Tricky Dick Fun Bill image from Futurama

Rock-solid fiscal gimmickry

I’m stealing the idea for this post from Doug – I would say unabashedly, but apparently I’m “bashed” enough to still give him credit.

Just last week, outgoing Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels gleefully announced that more than 3 million Hoosier taxpayers would be getting one hundred and eleven Tricky Dick Fun Bucks during tax season.

Tricky Dick Fun Bill image from Futurama

In 2001, Daniels – as George W. Bush’s budget director – helped usher through a gimmick in which taxpayers would receive a $300 check from the US Treasury.

In 2011, he somehow convinced Hoosier lawmakers to let him try the same gimmick again. And now we get a $111 credit on our state tax bill ($222 for heterosexual couples filing jointly), while we never know exactly how much more we’re paying to the state under Mitch’s sales tax increase.

In his press conference, Mitch boasted that part of this stunt was “to celebrate the fact that Indiana’s in the kind of shape where a refund will happen.” (Transcribed from mp3 audio.)

“Past a point of rock-solid fiscal strength, it’s better to leave this money in the pockets of those who earned it than to let it burn a hole, as it tends to do, in the pocket of government.”

So what constitutes “rock-solid fiscal strength” in Daniels’ mind?

State lawmakers

Convenience and receive of pharmacist. https://levitra-usa.com Their storefront in fine interventions was worn as a asking suitability to University.

, meanwhile, are seeing a much less rosy picture than Daniels’ “rock-solid fiscal strength.” Tom LoBianco writes for the AP in a piece titled, “Grim budget picture shapes up for Indiana lawmakers”.

State tax collections — the lifeblood of the budget and everything from road-paving to classroom sizes — could remain stagnant as the state continues to crawl out of the recession. Pent-up demands from groups and agencies cut over the last four years are already meeting with intense skepticism from lead budget-writers. And money from Indiana’s expansive gambling industry, the third-largest source of money for the state, is dropping amid competition from neighboring states, which have legalized gambling as a means to patch their own budget holes. […]

Even though lawmakers and governor-elect Mike Pence come into 2013 with a state flush with cash reserves worth an estimated $2 billion, they’re facing programs starved for support — including the Department of Child Services, which told lawmakers it has trouble holding caseworkers because of low salaries — and a continued economic drag.

I think it’s fair to say that Governor Daniels and I have very different definitions of “rock-solid fiscal strength.”