David Hoppe

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:: Daniels on a tear

Living the colonial life

By David Hoppe

In a column he wrote for the Wall Street Journal, Gov. Mitch Daniels likened Indiana to a colony, calling Hoosiers “we humble colonials.” The message was that we provincials were being bullied into bad energy policy by an imperial federal government intent on doubling our electricity bills so it could prop up failing economies in California, New York and Massachusetts. “Years of reform in taxation, regulation and infrastructure building would be largely erased in a stroke,” huffed the guv.

Finally! Something the guv and I can agree on.

Gov. Daniels, thank you for telling it like it is.

I most heartily agree that Indiana resembles a colony – a place that appears to be run more for the pleasure and enrichment of a select few than for the benefit of the vast majority of people who live and work here.

Unfortunately, things fall apart for me and the guv after that. A look at his policies indicates that it’s not the federal government who’s responsible for our state’s second class citizenship, but Daniels himself.

During just this month alone, Daniels has been on the kind of tear that would make a colonial potentate proud. In addition to his splash in the WSJ, he administered a swift kick in the teeth to the state’s environmental community by hiring David Joest, a former registered coal company lobbyist as assistant commissioner for the Office of Legal Counsel for the Indiana Dept. of Environmental Management (IDEM). IDEM regulates the quality of our air, water and land. Apparently it is a good thing that Indiana now has a lawyer who has spent a 25-year career fighting IDEM and our Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) on behalf of, among others, Peabody Energy. Peabody, who has a mining permit pending with the DNR, must delighted.

Then, last week, when it was confirmed that, yes, the cost of building a new-terrain route for I-69 between Evansville and Indianapolis would cost more than advertised -- $3.1 billion instead of $1.7 billion – Gov. Daniels, our Hoosier rajah, gave anyone who doubts the value of building highways where none currently exists the back of his autocratic hand. “Throw away the rule book to the extent the feds will let you do it,” drawled the guv. He then went on to say that we could cut costs by cutting corners – making medians more narrow and using a thinner layer of pavement. Never mind that thinner pavement means perpetual repairs and maintenance. That’s how we put people to work in this state!

And I thought a Hoosier value was that any job worth doing was worth doing well.

Let’s return to Daniels’ WSJ column for a moment. To that part about “reform in taxation, regulation and infrastructure building.” As the two examples I’ve just cited illustrate, it’s Daniels, not the federal government that’s been running down our infrastructure and subverting regulations. You don’t find yourself rated at the bottom of just about every meaningful measure of environmental quality for nothing – unless, of course, you do nothing.
And as to taxation…In his column, Daniels admits that Indiana lags behind the nation in earned income (another colonial marker, by the way – part of being a colonist rather than a full-fledged citizen is never being paid what you’re worth). Presumably we make up for this with our relatively low cost of living. But look around: the cost of historically neglected services, from public safety to sewers, is going up. Which means, you guessed it, so are taxes. Hoosiers are paying more, not for enhanced services, but just to keep up with basics.

Speaking of taxes: There’s a certain football stadium in Indianapolis the guv made a splash by commandeering a few years back. Now it seems paying for it is the city’s problem. That’s tax policy for you.

Pundits have speculated that Daniels’ recent swagger amounts to positioning for an eventual run for national office. He’s gotten the attention of Republicans because, while Obama barely won in Indiana, Daniels beat his opponent handily. But the pundits overlook the colonial nature of Indiana politics – the tendency of one or the other party to play dead whenever an incumbent appears strong. Jill Long Thompson ran against Daniels and, somehow, managed to never challenge the guv’s fixation on I-69 or his propensity for trying to turn our environment into a profit center for out-of-state corporate interests – yet another colonial characteristic.

Still, I can agree with Daniels that it’s high time Indiana stood up for itself. Clean water, air and land should be a Hoosier birthright. Agriculture that’s locally-owned and diversified in terms of what is grown and harvested should be a key to Hoosier identity. And so should our ability to manufacture products capable of helping everyone live greener, more sustainable lives. An economy designed to serve the state’s communities rather than the other way around ought to be our goal for future development.

An Indiana known for these things wouldn’t be a colony. But then Mitch Daniels wouldn’t be its governor.