Working to solve real problems faced by real Hoosiers

For immediate release:
Jan. 9, 2014

INDIANAPOLIS – We begin the 2014 session of the Indiana General Assembly facing many very real challenges:

• Over the past decade, Hoosiers’ household incomes have declined by a greater percentage than 47 other states.
• The income of the average Hoosier is more than 10 percent lower than that of his or her fellow Americans.
• More than 28 percent of Americans have at least a Bachelor’s degree. Less than 23 percent of Hoosiers have one. Our best and brightest are leaving the state and not coming back.
• One in six Hoosier girls has been raped or sexually assaulted.
• More than 1 in 5 of our school-age girls is living below the poverty line.
• Indiana has one of the nation’s highest infant mortality rates.
• Seven in 10 jobs do not pay enough to allow one parent to stay at home with the kids.
• Women make 73 cents on the dollar for what the average man makes. That’s the sixth-worst wage gap in the country.

Even though this is the short session of the Legislature—which means we must be done with our work by the middle of March—I believe we have more than enough time to find solutions to these problems. I believe we can work together to find the answers.

Throughout this session, Indiana House Democrats will be offering proposals that we feel can make the lives of many Hoosiers better. Here’s one idea to chew over….

Let’s look at stopping the brain drain by identifying our top college graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and making it a state policy to do what we can to keep them in Indiana.

How? If they remain Hoosiers, they will not have to pay one dime of state income taxes for the first five years they work here. Not one dime.

It’s not the answer to all that ails our state, but it is an idea that’s worth discussing now.

And it is certainly better than some of the other hot topics that are being debated at the Statehouse right now.

The legislation that seeks to amend our Indiana Constitution by banning marriage equality has been filed (House Joint Resolution 3). It will be debated in the House starting on Monday (January 13).

This proposal achieves nothing other than dividing our people, diverting our energies from what is important, singling out a group of our friends and neighbors, and sending a message to the country that Indiana is not a forward-looking place to live.

We also will be discussing even more changes to a business tax climate that already is one of the nation’s best.

Our governor wants to get rid of the state’s business personal property tax, a move that will increase boardroom profits at the expense of adding to the burdens of our middle class and our struggling communities in trying to provide critical services like police and fire protection and snow removal. Worst of all, it is a jobless initiative that will do nothing to put Hoosiers back to work.

There are better solutions out there. In the weeks to come, I’ll be talking to you about them. The time to do something is now.