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Thursday, 28 October 2010 12:50 |
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by Brian Howey
BLOOMINGTON - If 2010 is the “antithesis” election after the Democratic wave years of 2006 and 2008, perhaps history should be our guide.
New York Times national correspondent Jeff Zeleny noted that 48 Democrats in the U.S. House occupy seats in districts carried by Republican John McCain two years ago. This factoid presents a potential roadmap to the fates of the three vulnerable Hoosier Democrats.
In the 8th CD, McCain defeated Barack Obama 51-47 percent. Democrats have all but pulled the plug on the Democratic campaign of State Rep. Trent Van Haaften, one of the “Bayh dominoes” who is projected to get swept out on Nov. 1. Howey Politics Indiana has this race “Likely” Republican Larry Buchson after several polls have shown him with wide leads.
In the 2nd CD, Obama defeated McCain 54-45 percent. Recent polling shows State Rep. Jackie Walorski closing in on U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly. Howard County Republican Chairman Craig Dunn said internal polling has shown Walorski chipping a 9-point Donnelly lead to “at the margin of error” around four percent.
And in our lone “Tossup” race, McCain barely defeated Obama 50-49 percent in the 9th CD, where U.S. Rep. Baron Hill is trying to stave off a challenge from Republican Todd Young. Reliable Democratic sources say Hill’s internals show him “a couple points up.” He has faced an onslaught of $1.4 million in outside money that Young says “has leveled the playing field.” Hill said Monday night after a debate here, “Our numbers are holding up.”
The 9th could be engulfed by the GOP wave, though Young has been unable to close ranks with primary opponents Mike Sodrel and Travin Hankins. That could hurt him around the margins.
In a speech at Franklin College on Oct. 12, Zeleny said of the 48 Democrats sitting in McCain seats, “They’re holding onto seats they shouldn't." Democrats hold 55 seats they won in 2006 and 2008 when voters rejected the policies of President George W. Bush and the Iraq War.”
“Will there be a wave with all 55 seats gone in a year?” Zeleny asked.
Politico’s Mike Allen projects the Republican pickup between 40 and 45 seats. So does Zeleny. Analyst Stuart Rothenberg puts it in the “50” range, with this caveat: “There is at least a one in three chance of a Republican tsunami that would result in Democratic losses well above the 1994 level of 52 seats.”
And Dr. Larry Sabato projects a 47 seat GOP pickup in his “Crystal Ball.” The New York Times FiveThirtyEight blog predicts a 49-seat GOP pickup.
“So much has changed in the last two years,” Zeleny said. Obama was on a roll in the state through autumn 2008, becoming the first Democrat to carry Indiana in 44 years. “It carried through the inaugural,” Zeleny said, adding, “Week by week it changed a little bit.”
Hoosiers had a front-row seat through the erosion of Obama’s support. He made his first trip outside of Washington to Elkhart in early February 2009, pushing the stimulus package that is now under fire in the state. He vowed that he wouldn’t “forget” people in Elkhart and Kokomo, where jobless rates approached 20 percent. Not only did his stimulus give Indiana voters a tax cut (representing a third of the package), but the stimulus infusion of money propped up the state budget on education and Medicaid and saved thousands of teaching and public safety jobs.
Other stimulus money showered on Indiana electric car and industrial upstarts such as EnerDel, Bright Automotive and Caterpillar.
In the following months, Obama forced General Motors and Chrysler into prepackaged bankruptcy that not only saved 140,000 auto-related jobs in the state, but brought new jobs into GM plants at Marion, Fort Wayne and Bedford.
In a development few could have predicted, Republicans have railed at the stimulus package. In the 3rd CD - home of a huge GM plant in Fort Wayne - Republican Marlin Stutzman has said he would not have supported the auto bailout. Republican Senate nominee Dan Coats has castigated the stimulus package even while appearing at some of the companies that benefitted from funding. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock unsuccessfully challenged the Chrysler-Fiat merger, saying it perverted centuries of U.S. bankruptcy law. Had he won that lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court, more than 5,000 Chrysler-related jobs would have been liquidated.
“Fortunes have changed,” Zeleny said. “Attention spans are minimal.”
To date, Indiana Democrats have not framed what could be a buttress for their embattled candidates.
“This could be the most consequential election since 1994,” Zeleny said. He traces the animosity Democrats are now feeling not only to the health care reforms President Obama signed into law last March, but also to “the recovery summer” that ended with jobless rates at 9.6 percent nationwide and 10.2 percent here in Indiana. The Tea Party and Republicans have reacted loudly and angrily about the deficits and spending and bailouts and the news is mixed here. Wall Street will pay a record $144 billion in wages and bonuses this year while Main Street struggles. But Bloomberg News reported that taxpayers have actually made $25 billion off of TARP.
On Election Night, Indiana will be the bellwether state with all eyes on the fates of Hill and Donnelly.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey BLOOMINGTON - If 2010 is the “antithesis” election after the Democratic wave years of 2006 and 2008, perhaps history should be our guide.
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Wednesday, 20 October 2010 21:02 |
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by Brian Howey
INDIANAPOLIS - I haven't met Charlie White, the Republican nominee for Indiana secretary of state, so in a personal and professional vein, I was neutral about the guy.
He's the Hamilton County Republican chairman - one of the most influential GOP posts in the state - and was able to parlay that position into becoming the only party candidate, and subsequently nominee, to succeed the term-limited Secretary of State Todd Rokita. To put that into context, the last time the office was open, in 2002, Rokita had to win a convention floor dogfight against three tough candidates: eventual State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, future State Sen. Mike Delph and Dr. John McGoff, who gave U.S. Rep. Dan Burton the challenge of his life.
Charlie White worked the party circles to get the nomination and then figured he could ride the Republican wave into this stepping stone office.
The secretary of state's office has had a pretty good pedigree in modern times. Evan Bayh used it to jump into the governor's office. His buddy Joe Hogsett succeeded him, defeated Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut for his own term, and went on to unsuccessfully run for Congress and attorney general before landing the Southern Indiana district attorney job a few weeks ago. Republican Sue Anne Gilroy tried to make the leap to mayor of Indianapolis. And there's Rokita, who is heavily favored to win the 4th Congressional District next month.
Rokita is an astute and strong secretary of state. He steered Indiana's 92 counties through the fallout from the Bush vs. Gore 2000 debacle in Florida, which prompted Indiana to upgrade all of its voting equipment. He modernized the state's voter files and eliminated tens of thousands of old names, which put a crimp in the cemetery vote in Lake County. He created indianavoters.com, a user friendly website portal for new voter registration (and updating your registration if you move), find your polling location, learn in advance who will be on the ballot, and check campaign finance reports. Rokita ushered in the pioneering voter identification law, which has survived a U.S. Supreme Court challenge. He is an advocate for new redistricting methods.
Rokita will be a tough act to follow for either candidate. But Charlie White has a big problem in his race against Democrat Vop Osili.
When you run for public office, you've got to have your act together. You're up- to-date on your child support payments. You make sure your nanny isn’t an illegal alien. You don't owe back taxes or misuse your homestead exemption. You don't send racy or bigoted emails to friends. You don't deceive your business partners. You follow campaign finance laws.
And, you make sure your voting credentials are in order, particularly when you want to be Indiana Secretary of State, who not only guards the state seal, but presides over the Indiana Election Division.
White's problem is that he moved out of his Fishers City Council seat after a divorce and then a new marriage, but kept serving on the council even though he lived five miles away. He kept voting in his old precinct using what is called a "fail safe" provision in 2009, but didn’t use it in last May’s primary.
White says he "forgot" to update his voter registration because he was busy. He resigned his council seat once he knew Democrats were on to him. It reminds me of an old “Saturday Night Live” skit when comedian Steve Martin did not pay his taxes: "I forgot."
Yikes.
Now White is in big political trouble. The Hamilton County prosecutor has appointed two special prosecutors, including Dan Sigler of Adams County who recently served in that role during the Matt Kelty case in Fort Wayne.
Rokita is conducting his own investigation and will forward his findings to the special prosecutor. In what was to be a slam dunk campaign, a recent WISH-TV poll found White leading Osili by a 39-29 percent margin, with some 30 percent undecided. That's a huge pool of question marks this late in the game.
The political press has barely heard from the White campaign until he put out a release late last week lambasting WISH reporter Jim Shella for "ignoring our statement" on the poll.
"Voters have shown in this poll, and will show on election day that they need a leader who will put their concerns first and find innovative solutions to help Hoosiers get back to work," White said. Well, at least 39 percent of them do.
Osili observed, "If he is unable to police himself by the rules he would be sworn to uphold if elected, how can he, without creating cynicism on the part of the electorate, enforce the election laws on the other millions of voters in this state?"
That's a question that White should fully address. Republicans counter that Osili has failed to fully account for "in-kind" donations to his campaign.
Can Charlie White pull this one out?
Possibly. There appears to be a Republican wave brewing that could sweep White into office, whether he's prepared or not. Rokita himself came within two percent of being upset by Democrat Joe Pearson in 2006 in what was a nominal Democratic wave year. So this can be a competitive race.
Charlie’s prospects would be better if acted like he was really running for Secretary of State and not Secretary of Hack.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey INDIANAPOLIS - I haven't met Charlie White, the Republican nominee for Indiana secretary of state, so in a personal and professional vein, I was neutral about the guy.
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Wednesday, 13 October 2010 21:26 |
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by Brian Howey
NASHVILLE, Ind. - The Indiana of today is one of strange tans and browns under a canopy of wilted greens. It’s like a winter carpet in summer. The harvest came in early, with dust trails visible for miles as combines strip the grain from our arid land. On the banked bends of county roads, you can find the yellow crescent of spilled corn from farm trucks loaded to the brim.
The torrents of rain we had in May and June disappeared in July as more than 40 days of 90 degree heat set in. But more ominously - both agriculturally and politically - Hoosiers have been confronted with prairie firestorms this autumn. It can be wedged rocks sparking under the combines that light the tinderbox fields ablaze.
The figurative prairie fires have invaded idled factories, council chambers, and of course the kitchens of the unemployed where Kraft macaroni and Ramen noodles are replacing T-bones and tenderloins. The prairie fires have blazed into campaign offices, where endangered incumbents toil to reconnect to the voters who brought them the victories of a few short years ago.
It’s an utter contrast to that muddy, gloomy day - Oct. 8, 2008 - when Obama came to the Indiana State Fairgrounds. I wrote then: Hoosiers had been hearing about the financial collapse, golden parachutes, bailouts and rescues. The entire Western financial system was on the verge of collapse “within days.” Mad money man Jim Cramer said on the Today Show to sell all your stock if you needed the cash within five years.
“We meet today in a moment of great uncertainty,” Obama said at the Fairgrounds. “I know we can steer out of this crisis. Our destiny is not written for us, but by us. That’s who we are.”
And Obama mimicked President Ronald Reagan and offered a variation of his “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” used in his 1980 campaign. “At this pace, we should be asking 'Are we better off than we were four weeks ago?'”
Today in Indiana, there is palpable anger at Obama, even though the Indianapolis Business Journal reported last weekend that 100,000 Hoosiers are now back working in Hoosier auto plants. Between that day in October and the time Obama took his oath of office, we faced not only a Great Depression, but the potential loss of our beloved auto industry - from the Chrysler complex in Kokomo to the sprawling GM plant just south of Fort Wayne and the older plants in places like Bedford and Marion.
In this fall of discontent, the contours have changed and are confounded. Instead of hailing Obama as a president “who saved the auto industry” he is loathed by Republican candidates who say he perverted centuries of bankruptcy law. Had the 140,000-worker auto sector vanished, our own Great Depression would have been grueling and much more shocking than the steady loss of income we feel, or the shoots of poverty invading more neighborhoods, more food banks, more family kitchens.
In 1982 I lived and reported in Elkhart, where the unemployment lines were long. President Reagan doled out surplus cheese and urged us to “stay the course” and even during those bleak times, we could envision what would become “morning in America.”
Today, our new morning seems a long way away. There is no clear path. Our manufacturing sector is vanishing. In just about every Indiana city and town, you can find the ghost factories.
We hear predictions that the jobless rate will hover in the 10 percent range through 2011. It may not come down below eight percent until mid-decade.
Our homes are losing value. A mortgage lender told me that 40 percent of those he comes across fit that bill. Pristine credit scores are perverted by a single missed payment and there are now “risk coverage fees” even for the prudent. You can’t talk to a real person at the credit bureaus.
The right raises the specter of “socialism.” Yet, in last Friday’s New York Times business section in an article on Eli Lilly & Company, an analyst for Barclays Capital - C. Anthony Butler - cited the company’s longtime relationship to Indianapolis as an “impediment” to taking measures like slashing costs to preserve its margins and dividends despite Lilly cutting thousands of local jobs. “I worry that they can’t do that because they’re too ingrained in the fabric of the community,” Butler said.
Is this the capitalism that will secure our futures? Or is it all about shareholders?
People on that soggy day at the Indiana State Fairgrounds looked at Barack Obama and sought “hope” and “change” and it is elusive. On TV tonight, Rep. Mike Pence can be found in an ad, standing in a storm-swept cornfield under the Hope, Ind., water tower. We hear him say, “a whirlwind from Washington has swept into Indiana” before saying, “Freedom always wins.”
But we must wonder. Republicans and Democrats have to work together, to form some semblance of trust, and compromise. That hasn’t happened over the past two years. Perhaps it’s time for a third party.
In this autumn of prairie fires, the blaze of my own cynicism - long missing from my character - smolders. Sometimes I think of Democrats and Republicans and whisper this: a pox on both your houses.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey NASHVILLE, Ind. - The Indiana of today is one of strange tans and browns under a canopy of wilted greens. It’s like a winter carpet in summer. The harvest came in early, with dust trails visible for miles as combines strip the grain from our arid land. On the banked bends of county roads, you can find the yellow crescent of spilled corn from farm trucks loaded to the brim.
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Wednesday, 06 October 2010 22:04 |
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by Brian Howey
NASHVILLE, Ind. - What's that old phrase? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?
That's what I keep thinking when I hear the debate on extending the Bush tax cuts. Here we are, chumps in waiting.
Here are some facts. As the new U.S. fiscal year began on Oct. 1, we are facing a $1.3 trillion budget deficit. We are entering our third year of measuring this deficit in the trillions. Until the final years of President George W. Bush's administration, it was always in billions. I don't think I ever used the word "trillion" until 2008.
How did we get to a $1.3 trillion deficit? In 2001 and 2003, Congress passed the Bush tax cuts. In 2001 we went to war in Afghanistan. In 2003, we went to war in Iraq. And in 2004, Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug plan. None of these things were ever paid for. President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress put them on the federal credit card, payable by our children. This coincides with massive slices of Baby Boomers retiring.
Retiring U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh noted in March 2009 that, "Our nation's current fiscal imbalance is unprecedented, unsustainable and, if unaddressed, a major threat to our currency and our economic vitality."
Last February, President Obama said "our fiscal situation remains unacceptable," even as he pursued an ambitious domestic agenda as well as an expanded war in Afghanistan. He explained that, "Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century."
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence said on NBC's Meet the Press in August, "The deficit this year is a trillion dollars for the second year in a row. The American people have had it with runaway federal spending, deficits and debt, and they want to see men and women in Washington, D.C., make the hard choices."
U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, in making a case against extending unemployment benefits last July explained, "Adding tens of billions of dollars to our national debt and risking higher interest rates and future taxes does not represent a responsible pro-growth policy."
Yet, both parties are pandering to your vote this November when it comes to extending the Bush tax cuts. Republicans called in their "Pledge to America" the renewing all of the Bush tax cuts, including the richest three percent of taxpayers. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says this will add nearly $4 trillion to budget deficits over the next decade.
President Obama and Congressional Democrats favor extending the Bush tax cuts to all but the top three percent of wage earners - those making more than $250,000 a year. The CBO estimates this will add $2 trillion to the deficits over the next decade.
Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said in August, "At the end of the day, that's disastrous." Robert Bixby of the non-profit Concord Coalition, which advocates balanced budgets, told the Washington Post, "Both parties are being disingenuous here. When I hear the Democrats saying Republicans are willing to add to the deficit, well, the Democrats are willing to add $2 trillion to the deficit themselves."
Recently departed White House Budget Director Peter Orzag said on CNN earlier this month on balancing the budget, "If we actually ended the Bush-era tax cuts, that would pretty much do it. If you do a bit on the spending side and then end the tax cuts, you pretty much get there."
Earlier this month, I asked Gov. Daniels if there was an inherent contradiction between Republican calls for fiscal responsibility and the Bush tax cuts. He responded, "What you’re asking is if we should raise taxes on anyone. Of course not. The tax consequences would land on small business and that’s a bad idea. We should grow the economy." This is from the mouth of the White House budget director on hand when the first Bush tax cuts were enacted.
We are watching most Republicans and even Democrats like Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth reframe this dilemma to the here and now. But let's go back to the CBO, which in a Washington Post story earlier this month predicted that the economy would be stronger with the cuts, but only through 2012, when the extra borrowing they require "would reduce or 'crowd out' investment in productive capital."
The Bush tax cuts have been a political football because the key players - from Obama to Pence - are gaming you, knowing you'll want the candy even though we all know of the tooth decay to follow.
Not a single Republican or Democrat can cite credible off-setting cuts. To do that, you get into entitlement reform involving Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. And no one has the guts to play it straight with us.
Folks, were you born yesterday? Are there fools being born every minute? Don't you realize we're all being taken as election year chumps?
I'll end with another time-worn saying: People usually get the government they deserve.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey NASHVILLE, Ind. - What's that old phrase? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me? That's what I keep thinking when I hear the debate on extending the Bush tax cuts. Here we are, chumps in waiting.
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Wednesday, 29 September 2010 16:39 |
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by Brian Howey
FRANKLIN - It has been six months since President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act. Since then, a furious debate has taken place in congressional races across Indiana and the nation with Republicans calling for repeal and some Democrats defending the historic reforms.
A Sept. 14-15 Rasmussen Reports in Indiana revealed that 63 percent favored repealing the health reforms. Nationally in a Rasmussen Poll released on Monday, 53 percent of U.S. voters now say they at least “somewhat favor” repeal of the new national health care law, matching the lowest level of opposition since the bill was passed by Congress last March.
Proponents say that 519,000 Hoosiers will now have access to health care, instead of relying on expensive hospital emergency room treatment. But the State of Indiana sees a “worst case scenario” hit to taxpayers up to $3.6 billion in the next decade, according to a study by Milliman Inc. In addition, a number of Indiana hospitals in small towns and rural areas face an uncertain fate.
Yet, according to research by Brittany Brownrigg of Franklin College who interned with Howey Politics Indiana this summer, Hoosier hospitals spent over $517 million in charity care in 2009, according to the Indiana Hospital Association. This amount is up 17 percent from 2008. Indianapolis' Wishard Hospital alone spent $223 million last year on caring for people without a third-party payer source.
Without the health reforms, the amount of charity giving by Indiana hospitals is projected to cost the federal government and consumers $5.5 billion over the coming decade, and close to $3 billion at Wishard alone.
The shrillest, most uninformed critics of the ACA call it "socialism" and warned of "death panels." The reality is that it was a compromise within the ruling Congressional Democrats, who did not opt for a single payer system like Canada. They did not institute some Republican positions such as tort reform to keep medical malpractice costs down, nor did they allow insurance to be sold across statelines, something several doctors told me would have the greatest impact on costs.
Democrats like U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth voted for the reforms and now must defend them for the 2010 election. The Kaiser Family Foundation identified" immediate benefits for Indiana" that include tax credits for 84,400 small businesses; closing the Medicare Part D "donut hole" for 81,800 beneficiaries; and giving 103,000 early retirees a $5 billion temporary reinsurance program for those who lose benefits from former employers. Insurance companies will no longer be able to place lifetime limits on coverage impacting 3.8 million Hoosiers; it will protect 279,000 people who would be dropped from coverage upon illness; eliminating pre-existing conditions to bar people from insurance access; extend coverage to 21,000 young adults up to age 26; and $92.6 million federal dollars for insured Hoosiers.
It's also important to note that the $517 million that Indiana hospitals were writing off last year was essentially picked up by government or spread out across the consumer pool. That's why your health care costs were going up. The Congressional Budget Office predicted ACA would actually help with federal budget deficits, but I find it hard to believe this is a reliable forecast.
The real problem with the ACA in my view is that it's extremely complicated with an array of mandates and subsidies. Some of them will work, others won't and there will be a great deal of tweaking if Republicans don't get their way for an outright repeal, which will be extremely difficult to do.
During the debate in 2009, both U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh urged President Obama to take a more "incremental approach." Bayh suggested breaking the bill up into sections, passing legislation most agreed on.
The bill is good news for Wishard; only six percent of its patients typically have commercial health insurance. "With over $200 million worth of uncompensated care going through our system, the supplemental dollars that we receive are significantly less than that directly for health care related services," said Daniel Sellers, chief financial officer and treasurer for Health and Hospital Corporation.
But for the State of Indiana, there is a lack of details. In an Aug. 23 letter to Gov. Mitch Daniels, FSSA Secretary Anne Murphy and acting Insurance Commissioner Stephen A. Robertson stated, "The budget impact is potentially significant, and the state will have to identify a way to pay for the new ACA costs. Many of the requirements amount to unfunded mandates to states at a time when they can be least afforded. We still await the necessary federal guidance to move forward with our implementation.”
Gov. Daniels sees a "massive unfunded mandate" with a "big whopping bill coming to taxpayers." He urged "free market" solutions.
Kevin Woodhouse, a partner specializing in health care issues at Ice Miller, explained, "Part of the cost will be paid by the federal government, but only part of it. There will be increased cost over the next 10 years under the health reform bill. There is no one way to avoid that."
For Hoosier voters, it could come down to this: What is it worth to cover a half a million people where the costs were hidden and what impact will it have on our tax bills? That's both a moral values and fiscal question with no easy slogan to answer.
(The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com) by Brian Howey FRANKLIN - It has been six months since President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act. Since then, a furious debate has taken place in congressional races across Indiana and the nation with Republicans calling for repeal and some Democrats defending the historic reforms.
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