Op-Ed: Indiana House Democrats want to lower your cost of living. House Republicans should get on board.
During last year’s election cycle, I spent a lot of time on the road around the state, talking with voters about their hopes and their fears. What I heard from Hoosiers across the board was that they’re worried about the cost of living here in Indiana.
From housing and utilities to health care and education, Hoosiers are sick and tired of life’s essentials costing more like luxuries.
To help Hoosiers save more of their hard-earned money, the Indiana House Democratic Caucus launched our Working Hoosiers Agenda earlier this year. We’re dead set on lowering costs for Hoosiers, and as such, we’ve offered amendments the past two months for all 100 state representatives to vote on to do just that.
We offered an amendment to increase the earned income tax credit from 10% to 12% to keep more money in your wallet.
It’s hard to become a homeowner these days, and to that end, Democrats offered an amendment to create a low-interest first-time homebuyer program. We also tried to give renters relief through increasing the renter’s tax deduction by $1,000.
Nearly a third of Hoosiers rely on Medicaid and its various programs – HIP, Hoosier Care Connect, Hoosier Healthwise – for health insurance coverage. Indiana Republicans implemented waitlists for children with severe disabilities and seniors who rely on Medicaid. We proposed eliminating these waitlists. Additionally, with President Trump’s promise to cut Medicaid on the federal level, we wanted to set aside $300 million to protect Hoosiers’ health care benefits.
As for utility costs, we offered amendments to impose a rate hike moratorium, prohibit utilities from charging reconnection fees for customers and prevent utilities from disconnecting service on weekends, holidays, and days during which customer service representatives are not available to customers. We also voted to prohibit utility monopolies from offloading planning costs for uncertain investments onto customers.
To continue prioritizing working Hoosiers, we proposed raising the income eligibility for pre-K vouchers to the same level as K-12 private school vouchers: $230,880. Pre-K is one of the best ways for young Hoosiers to get ahead in their education. On the other hand, Republican-advanced universal K-12 private school vouchers, with a price tag of $1.3 billion to Hoosier taxpayers, will do little to improve education outcomes.
Sadly, Indiana House Republicans did not join us in supporting these common-sense proposals to help working Hoosier families get ahead. On top of this, Republican lawmakers advanced legislation that will set working people back.
Republican-authored House Bill 1174 will expand the predatory lending industry by allowing loan sharks to add misleading fees on top of their already-exploitative interest rates.
Additionally, House Republicans passed House Bill 1007, the big utility monopoly bailout bill we tried to improve by adding more consumer protections. House Democrats opposed this bill because it is not the responsibility of utility customers to foot the bill for investor-owned companies' business experiments.
Worse yet, the House Republican budget leaves everyday Hoosiers out to dry. It expands private school vouchers to our state's wealthiest families, leaving less money to educate the nine out of 10 Hoosier kids who choose public schools. The Indiana GOP cuts public health investments, flatlines veterans' funding and cuts child care affordability programs. This is a budget that doesn't care about your wallet.
As we enter the second half of this year's state legislative session and consider Senate-passed bills, House Democrats remain committed to lowering the cost of living and saving Hoosiers money. We're fighting for an Indiana where you can get ahead financially and make your goals a reality. We'll keep inviting Indiana Republicans to support Democratic proposals to create a future where all Hoosiers can thrive.