And even Laasby's name, which was part of the open records request -- if it exists in the blackness somewhere -- is too dangerous to release to the public.
Each of these instances of Mitch Daniels hiding public information from Hoosier voters is troubling, but together they form an unmistakable pattern. As Senator Simpson put it, it is a culture of secrecy that pervades the entire executive branch.
Senator Simpson indicated that Democrats will be developing and introducing legislation designed to increase transparency, including "easy online access to budget and spending information". And that's a good start, but it isn't enough. Indiana's antiquated public access laws need a wholesale revision. And we need to start supporting candidates who make transparency and open government a key part of their agenda. In Indiana, that starts with electing Pete Buttigieg to the Treasurer's office and Sam Locke to the Auditor's office this November.
(H/T to Thomas for putting this video on the front page.)
(Revised from a post at DailyKos)
Kudos to Indianapolis TV station WTHR Channel 13 News (an NBC affiliate) for doing some real reporting. This story of Republican incompetence, lying, obfuscation, and coziness with business at taxpayer expense should be required viewing for the national media. Reporter Bob Segall shows how to expose the truth, not offer "fair and balanced" reporting that makes unsubstantiated claims equivalent to facts.
Not only does this story show how to report real news, it shows how a typical Bushite, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, runs state government.
As governor, Daniels likes to portray himself as a great stimulator of job growth. But, in truth, all he really cares about are photo ops, not real jobs for Hoosiers.
A little old (March 2010), but I don't remember seeing it here or elsewhere in the Indiana blogosphere.
In 20 states, tax changes are providing a significant boost to revenues — that is, they are producing additional revenue of more than 1 percent of the prior year’s total revenues. Ten of those states have raised taxes by more than 5 percent of the prior year’s collections: California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Among the states that had significant increases, the largest increases as a share of tax revenue were in California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, and North Carolina. Each of these states, except Nevada, raised the general sales tax rate by one cent or more. Nevada increased the rate by about one-third of a cent (0.35 percentage points). As with the personal income tax increases, these sales tax increases are mostly temporary. They are scheduled to expire in June 2011 in California, Nevada, and North Carolina; they are permanent only in Indiana and Massachusetts.
Indiana increased the sales tax rate to 7 percent from 6 percent for a revenue increase of almost $1 billion.
Indiana capped the Media Production Expenditure Income Tax Credit for a revenue increase of nearly $10 million in fiscal year 2009.
For two years, the IBM Coalition and the State jointly tackled the problems of the old welfare eligibility system, and rolled out a new, modernized system to 59 Indiana counties serving 430,000 social services clients. In public statements by Indiana officials, including the Governor, the State consistently commended IBM for its role in this project and for the improvements it made to Indiana's previously fraud-ridden and inefficient welfare eligibility system.
And the state continued to praise IBM throughout the duration of the contract:
On August 1, 2008, in a report to the federal government, the FSSA stated that "[t]he Eligibility Modernization Project is in its second year and has already made substantial progress toward its goals and objectives."
And:
In fact, the FSSA attributed its prompt disaster relief assistance to the IBM Coalition's efforts: "The ability to mobilize multiple state agencies and provide computers and phones for Hoosiers to apply for state and federal assistance was made possible by the infrastructure already in place a s a result of eligibility modernization."
And:
On October 15, 2009, Governor Daniels held a press conference to announce that the State was terminating IBM's involvement in the Modernization Project [...] During the course of his remarks, the Governor commended IBM for its work, citing a litany of benefits that the IBM Coalition had conferred on the State [...]
Reading through the lawsuit, it's apparent that despite Daniels' current protestations, the state got exactly what they wanted from IBM - a system that virtually eliminated face to face contact:
In fact, the only things that Governor Daniels offered as reasons for the termination were two "fundamental flaws' in the basic concept of the Modernization Project: "saving welfare applicants the burden of a face-to-face meeting" and breaking up the determination process into "discrete tasks... done by specialists." However, these "fundamental flaws" were key objectives of the State identified in its own RFI, RFP, and inter-agency Review Committee report.
So for Indiana to win its case against IBM, we essentially have to argue that Mitch Daniels was lying to Hoosiers and to the federal government about what was going on at FSSA. The alternative isn't much better - that he's only lying now to do some political posturing before the 2012 Presidential race heats up.
He came to office in 2005 as a champion of putting public business in private hands wherever it seemed to make economic sense. Ignoring critics who argued that welfare wasn't the right venue for such changes, and the fact that similar efforts had failed in Texas and Florida, Daniels announced the contract with fanfare in late 2006.
Now, the episode threatens to be a blot on his legacy as governor, and could tarnish his luster as a potential Republican candidate for president.
It's also important to remember that this isn't just a matter of financial mismanagement, incompetent governance, or even political costs. This debacle had a real human cost as well.
Medicaid cut off to a Hoosier who missed her welfare appointment -- because she was hospitalized with terminal cancer.
Welfare benefits denied to a deaf person -- because she couldn't do a telephone interview.
A nun who lost Medicaid benefits and was deemed uncooperative when she missed a telephone interview because she had to play the organ on a Holy Day -- though she repeatedly tried to reschedule.
But like my state representative told the Journal Gazette, I hope Indiana prevails in this suit - the last thing we need to do is give more money to IBM after all these years of Mitch Daniels' financial incompetence.
Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, said she is glad the state is standing up for itself: "I don't want us to roll over. Unfortunately, the state of Indiana rolled over for too long with IBM and let IBM call the shots. We're not doing that anymore. If that means a legal battle, then so be it."
Error #1: Double counting of aging in the calculation of underlying medical trend for the projection of total lifetime loss ratio.
Error #2: Anthem overstated the initial medical trend used to project claims for September 2009 for known risk factors.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health & Human Services, sent a letter to other states where Anthem/Wellpoint operate:
"In light of this recent finding, I urge that, to the extent you have authority to do so, you re-examine any WellPoint rate increases in your state to determine whether any mistaken assumptions similar to those made in California were made in your state," Sebelius wrote to the governors. "Even small errors can mean unaffordable premiums for policyholders."
Replying through his spokesperson, Gov. Daniels declined to check Wellpoint's math:
"When we feel the need for advice about health-care costs, we won't start with the people who just passed this disastrously expensive and backward federal legislation," Daniels said in a statement...
The timing of this couldn't look worse for Mitch Daniels - Reps Baron Hill and Andre Carson asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review the costs to Indiana of the recently-passed Affordable Health Care act. Unfortunately for Mitch Daniels, while his talking points on the issue may play well to 2012 Presidential primary voters, they don't hold up well to the facts. In their report, CMS wrote that "Health insurance reform will bring relief to the Indiana budget."
Hill and Carson added, in a statement:
"The governor is certainly entitled to his political viewpoints on the health care reform law - and he's made those opinions very clear," Hill, D-9th District, said in a statement he issued jointly Thursday with U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat who represents the Indianapolis area's 7th District. "But now that this historic legislation is law, it's important that Hoosiers have factual, accurate information about the health benefits made available through these new provisions," the statement said.
I would normally make some crack about Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett when dealing with this type of story, but honestly, the guy has done so little to distinguish himself as anything other than a mouthpiece for the Daniels camp, there's really no point. Here's the state of Indiana's school systems, a la Mitch.
A southern Indiana teacher finds irony in being honored at a Statehouse ceremony when she could soon be without a job.
Jackie Macal is among 79 teachers who have received layoff notices from the Monroe County Community Schools in Bloomington, a move that district officials blame on state funding cuts.
After more than $300 million in spending cuts, classrooms all around the state are more crowded, teachers are being laid off every other day, and "non-vital" programs are being slashed and slashed again.
New Albany alone has had to shutter four elementary schools.
Be on the lookout for the next step in this process: state takeovers of local school systems not meeting minimum benchmarks. We saw how well "small government" Mitch played when he tried for local government reform -- only time will tell if he's more successful when it comes to destroying local control over school systems.
What do tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to embattled Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi buy you? What if I see your Brizzi cash and raise you three-times as much in Governor Mitch Daniels dollars?
The Indianapolis Business Journal took aim at this riddle, specifically in terms of John Bales, the real estate agent (of sorts) who has raked in millions from Indiana taxpayers while funneling even more money to his politically connected friends. Here's just one example:
One of the earliest government assignments for Bales, in 2001, was to find space for the Marion County Coroner's Office. He settled on a 25,000-square-foot building at 521 W. McCarty St., and recruited a company with ties to his own firm to buy the building and act as the landlord. The prior owner, an industrial coatings firm, wasn't interested in becoming a landlord.
Follow along: The building is owned by an Indiana company called Ting LLC that is registered to an address in Frankfort, Ky. The property with the Kentucky address is owned by DLD Real Estate LLC, which is registered to Fred Dorsey. Dorsey is the father-in-law of former Bales partner Greg Rankin.
Records show Bales also has an ownership interest in 902 Virginia Ave., where the Marion Superior Court leases 12,000 square feet. The property is owned by RB2 LLC and Now Properties LLC, both of which are registered to the same post office box as the other Bales companies.
Acting as a broker for both sides of a lease deal is not unusual, but it can be a serious conflict for a broker to put a tenant he represents in a building he also owns, said Gus Miller, a veteran office broker and principal in NAI Olympia Partners.
No-bid contracts, political connections, and byzantine lease agreements that all seem to lead back to Bales or one of his buddies. It's a tangled web, and the whole article should be read to get a good sense of the scope we're talking about here.
Oh, and just in case you're wondering, Mitch Daniels' Inspector General found nothing wrong with the deal -- you know, the same Inspector General that has never found anything wrong when the Guv's name comes up.
"The program isn't even affected before 2014. Why would we be denying Hoosiers coverage in the meantime?" Brown asked. "I think Ray Charles can see through this move."
State Rep. Charlie Brown, commenting on Governor Mitch Daniels' decision to halt enrollment in the Healthy Indiana Plan, leaving a program running a $200 million surplus with even fewer people to help.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has quietly established itself over the last five years as the second-most embattled state agency under Governor Daniels.
(Let's be honest: IDEM can't hold a candle to the cluster that is the Family and Social Services Administration.)
Most of that turmoil has to do with Daniels' insistence on reacting to the agency's biggest problem -- delays in enforcement -- buy simply getting rid of enforcement whenever possible. A recent report by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette revealed yet another result of the Daniels Way:
State and federal regulators have taken little or no action against most of the Indiana companies that have violated federal law by releasing more air pollutants than their permits allow, a newspaper's analysis has found.
The Journal Gazette analyzed a database of violations and enforcement actions maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It found that the majority of the more than 200 Indiana companies the EPA says have violated the federal Clean Air Act since Jan. 1, 2007, were still in violation on Dec. 31, 2009.
And in more than a third of those cases, the Journal Gazette discovered that state and federal regulators have taken no action.
Now, to be sure, the EPA shares some blame for not publicly hounding IDEM's lackadaisical attitude to our state's environmental woes. At the end of the day, though, this is Mitch's agency -- if he doesn't want pollution enforcement, the none we shall have.
While Governor Daniels runs around the state wagging his finger at the federal government and spouting off with vague allusions to constitutional law and the health care reform bill, perhaps he could take a break to address his own legal problems.
Namely, the illegality (and continued ineffectiveness) of his public services reform program:
When Gov. Mitch Daniels pulled the plug in October on a privatization contract that was the cornerstone of an aggressive welfare services modernization plan, he said it simply didn't work.
But the arrangement's inefficiency, lost paperwork and wrongly denied benefits weren't the only problems. A judge has ruled that parts of the modernization push also violated the law.
Two recent rulings from a Marion County judge and a third from Clay County delivered a new slap to the state's welfare services agency over several practices, including the handling of denials for some benefits and appeals for others.
The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is forging ahead by testing a new "hybrid" plan in some places. In the meantime, dozens of counties still operate with vestiges of the aborted modernization attempt -- and with one of the two disputed practices.
The problems flagged by the courts relate to disability appeals, benefit denials, and caps on in-home care. I'd like to say we could expect swift action on the part of the governor's office, but if past is prologue, we could be in for a long wait.
I know, I know...not exactly a newsflash. But the more and more I read coverage of the Guv's blustery temper-tantrum over the House's passage of comprehensive health care reform, the more I wonder how long Daniels will even attempt to maintain some semblance of truthfulness in his all-out attack on President Obama and this Congress.
The Republican governor said the federal legislation would mark the end of the state's Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP, for low-income Hoosiers and ultimately would lead to state tax increases in order to cover the expanded number of Hoosiers who now would qualify for Medicaidunder the law.
"I think a very, very serious mistake was made . . . that will lead, certainly, to higher taxes, higher health-care costs and a much weaker economy going forward," Daniels said.
Shorter Mitch Daniels: Ending a program that helps less than 10% of uninsured Hoosiers to start a program that will help more than 90% of uninsured Hoosiers is a bad thing.
First of all, it's worth noting that the "end" of the HIP should coincide with the "beginning" of cheaper, more cost-effective health care coverage for not only those currently covered by the Healthy Indiana Plan, but also the vast majority of those not covered by any plan.
Secondly, I can't help but reiterate the similarities between Daniels' furious chant of "higher taxes, higher health care costs" and his furious chant of "lower taxes, lower Iraq war costs" in 2003.
The biggest similarity, of course, being that both are equally untrue.
I have no doubt we'll be hearing more on the benefits of this bill in the next few weeks -- and on toward November -- but the simple, inescapable fact that nearly a million Hoosiers will benefit in some way from this legislation, an estimated 80,000 small businesses in this state will receive health insurance tax credits, and 170,000 Hoosier seniors will see their "donut hole" disappear speaks volumes about the very real effect this legislation will have on Indiana.
Oh, and nonpartisan budget estimates have the full implementation of reform reducing the deficit by over a trillion dollars.
None of which is going to stop Mitch Daniels from trying to score political points in the name of playing the loyal opposition. For a guy who prides himself on being a non-politician politician, Daniels' slow march to the national scene has seen him evolve into an increasingly cookie-cutter cartoon of national Republican Party talking points.
And you thought the political grandstanding over health care reform was bad before? You ain't seen nothin' yet:
"My reaction this morning is one of sorrow and discouragement," Daniels said. "I think a very, very serious mistake was made yesterday that will lead, certainly, to higher taxes, higher health care costs and a much weaker economy going forward."
As Daniels lashed out at supporters of the legislation, Attorney General Greg Zoeller said he had begun considering legal challenges to the bill.
[...]
Meanwhile, Daniels said he would immediately suspend enrollment in the state's Healthy Indiana Plan as a result of the U.S. House's 219-212 vote last night to send the health care reform to President Barack Obama's desk.
The most hilarious part of Daniels' blustery condemnation? The part where he calls the federal budget estimates "fraudulent" -- the projections, it's worth noting, show the federal deficit plunging by over a trillion in the next twenty years.
Yeah, that's right. Mitch "Iraq Will Cost a Few Million" Daniels has suddenly become the holier-than-thou defender of fiscal prognostication.
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