State Government Headaches

There are certain factors which would show 2009 to be one of the worst years in the history of Indiana government.  From the closing of the Indiana Soldiers and Sailors Children’s Home, to the passage of a law requiring a vote on a regional transportation district that was unwanted by an overwhelming majority, all on the same day, packaged with a budget weeks overdue.

 

Partisan fighting, ethical compromises, and political games marred a state hit hard by one of the worst economic times in its history.

With the state of Indiana’s government declaring that troubled youth at the ISSCH were better off in foster care and their family homes after having already failed in those circumstances, it was proven that special interest were more valued than the interest of the citizenry.  When the American Legion steps up and offers to find ways to fund a home and school for troubled youth, and elected officials from all parties agree it’s valuable, all efforts to preserve the mission should be taken.

When the children can be helped and the burden can be placed in the private sector, what business is it of the government to reject the future of the futures of so many?  The government has shown its true self by granting the grounds of the ISSCH to the Armory, and to the Army and National Guard, all agencies that did not need more ground, more land, nor more facilities.  The cost: exactly as predicted by myself and others, the children who were taken from crime to hopeful situations were placed back into the communities which first failed them, and which again failed them, resulting in lives of crime for many of them once again.

In that same passage of a state budget passed at the last possible moment before state government shut down, was included a provision requiring a vote for the creation of a regional transportation district including four counties in north-western Indiana.  There was no merit for such a requirement, and the vote was forced to be held in an off-election year, costing the counties more money.  Two counties followed state law, two violated state law, lawsuits are pending, and the government has proven itself to have wasted money, with one county denying the state’s initiative by an 18 to 1 margin.

Both of these failures of the state government resulted directly because partisan fighting resulted in an imminent threat of a government shutdown due to their inability to pass a state budget.

If our state government had exercised ethics, morals, and shown an ability to do the right thing rather than playing to their constituents against the will of the general populace and against the good of the state, we would be better off, with less money wasted (which might mean lower taxes), with fewer children failed (which might mean less money spent on police investigations, criminal court cases, incarceration, etc., and more citizens getting a quality education and becoming productive, tax-paying members of society), and we’d not have lost money on elections that were so overwhelmingly denied by the people that it was hardly worth holding.