Mitch Daniels most recent initiative
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 8/25/08 @ 11:45 pm - Filed Under Featured, State Politics
There are a lot of things both to like and to dislike about Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.
His most recent education proposal is not one of the things that I like about him. It is a socialist proposal.
Mitch Daniels proposes that the State of Indiana should give more college tuition assistance to Hoosiers whose families make below $60,000 per year. He wants to increase aid levels so that the State of Indiana would pay for two years of free tuition at Ivy Tech or the equivalent amount of about $3000 per year to go to another college.
This is a socialist idea.
Why on Earth does Mitch Daniels think that a student who is part of the “mythical” family of four who makes $60,000 per year needs even more financial assistance to go to college? What is wrong with requiring students to get a job and pay for their secondary education? What is wrong with joining the military, reserves, or National Guard to pay for secondary education?
Per the Federal Guidelines a family of four is considered impoverished if they earn $21,200 or less.
The median income of a family of four in Indiana for next fiscal year is $67,897.
I do not feel it is the Indiana Government’s job to help a family that makes almost the median wage send their kids to college.
In fact, I think it is socialist.
Mitch Daniels has two ideas on how to pay for the program described above:
The first idea is to privatize the Hoosier Lottery. This is something he brought up in the past and he is bringing it up again. This is the part of his proposal that seems to indicate that he believes in free enterprise. He basically wants to allow a private company to operate the Hoosier Lottery in exchange for one billion dollars up front and then 200 million dollars annually. When Mitch Daniels proposes this I think he is showing that he believes the private sector can more efficiently operate the Hoosier Lottery then it is currently being operated.
I am not sure if I favor privatizing the Hoosier Lottery or not. It is an interesting idea and I would have to analyze the proposal and its “fine print” in order to determine if I thought it was a good idea; in proposals like this “the devil is in the details.”
His second idea on how to pay for his education initiative is to issue bonds against the growth in lottery revenues. This is a fiscally terrible idea. First of all the Hoosier Lottery revenues are fairly steady and there is not necessarily going to be revenue growth in the Hoosier Lottery. Second of all the money from the Hoosier Lottery has already been promised to various other programs and it is likely those programs will need the revenue from the Hoosier Lottery revenue growth as it is. And third I think it is a terrible idea to issue bonds and have Indiana pay interest on bonds to fund programs like this.
Please read more about Hoosier College Promise.
What do you think?
Comments
16 Responses to “Mitch Daniels most recent initiative”
Leave a Reply
Mike:
While I like the idea of helping Hoosiers go to college I think the plan is economically off base. I wrote about it a few days ago and I don’t see the point in having lower middle class families spend $9000 on lottery tickets and get $6000 back.
Plus, because that money is already earmarked to other programs we will be removing funding from those programs.
In light of the current policy of sending good paying, high tech jobs out of state (or out of the country), it might be more productive to send Hoosier kids to a trade shcool. There they could learn to make beds and mow lawns. Then they could compete in the market place with the illegal aliens currently filling those jobs. Then they can drink more “Bud”.
John Colgate - you crack me up!
Regarding MMM’s (aka My Man Mitch’s) campaign promises - I don’t like them. Privatizing the lottery? Eh. Whatever. Giving more free handouts to middle and upper-middle class kids?
No way. The more free stuff you give to people without there being an equal amount of their own skin in the game - the more they take things for granted and the less enthusiastic they are to complete the task at hand. There’s something to be said for not having everything handed to you on a silver (state) platter.
It’s my understanding that people my age do not play the lottery as much as our older counterparts when they were our age. If the number of people playing the lottery is going down, then it might make sense to sell the asset.
Ms. Frazier-Henry:
I guess I have to try and find some humor in the political climate of today.
I see a sign along the road as I dodge the orange barrels that proclaims “Building Roads, Creating Jobs”. Then I see footage of Mitch on a motorcycle. Then I think of our kids that are losing their high tech jobs so they can build roads for the rich to ride on. Then it occurs to me….. A Harley for Mitch, a mo-ped for me!
There is just somthing basically wrong with that picture.
Mike,
Hardly. A free enterprise approach would be to privatize lotteries in general and have the government get out of it.
This is the type of Daniels proposal that irritates me. It’s a socialist market economy - i.e. China:
We can have a lottery but only if the government approves and only if the government gets to decide which private company will run it.
Bars can’t have Cherry Masters but they can have pull tabs as long as they buy them from government-approved vendors.
And the beer/liquor you sell at your bar MUST be bought from a distributor who jacks up the price to about 2x what you or I would pay at the liquor store.
It’s socialist alright Mike, but the socialism is on the business side…
i think that helping kids go to college is a wonderful idea. I am a mother of 4 and with the oldest being 13 and college going up we wont be able to afford any of them going to school..even if they get their own jobs and pay for college..they wont be able to afford gas etc
[...] dollars for the scholarships.This is very similar to a plan recently unveiled by Mitch Daniels. I posted about Mitch Daniels initiative and correctly called it a socialist idea. This part of Jill Long [...]
I think all of Mitch’s Ideas have been bad for Indiana Residents. He has Privatized almost all of state government. Which costs more money in most cases. I think the Toll Road Sell off is a bad deal. Don’t you think it is suspious that it sold so quickly. I beleive the Company that bought it, knew it was worth a lot more. The biggest mistake he has made is to raise taxes. Come on people wake up and vote this guy out.
Steve,
Come on Steve, you cannot honestly believe that he has privatized almost all of the state government. That statement is absurd.
Mike
Dear Mike, I used to work for Indot til feb. 2008. I saw him outsource our print shop and 99 % of Indot Design work. The print shop workers were only guaranteed a job for just six months. A lot of those had on the job injuries and were 50 and over. Some people lost their jobs. Yes there were some problems in Indot. But we just needed a tune up not an overhaul. You see Consultants charge a lot more than it costs to do the job in house. Back to the toll road bad deal. Taxpayer dollars built the toll road, so shouldn’t the money that ole mitch got gone back to the taxpayers? So I would say he has back doored privatized state government. I know morale in state government was very low and continues to be low. I beleive his adminstration has spent more money than other Governors adminstration. The public has not been told the truth and I doubt they will ever will know the truth!!
Steve Terry,
You should go and look at the Indiana budget.
It is wrong to say that Mitch Daniels has outsourced the majority of the State Government, come on Steve. Even the most partisan people I know would not make a claim like that.
From a budgetary standpoint he has also been pretty prudent. We are running a SURPLUS.
Mitch Daniels is far from perfect; however, your statement about outsourceing is our beyond left field…
Mike Sylvester
Mike, Mitch has outsourced work. Some Indot areas disappeared. Highway work has to be done yearly.
New Roads and existing roads have to designed. I know for a fact that a contract was signed for a million dollars for a year. There was five guys doing that work in house. I would say they all made $ 75,000 including benefits. That is of course $ 375,000 a year. I almost get sick when I see his Poltical Commerical about FSSA. It shows him holding a kid. I don’t beleive he is a nice person. Look at the IPALCO deal. Mitch is able to sell his stock and pockets 1.8 million while most employees lose a lot of money. My uncle knows of a IPALCO employee that lost 800,000 (his retirement). By the way there was a lawsuit filed on behalf of IPALCO employees. I assume that is still pending. I beleive the state
budget has some creative
accounting going on. Because I don’t beleive he has saved money overall. I never beleive a politician. I just think most of them are out for themselves. Jill Long has my vote in the fall. God help this state if Mitch gets reelected.
Steve,
Come on you can do better then this. Earlier you stated that:
Then in your recent example you discuss $375,000 and IPALCO.
For your information the sate of Indiana employs over 30,000 people. If he privatized “almost all state government” as you claim that would result in at least 25,000 people losing their jobs. You talk about 5 people losing their jobs.
I do not dount that his measures have resulted in a couple of thousand people losing their jobs; however, that is not close to “almost all.”
Mike Sylvester
Mike, The Environment at Indot is very negative. Indot’s work has been privatized. Indot is just a watchdog now. The management has actually told people that they won’t be layoffs. But as people quit or retire that job is gone. So over time most state jobs are gone. This adminstration has done nothing but lie to their employees. The Commish (Tom Sharp) came to my area. I asked the question “What is going happen to Indot, are we going to get smaller or larger? His response was ” this is not a numbers reduction exercise”. But then they layoff people. Hopefully Mitch goes the way of the Dodo Bird, extinct.
Mitch has saved money by not spending it. Indot is not letting any contracts. So highways are not being repaired outside of major movse.