Pelath on the 2014 legislative session: “Seriously…was that the best we could do?”
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath from Michigan City today issued the following statement on the 2014 session of the Indiana General Assembly:
“To adequately describe the worthlessness of the latest legislative session, one must look at what was said by Ed Ziegner of The Indianapolis News after the first legislative short session back in 1972:
“‘It has been a bad session in about every way a session can be bad, which is a good many.’
“When the true standard for creativity is set in trying to explain to the people of Indiana that many things have been done on their behalf these past two and a half months—as the governor and the leaders of his super-majorities have tried to do today—you know that the bar of accomplishment is very low.
“There will be a few crumbs for the myopic optimist to attach to: at long, long last, a semblance of a pre-K program in Indiana, as well as the beginnings of a mass transit system in our state.
“But those are precious few threads to attach to when the needs of the people of Indiana are too many. And in those areas, this governor and his super-majorities failed miserably.
“What have we done to reverse the 10-year decline in the household incomes of Hoosiers? What have we done to stop the pay equity gap between Hoosier working men and women? What have we done to increase the number of Hoosiers with a college degree?
“Why, we cut corporate taxes…again. For good measure, we cut the financial institutions tax…again. We also did a bunch of things with the business personal property tax that won’t take effect for a few years.
“These things combine to create a wonderful ‘jobless creation’ plan. These ideas will make shareholders and the very rich happy, but they won’t do one thing to create jobs for Hoosiers now, and they certainly won’t do a thing to pay decent wages to our middle class.
“They are the perfect centerpieces for a session that was dominated by one matter: the insistence on putting the people of this state through more ugly, divisive debate on who can marry whom in Indiana.
“I am proud to say that Indiana House Democrats sought to do more.
“We tried to increase the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit. We offered a package of initiatives (restoration of the Small Business Innovation Program, establishing Manufacturing Reinvestment Accounts and creating an Indiana Goes Back to Work Tax Credit) that could have inspired business owners to hire people now.
“We tried to get an extra $500 million in state funding for improving our streets, roads and bridges. We tried to help firefighters, police and EMTs get the funds they needed to purchase equipment to keep our communities safe.
“We asked for greater accountability from the state’s Inspector General, the State Board of Finance, the Indiana Attorney General and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. We tried to eliminate waste in state government bureaucracy by getting rid of the redundant Center for Education and Career Innovation (CECI).
“We found little support for these initiatives from the House super-majority. But there were some successes.
“Thanks to the tireless efforts of State Rep. Christina Hale (D-Indianapolis), we will begin to study the reasons why Indiana has such appalling numbers of sexual assault of teen girls.
“And we at least got the governor and his super-majorities to understand the need to keep our best and brightest in Indiana by offering budding teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) incentives to stay in our state to practice their craft, thanks to the work of State Rep. Justin Moed (D-Indianapolis).
“We encourage the people of Indiana to look at what we could have done, then compare that to what we did do, then ask themselves if they would have been better-served by having their Indiana General Assembly take the year off.”