Letter to the Comrades of Central Indiana DSA (CINDSA)

 

Comrades,

 

The strength of Central Indiana DSA (CINDSA) has lain in its positive, non-ideological, pragmatic approach that has concentrated on such vitals as housing and union organizing, items that directly

affect the working and personal lives of ordinary working people.  This has enabled CINDSA to reach out positively into the Indianapolis community, and draw support from people who would not ordinarily be drawn to an organization espousing socialism.  With good results, as we’ve seen in the recent campaigns for seats on the Indianapolis City-County Council for its new term that starts in 2024.  While CINDSA members may not be “thoroughly informed” on the often arcane left ideological causes of DSA at the national level and in the key national chapters, and where CINDSA has also been blessed by not having warring national caucuses who are roiled on these issues, its non-ideological, pragmatic approach has paid off and enabled CINDSA to do good work, from what I can see from my limited vantage point of not being able to participate much in CINDSA.

 

I have of necessity to work a political life-killing second-shift job at Kroger, which, because it is in retail, also means not having weekends available either.  (However, politically I’m able to somewhat make up for this by being a member of my union at Kroger, UFCW Local 700, and participating in the movement to build a strong reform caucus within this union.)  I participate somewhat more at the national level through Facebook, through a network of left Friends there, and I keep abreast of what national DSA is doing.  Although I am not a formal member, politically I’m aligned with the traditional social-democratic caucus within national DSA, North Star, and a strong adherent of DSA founder Michael Harrington’s “left wing of the feasible.”  I too am essentially pragmatic, and strongly believe that positive results, far more than “correct” ideology, are what are crucial and draw ordinary working people to support DSA politics and proposals.  However, I will say bluntly that much of what comes out of national DSA and its leading chapters is ultraleft, often drivel, and is even a throwback to neo-Stalinism. 

 

CINDSA has not become embroiled on issues such as Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas War, which are very much dividing points for DSA at the national and key local levels.  That is in fitting with CINDSA’s pragmatic approach.  For myself, I do not believe the struggle in Ukraine is a “proxy war” between Russia and the US and NATO.  I support the Ukrainian drive to preserve its independence, and achieve national self-determination.  This is, to me, consistent with the Marxist principle of, above all, the right of small nations to self-determination, even independence, and to be free of Great Power bullying.  For this same reason, I support (support which is only theoretical at this time) the rights of Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Taiwan to their own rights of self-determination, and to be independent of China should their peoples wish.  I wrote this up in an article published earlier this year by the excellent left group, the British Trotskyist Alliance for Workers Liberty, which is linked here, and which I hope CINDSA comrades will read.  (https://workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-26/marxist-case-tibet-xinjiang-hong-kong-and-taiwan-independence; see also, published as an addendum to my post here, https://workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-26/stalin-1913-and-national-question-note) On Hamas-Israel, I consider what Hamas did on October 7, 2023 to be atrocious and reprehensible, and although I am not at all an automatic pro-Israel supporter, I do defend Israel’s right to defend itself (which Sen. Bernie Sanders also supports), and believe Hamas must be extirpated, as it is an Islamofascist entity.  I know I differ from some comrades here, as the issue came up with two of them on Facebook, and they defriended me over my views, but that’s no matter—friendships often come and go on Facebook.  What was appalling to me was DSA’s support of the antisemitic “Free Palestine” rally in support of what Hamas did that occurred the very next day, October 8, in New York City, and which both New York DSA and national DSA doubled down in support of.  No, comrades, terroristic attacks on civilians are not, decidedly not, “resistance” and “decolonization,” and anybody who asserts so has lost both moral compass and intellectual bearing!  Some things are just simply beyond the pale; so atrocious there is no way to ever justify or excuse them.  Examples are the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941; 9/11; and the October 7 attacks by Hamas.  No one, now matter how grievous it is alleged they acted (and in the case of the October 7 attacks, all the Israeli victims did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time), certain things are never, ever justified.  We must be morally and intellectually clear on that, in my opinion.  It is to the great discredit of both national DSA and certain key DSA chapters that justified or even celebrated the Hamas attack that they did so.  Such is to be rooting for, act as cheerleaders for, unconscionable mass murderers, and far too many in DSA were simply, egregiously, wrong here.

 

Comrades of CINDSA, you are youthful for the most part, far younger than am I, 77 years old now.  I am a veteran of the 1960s left, an active left force that existed long before many of you were born, and which also petered out from both an onslaught from the right (Nixon, Reagan) and, just as tellingly, from its own inadequacies, principally its substitution of moral indignation for concrete political programs.  Comrades, the great US early 20^th Century philosopher, Santayana, tells us so well:  “Those who do not remember history are condemned to relive it.”  So, please, Comrades, I urge you—learn the history of earlier left movements, both for the positive lessons they can give us, as well as for the negative ones.

 

On a positive note, youth is a time of vitality and questioning; however, it is also a time of know-it-all arrogance and stupidity.  Be willing to learn from older comrades, many of whom are resigning now in disgust from DSA, despite being members for decades, because of DSA’s present de facto pro-Hamas attitude.  This, Comrades, is no time for “Good riddance!” flippancy.  One of the great failures of the 1960s New Left was the great youth of its activists and leadership.  We of the New Left were young and arrogant, and so we made a lot of mistakes we needn’t make.  And in the end, following the fiasco of the 1969 SDS National Convention, literally went “poof!” overnight—from an organization 100,000 members strong to nothing!  That could happen too easily to DSA too—already it has lost 20% of its membership.  The youthful enthusiasm of those under 35 who are now drawn to DSA because of Israel-Hamas are not enough to make DSA grow if DSA alienates those of the population 35 and older, who are far more pro-Israel than those younger, with ignorance notable among the young, I’m sad to say.  A recent poll indicated that 20% of Gen Zers believe the Holocaust was a hoax!  67% believe that Jews as a class are “oppressors.”  Far too much of the US public believes there was an independent country called Palestine before the creation of Israel (as a fact, there was no such entity).  Comrades of CINDSA, “left” antisemitism is a big problem, every bit as significant, or even more significant, as Islamophobia. 

 

Which brings one more point.  What can I do now to participate well in CINDSA given my work limitations?  Well, for one thing, I could serve as an intellectual resource.  I’m well read on left literature, am a university graduate, am an extensively published writer in left magazines and on left websites, and have also taught adult education courses on China after Mao, Marxism, and the Communist Manifesto.  I also have a BlogSpot blog, “Politically Incorrect Leftist,” (politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com), which I urge all of you to check out.  This Letter will also be posted there.

 

Finally, to end on a positive note, you Comrades of CINDSA are so much better than the hidebound, tired old leadership you replaced!  A leadership that no longer gave a damn about DSA, and certainly didn’t give a damn about you, young Comrades who wanted to carry on the organization.  You will be interested to know that these hidebound oldsters also were against me too.  Even though they had participated positively in my Marxism and Communist Manifesto classes, and was not the ogre I had been portrayed as being by the equally hidebound “peaceable religious progressives” of Indianapolis (with whom several of these old DSAers overlapped), I had committed the “unpardonable sin” of criticizing one of their cronies for designing and installing for Indianapolis DSA a most inadequate website.  In Indiana, overgrown high school clique that it is, one just does not criticize cronies!  And so, these hidebound “leaders” plotted against me.  I’ve published two blogs on what happened with them on my “Politically Incorrect Leftist” blog, the first one on August 14, 2010, “Dregs” (linked here:  https://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com/2010/08/dregs_14.html), and a second one that drew on the critical testimony of a lifetime resident of Indianapolis pointedly noting he’d never even heard of DSA here before meeting me.  This second blog, published on February 17, 2011, with the pointed subtitle, “Letter from One of ‘the Masses’” is linked here:  https://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com/2011/02/dregs-aftermath1-letter-from-one-of.html, I bring up this old history not to re-fight old sectarian battles, but to let you know, much younger Comrades, that roiling conflicts with the hidebound “old ‘progressives’” are nothing new here in Indianapolis, or in Indiana, truly a State of Mediocrity!  (Which the dictionary tellingly defines as “not good enough.”)  I hope you young Comrades will check out these blogs of mine, and realize the fight for a good, effective left confronts many obstacles, some of them even internal.  So, thank you, Comrades, good luck, and keep up the good fight!

 

In solidarity with you,

Comrades of CINDSA! 

 George Fish,

DSA member

since 1996

George Floyd Protests in Indianapolis

I haven’t been much able to participate in protests over the police killing of George Floyd because of my second shift job, and also, because of the curfew imposed by the City of Indianapolis.  But I was finally able to participate in one on Sunday, June 7, a nonviolent symbolic action at the City-County Building at noon, where we 25-30 participants, all observing social distancing, knelt for nine minutes of silence, the amount of time George Floyd’s neck was held under the knee of the Minneapolis cop, causing him to asphyxiate and die.  My friend and fellow trade unionist John Jett (he of IATSE, the stagehands’ union; I’m in the UFCW) invited me, and I was glad to join.  And, of course, glad I did.  The organizer of the event, a black man, spoke briefly afterwards, and pointedly noted that Floyd’s killing wasn’t just a racial thing, it was a class thing, because being mistreated by the police happened also to poor whites considered criminals.  (I've since found out he's Chris Shelton of the Indiana AFL-CIO, and now a Facebook Friend of mine.)  When he finished, I spoke to this point briefly, “Being treated professionally and respectfully by the police is not a ‘privilege,’ it’s a right!” and received applause for it from the multiracial crowd.   

As I had walked along Delaware St. to the City-County Building from my car and back, I noticed the boarded-up windows that had been shattered by earlier protests, and felt the poetic justice involved in just whom got trashed.  For one, the windows and doors of the bail bond parasites had been trashed, as had been the front of the Wheeler “Rescue” Mission, where homeless, desperate men could “get” a cheap meal and a bed for one night only, after standing in line for hours, by being “offered salvation” through mandatory attendance at a fundamentalist Protestant fire-and-brimstone religious service and sermon.  Two most deserving targets, in my opinion!

In sharp contrast to many other cities and states, the Indianapolis police, the Indianapolis Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett’s office, and the office of Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb have been quite cool toward the unfolding protests.  While I hadn’t been able to attend other protests, I did receive information on them from friends and media.  At one such, when the police asked the crowd to disperse because of curfew, and the crowd protested it wanted to march on the Governor’s mansion, a Deputy Mayor addressed the crowd, and the demonstrators and police hugged afterward and marched off to the Governor’s house.  Only one ugly police incident here on the part of the police has been documented:  A May 31, 2020 incident in downtown Indianapolis where two women were hit on the legs by police batons, evidently for walking while curfew was called.  This was reported by the Washington Post, the incident filmed by a cameraman with local WISH TV, and can be seen here: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/05/indianapolis-police-arrest/)  The officers involved were removed from beat duty, and both Mayor Hogsett and the Chief of Police said the matter would be investigated.  Donald Trump has decidedly not attacked Indianapolis or Indiana for being allegedly “soft of protestors,” so we’ve been spared that; nor have the police here responded badly, aside from the above incident, as far as I can tell.  (I've since learned that lazy members of the Indianapolis police dispersed protestors at curfew time by unnecessarily tear-gassing them, which is now, thankfully, the cause of a lawsuit filed by the Indiana ACLU and others.)  Perhaps it’s because Indiana is a small state, with only about half the population of neighboring Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, and perhaps it’s also because Indianapolis is not considered a “major city” on par with Minneapolis, Seattle, and elsewhere that have drawn Trump’s wrath, but it is indeed a blessing when such does occur.  So, kudos to the police and the pols for having uncommon good sense in this time of travail, concern and fear.  And let us all remember our Constitutionally guaranteed right to “peaceably assemble,” which can be taken from us only if we don’t use it.

A poem "for" Indiana Governor Mike Pence

 

 

For Indiana Governor Mike Pence

 

Mike Pence,

Who ain’t worth two cents,

How does your Indiana garden grow?

With overgrown noxious weeds,

Gnarly young tree sprouts,

And piercing, stabbing thorns

All over the place, of course!



Indiana’s Brain Drain—the problem that won’t go away

This is a reposting of the very first article I wrote for Examiner.com back in September 2009, and my direct honesty in writing about Indiana's still-continuing Brain Drain raised a slight maelstrom of concern, lest I be seen as tarnishing "images."  But I write it as I see it, no ifs, ands, or buts, the way an honest reporter should.  Slightly edited to bring it up-to-date--GF

According to the Indianapolis Star, the leading newspaper for the State of Indiana, 46.6% of Indiana’s recent college graduates leave the state annually, while the largest influx of in-migration to Indiana consists of those with less than a 10^th grade education.  Already, in a state with an economy that is still nearly 17% dominated by manufacturing, where layoffs are a major occurrence, only a third of Indiana’s workers have a high school diploma of the equivalent, and only 28% of Indiana’s workers in the prime age work group of 25-34 have college degrees.  This compares to 39% nationally.  Yet by 2025 60% of Indiana’s workforce will have to hold college degrees for the Indiana economy to stay productive. (Again from the Indianapolis Star.)

 

But right now a college graduate in Indiana is more likely to be told that she or he is “overqualified and underexperienced” and not hired, rather than hired.

 

I know that personally—for I am one of those “overqualified and underexperienced” college grads, are many of my friends and associates.  And like many of them, I work at CTB/McGraw-Hill in Indianapolis through the temp agencies Kelly Services or Dployit working the regular but strictly seasonal job of scoring the state school system standardized tests that have become de rigueur for the schools since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.  During the peak of the season, over 1,000 college grads are so employed—at a job which, while it requires a college degree, only pays as much as a security guard, with no benefits, and is essentially a niche job with few transferable skills.  (What we do is most akin to what is only part of a teacher’s job—grading tests and papers.)  Yet, for many of us, this is the most substantial employment we have all year round.

 

Jim Weddle, then General Manager for Kelly Services at CTB/McGraw-Hill, keenly aware of this pool of intellectual talent he had out there, has tried to shop around the list of Kelly employees scoring tests to other employers—to no avail.  Just not interested.

 

The recession has made things even worse, of course.  For example, during the 2009 test-scoring season at CTB/McGraw-Hill, from mid-March to mid-June, I saw returning to work many colleagues I hadn’t seen out there for the couple of years.  Their reason for coming back was all the same: laid off from the jobs they’d held previously, often with little prospect of being called back.

 

One such person in this situation is Jerry Hall, a lawyer eligible in Indiana to practice law, but unable to financially afford to do so.  For the last two years he’d had a steady but low-paying warehouse job that enabled him to get by, but he was laid off from that.  He was grateful that there was at least the test scoring to come back to, but had no idea of what he’d do for work when the season ended.  “I hope I can find a warehouse job that will pay me $8.00 an hour,” he said.  Right now he’s diligently looking for warehouse and other unskilled and semi-skilled work to tide him through—but Indiana had 10.7% unemployment in June 2009, considerably higher than the national average of 9.5%, so he was not optimistic.  More pointedly, even if he did have a client who would pay him for legal representation, he couldn’t afford to spend the time it takes to be an effective attorney, for his days have to be spent looking for work, and the regular 2010 test-scoring season won’t resume until mid-March, with little hope for windfall projects being available before then.

 

Ironically, Indiana employers have been importing college graduates from elsewhere to fill the few high-tech jobs available, while Indiana’s college graduates go underemployed and unemployed for “not having the right degree.”  Which defeats the very purpose of the stated official goal of educationally upgrading Indiana’s work force.  Because, for one thing, a college education goes far beyond vocational training, no matter how specialized and technical the profession one’s trained for; a real college education enhances one’s ability to think, to assess critically, to research, to expand one’s intellectual outlook, and to appreciate the arts and culture.  So, while Indianapolis, typical of other Hoosier cities in this regard, has a plethora of shopping malls and upscale restaurants, its dearth of artistic and cultural amenities is not something the truly educated person is going to find attractive.  He or she simply wants more than just shopping malls.

 

Perhaps no where is this better seen than is the latest boosterist fad being promoted to solve Indiana’s economic dilemma: replacing declining manufacturing jobs with new, highly-skilled jobs in biotech.  But Guidant, a biotech pioneer formerly in Indianapolis, left the state when it was bought by pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, and the state has not been able to attract significant biotech investment and venture capital since that departure.  Yet, what’s increasingly become a will o’ the wisp for the quintessentially Rust Belt Indiana economy is still touted widely by Indiana’s politicians and business leaders.  This despite that biotech is fast becoming just another economic development illusion that joins those other economic development illusions promoted in the past—such as Indianapolis becoming the amateur sports capital of the nation, or a major convention and tourism site. 

 

Recently, the Indianapolis Star touted the job-creating possibilities of biotech by pointing to the alleged job opportunities created by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co., and prosthetics manufacturer Cook Instruments, both of which had been in Indiana for quite some time—they had provided 7,200 jobs.  This in a state that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had lost 156,000 jobs from May 2008 to May 2009!  Showing that Indiana’s weak economy hurts its workforce across the board, more than just the college-educated.

 

 

Indiana’s educational limitations, thus, are not constraints that confine just the college-educated, although that they certainly do that—Indiana’s lack of jobs and the substantial lack of education among its workers and potential workers cut everywhere.  Consider that Indianapolis Public Schools, IPS, the public school corporation for much of metropolitan Indianapolis, including its inner city, has an overall high school graduation rate of only 47%, as stated in the Indianapolis Star.  In some of the inner-city schools the rate is only 30%.  And of those who do graduate, half or more do not go on to higher education.  “We’re stuck,” said Philip Powell, Associate Professor of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington, in the Indianapolis Star.   “We’re stuck because we don’t have the knowledge base we need in the labor force.  A lot of that is because of our really mediocre primary and secondary educational system.”

 

 

              

                  

My Deeply-Held Religious Convictions--A Poem in "Honor" of Indiana's RFRA

 

My Deeply-Held Religious Convictions

 

Dedicated to Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act
[Originally published April 2015]



 

prevent me from

upholding,

condoning, or

tacitly tolerating

any form of

assholery whatsoever,

in any way, shape,

or form.

Therefore, as a

Hoosier professing these

deeply-held

religious convictions,

I hereby declare that

I will

in no way

tolerate,

serve,

or pander to

any type of

asshole

whatsoever,

under any

circumstances,

while I reside

in the

State of Indiana;

but will

deliberately

discriminate against

any and all

assholes

I come into

contact with!

No exceptions!

(And no,

no exception

for you,

Indiana

Governor Pence—

or for

any member

of the

Indiana

General Assembly

who made

this legal atrocity

the law of the

Hoosier land.)

 

 

 







Indiana Democratic Senatorial candidate Joe Donnelly’s jobs program is Tea Party Light

This commentary on new Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly's political platform is slightly edited from its original publication on Examiner.com.   This author found Donnelly's platform and program to be Tea Party Light despite his running  as a Democrat; and this judgment has been confirmed by what he has done in office since his election in 2012.  An avowed Blue Dog Democrat, Donnelly follows that pattern of somewhat economically liberal but socially conservative Democratic politicians that are the norm generally in Indiana.  A socially conservative, even hidebound, state that traditionally swings Republican, Donnelly won election narrowly because his Republican challenger, Richard Mourdock, made a major faux pas in the 2012 election by saying that if  woman became pregnant through incest or rape she still shouldn't have access to abortion, because "that's what God intended."  Yet, despite this, Mourdock still got 47% of the vote--GF

Indiana’s Democratic Party Establishment is at it again:  against a strongly right-wing Republican challenger in Indiana, a state so traditionally extremely conservative it can be called hidebound and politically, economically ignorant, the Democrats have once again turned to a self-professed Blue Dog Democrat, Joe Donnelly, as challenger to Tea Party-endorsed Republican candidate Richard Mourdock, who handily defeated veteran “moderate” incumbent Richard Lugar 61-39% in the Republican primary.  Once again, as with the successful running of Blue Dog Democrat Evan Bayh for Indiana Governor and Senator and the hapless campaign in 2010 of Blue Dog Democrat Brad Ellsworth against Republican Dan Coats, Indiana’s Democrats are taking “progressive” and labor voters for granted, assuming they will automatically support Democratic candidates who are more akin to Republicans than they are to traditionally-labeled “liberal” Democrats. 

But while this paid off electorally in the case of Bayh, the result was not good for either Indiana or the nation.  Bayh, who as Governor labeled the state’s labor movement, which had supported him, a “special interest group” and introduced a punitive “welfare reform” measure while saying that single mothers needed to be “slinging burgers” rather than receiving welfare assistance, further demonstrated his self-identified “fiscal conservative” leanings as Senator by being not only the Democrat in office who had voted the most times with the Republicans, but was also a “bipartisan” co-author of the Congressional authorization for George W. Bush’s ill-fated war in Iraq as well as a co-author of the “bankruptcy reform” law that penalized the “middle class” that Blue Dogs claim to support against those “undeserving poor” allegedly leeching from the teat of federal largess.  Bayh, who resigned from the Senate, went on to work for the Chamber of Commerce as an advocate against business regulation, when deregulation itself was a major contributor to the economic recession that has plagued the U.S. since 2007 (which is more than simply a “liberal” view, unless one considers the views of Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman to be based on “liberal” ideology rather than professional understanding).

Currently the Donnelly-Mourdock race is a dead heat, with each candidate having 40% support each among potential voters, with 20% undecided.  Of course, the Donnelly campaign is having a field day decrying Mourdock as a Tea Party extremist who appeals to the far right while alienating independents and moderates, including many supporters of former Senator Richard Lugar.  (The Donnelly campaign has actually launched a “Republicans for Donnelly” committee to pick up support form disaffected Lugar voters, which is already reaping some success).   Further, for the Donnelly campaign to label both the Republican Party and Mourdock himself as dominated by the far right is a pretty easy task, as shown by the items posted on the official Donnelly website, linked at http://www.joeforindiana.com/news, which contains not only Donnelly-camp press releases and citations of Mourdock’s official stances on issues, but news stories taken from the Indianapolis Star and the New York Times.

It doesn’t take much to demonstrate that Richard Mourdock is heavily indebted to the Tea Party not only ideologically but financially, having received important campaign contributions from groups linked to the Tea Party and the far right, and that Mourdock himself expresses positions that many self-identified “moderates” and even “conservatives” would find extreme.  Donnelly’s website shows that very well.  But does Donnelly himself, as a self-identified Blue Dog, i.e., very conservative, Democrat, offer a positive alternative?  A look at his Jobs Program, linked at http://files.www.joeforindiana.com/DonnellyJobsPlan.pdf, shows Joe Donnelly’s proposals themselves to be Tea Party Light, as opposed to Mourdock’s Tea Party Heavy.

And it’s more than a question of “liberal” versus “conservative” ideology; it’s a question of what’s really going to work to create jobs and a vibrant economy both in Indiana and nationally, and what is just a repackaging of the neoliberal economic nostrums that have been around ever since the Reagan days from 1980 until now,  a time already marred by three major recessions, stagnant wages for working people while the already-rich have become even richer, economic inequality that’s at its greatest since 1929 (itself a major contributor to the severity of the Great Depression of the 1930s), significantly increased poverty and intractable unemployment even in good times, and the undermining of the “middle class” that has been going on since the 1970s and which is continuing with a vengeance.  These are all demonstrable facts, and it doesn’t take a “liberal” to see that none of these are desirable; nor does it take much to see that the much-decried New Deal reforms that raised taxes on the rich, provided for Social Security, unemployment compensation, collective bargaining rights for unionized workers, and put into place a minimal social safety net, were positive contributors, not drags on, the prosperity that characterized the U.S. economy from the late 1940s into the mid-1970s.  Anyone saying that they didn’t goes against the palpable realities of economic history and statistical measurement, even though denouncing the New Deal is currently politically fashionable; which by no means would be the first time that ignorance and dismissal of fact became politically fashionable!  Even the most cursory look at U.S. and world history would demonstrate that.

When Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman said in the mid-1970s that “We are all Keynesians now” they were stating economic reality, not political ideology.  Regardless of political opinion, John Maynard Keynes made major contributions to economic science as such, and he and his successors among economists and economic policy makers did something far more that simply spout some new “liberal” orthodoxy.  So did another derided economic thinker, Karl Marx, who is returning to deserved recognition now, thanks to the Great Recession of 2007.  “By their fruits ye shall know them”:  and the fruits of neoliberalism, extreme political conservatism, and centrist political adaptation are much in abundance, have been since the 1980s, and certainly since 2007—and they are unpalatable indeed.  This author submits that not only as a self-identified person of the political left, but also as the holder of an actual university degree in economics itself.

So let’s look at Joe Donnelly’s Blue Dog program for job creation, as stated in the PDF linked above.  The first thing to note is that his proposals are not all bad, as even hard-line economic conservatives would have to admit; but those that are manifest reliance on ‘big government” and applying Keynesian measures in economic policy!  Those that express the current nostrums of political conservatism and economic neoliberalism would actually work against job creation, as I shall demonstrate below.

First, on the positive side, Donnelly demands, “Oppose unfair trade deals that ship Hoosier jobs overseas” and “Close tax loopholes that encourage some Wall Street corporations to send American jobs to other countries.”  Good ideas advocated by many, but also good ideas that run counter not only to neoliberal orthodoxy, but which were also placed into practice by conservative and centrist political practice under Ronald Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton, and are maintained today by Obama.  Renegotiating “free trade” pacts such as NAFTA and CAFTA would be a very good idea, and would benefit not only workers in the U.S. but also workers in countries such as Mexico, where workers emigrate, often illegally, to places such as the U.S because of the poverty engendered by destruction of their own domestic economies by multinational corporations enhancing profitability through unregulated markets that undercut domestic jobs throughout, trample on environmental protections and workplace safety regulations, slash wages, and engender race-to-the-bottom “free market” trade policies.  Same goes for “tax loopholes,” again another manifestation of “unregulated free market” economic policies that supposedly bring benefits to all by enabling the free movement of capital to the most productive workforces, but only mean job cuts for “overpaid” workers and starvation wages for those workers elsewhere who have “more competitive” wage rates.  As Joseph Stiglitz has written so accurately on markets:

 

This we should know by now: markets on their own are not stable. Not only do they repeatedly 

generate destabilizing asset bubbles, but, when demand weakens, forces that exacerbate the downturn come into play.  Unemployment, and fear that it will spread, drives down wages, incomes, and consumption—and thus total demand.  Decreased rates of household formation—young Americans, for example, are increasingly moving back in with their parents - depress housing prices, leading to still more foreclosures. States with balanced-budget frameworks are forced to cut spending as tax revenues fall—an automatic destabilizer that Europe seems mindlessly bent on adopting. (“After Austerity,” Nation of Change, May 7, 2012, http://www.nationofchange.org/after-austerity-1336401779.)

The dismal jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, June 1, which reported a dismal creation of only 69,000 jobs in May and the first rise in the unemployment rate in nearly a year, only underscores the need for a proactive program of direct job creation.  Donnelly indirectly understands this by calling for an increased share to Indiana of federal revenues for road and bridge upgrades, which would directly employ more workers to work on such projects; but then he undermines this understanding by emphasizing “trickle-down” indirect job creation by calling for more tax cuts and economic incentives for small businesses—which may, or may not, result in increased hiring by such businesses.  And though historically small businesses (officially defined as those businesses with 100 employees or fewer) are the biggest job-creators, they are also the biggest creators of jobs with lower wages and fewer benefits, if indeed, any benefits.  What would be far more effective would be a policy of direct job creation such as a new Works Progress Administration (WPA) modeled on the WPA created under the New Deal that provided direct employment to some 8.5 million workers in the late 1930s.  (On such a program and its historical effectiveness see the following articles on the New Politics website: George Fish, “Open Programmatic Proposal to the Broad U.S. Left for Directly Dealing with the Present Unemployment Crisis,” http://newpol.org/node/425; Brian King, “Jobs for All,”  http://newpol.org/node/445; and Jesse Lemisch, “Occupy the American Historical Association: Demand a WPA Federal Writers' Project,” http://newpol.org/node/555; as well as UCubed, “WPA 2.0 is Solution to Unemployment Crisis,” http://www.unionofunemployed.com/blog/recent-news/ucubed-wpa-2-0-is-solution-to-unemployment-crisis/.)

Donnelly also endorses the shibboleth of retraining unemployed workers, which is at best only a partial solution.  First, because skills demanded by employers at any one time are regularly changing, and retraining programs through technical colleges and other places traditionally teach the skills that used to be in high demand, but are not necessarily so at present; second, many laid-off workers are older, and/or have family obligations that interfere with going back to school; and third, the need for employment for the unemployed is now, at whatever skill level the unemployed have now—which can often be quite high, as many potential workers who are classified as “unskilled” or “lacking in experience” are in fact well-educated college graduates!  (See Bonnie Kavoussi, “Unemployed College Graduates As Vulnerable As High School Dropouts to Long-Term Unemployment: Report,” Huffington Post, February 2, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/long-term-unemployment-college-graduates_n_1250418.html;  Catherine Rampell, “Many with New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling, New York Times, May 18, 2011; and Hope Yen, “1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed,” Associated Press, April 22, 2012.)  This is especially true in Indiana, which has long suffered a “brain drain” due to the lack of high-skill jobs, and where many Indiana college graduates are unemployed, underemployed, or have only temporary jobs.  (See in particular on how college graduates in Indiana can be derisively dismissed as “unskilled” George Fish, “Add another Frustration to Being Unemployed: A Case in Point from Indiana’s WorkOne State Employment Agency,” New Politics, http://newpol.org/node/564, and George Fish, “Indiana’s Brain Drain: the problem that won’t go away,” Examiner.com, reposted on "politically Incorrect Leftist.")

Last, Joe Donnelly advocates measures that would actually be counterproductive to job creation, such as calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution and being fixated on the so-called “deficit problem,” which, as economists Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz (as mentioned above, both Nobel Prize-winners in economics) and University of California economist and former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich have all emphasized numerous times, is a pseudo-problem manufactured by conservatives.  Krugman, Stiglitz and Reich have all demonstrated that truth of “Keynesian orthodoxy,” also confirmed by economic history, that the use of temporary deficit spending by government to create employment (coupled with progressive income taxation on higher income brackets) not only directly produces revenue for paying off the deficit by making unemployed workers employed taxpayers, those same workers’ wages also directly fuel consumption which further creates jobs.  A full-employment economy is a win-win situation, whereas an economy with significant unemployment is a downward-spiral lose-lose situation.  (In fact, the budget surplus that was created under the Clinton Administration was turned into a deficit under George W. Bush by tax cuts for the very rich coupled with high defense spending, notably for the futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.) 

Donnelly also indulges in the all-too-common “bash China” syndrome, by which the U.S.’s economic ills would be solved if China would only revalue the yuan and “play fair” in trade.  But that argument is only partially true, and contains fundamental fallacies.  As the report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) cited by Donnelly himself in support of his hard line on Chinese trade, that of Robert E. Scott, “Growing U.S. Trade Deficit with China Cost 2.8 Million Jobs Between 2001 and 2010,” EPI Briefing Paper, September 20, 2011, http://www.epi.org/publication/growing-trade-deficit-china-cost-2-8-million, states (p. 18):

 

Is America’s loss China’s gain? The answer is not clearly affirmative. China has become dependent on the U.S. consumer market for employment generation, suppressed the purchasing power of its own middle class with a weak currency, and, most important, now holds over $3 trillion in hard currency reserves instead of investing them in public goods that could benefit Chinese households. Its vast purchases of foreign exchange reserves have stimulated the overheating of its domestic economy, and inflation in China has accelerated rapidly in the past year. Its repression of labor rights has suppressed wages, thereby artificially subsidizing exports.

 

So, while Joe Donnelly stands as fundamentally different from open Tea Partier Richard Murdock, by staying within the Blue Dog Democrat framework he himself does not propose an adequate solution to either Indiana’s or the U.S’s fundamental unemployment problem.  He may be the “lesser of two evils,” but the lesser of two evils is not in itself a positive good.  

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

   

The Tea Party and the 2012 Indiana elections

This, and another article from the 2012 Indiana elections, on how Indiana's new Senator, Joe Donnelle, ran on a platform in 2012 that was Tea Party Light, were both originally published on Examiner.com that year, and are reprinted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist" because they have stood the teat of time:  they are both still highly relevant to today's politics--GF

Indiana is traditionally a very conservative state with a penchant not only for electing Republicans, but also a state where Democrats tend to be Blue Dogs and Republicans outright reactionaries.  But Indiana can also surprise on that.  In 2008, while incumbent Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Senate hopeful Dan Coats beat their Democratic opponents by nearly two-to-one margins, Obama narrowly carried the state by 30,000 votes. Governor Daniels, a fiscal conservative who enthusiastically signed into law bills that established Indiana as a right-to-work state and cut unemployment benefits, and said that unions were no longer needed, also called for a Republican “truce” on divisive social issues—even as he signed into law the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Indiana (however, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction against defunding).  Richard Lugar, a long-established moderate Republican who’d served as Indiana Senator since 1976 and earned the respect of Democrats as well as Republicans, lost to Tea Party-backed insurgent challenger (and state Treasurer) Richard Mourdock in May’s primary by a 61%-39% margin—but Lugar isn’t campaigning for Mourdock, and Mourdock’s Tea Party support could make him Indiana’s Sharon Angle or Christine O’Donnell in the tight Senatorial race with Democrat Joe Donnelly.  Angle and O’Donnell, Tea Party-backed Senatorial challengers who handily defeated more moderate Republicans in the Nevada and Delaware primaries in 2010, respectively, went on to major defeats in the general election. 

 

Now, with Mourdock and Donnelly running neck-to-neck, with latest polls showing them in a statistical tie, a Donnelly win would help ensure Democratic control of the Senate.  Whereas Lugar was nearly invincible each time he ran, Mourdock clearly is not; and his hardball campaign against Lugar in the primary has alienated a lot of moderate Republicans and conservative to moderate Democrats who would’ve gladly supported the six-term Senator.  That handily-received Tea Party endorsement that was an asset to Mourdock in the primary could well turn out to be a serious liability in the general election.  That, and non-support from Lugar Republicans. 

 

Joe Donnelly certainly hopes so, and is vigorously trying to appeal to disaffected Lugar supporters as well as portray Mourdock as a Tea Party extremist.  Mourdock, for his part, is now trying to tack to the center, portraying himself as a typical Indiana conservative rather than a Tea Party fanatic, and trying to make what political hay he can by vaguely referencing Lugar’s stated wish after the primary that he hoped for a Republican majority in the Senate (which a Mourdock victory could enable).  But Lugar’s office recently slammed as unauthorized a mailing from an outside group that claimed Lugar support for Mourdock, and Lugar himself has refused to campaign for Mourdock.

 

Another Republican candidate with strong Tea Party ties is Mike Pence, a six-term Congressman running for Governor against Democrat John Gregg.  Only this race isn’t even close—at least not yet.  Pence has a two-digit lead over Gregg in statewide polls, has far outdone him in fund-raising, and has been further aided by an initially lackadaisical campaign on Gregg’s part, along with his inability to rally Democrats and reach out to women and independents.  But Gregg has been aggressively trying to change that lately, pointedly reaching out to disaffected Lugar supporters, attacking Pence’s ultraconservative record as Congressman, and his fixation on divisive social issues such as being staunchly anti-abortion, supporting a cutoff of all federal funding for Planned Parenthood for any purpose, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, and a family as consisting of a married man and woman only couple as heads of household (single-parent households would thus not count as families, nor would households where heads of household were not married, or of the same gender).   Pence also wants to put into Indiana law a stipulation that no other state has—that each piece of proposed legislation be subject to an impact study on how it would affect such “traditional” families as defined above.

 

Gregg has also been actively pointing to Pence’s unabashed Tea Party support and participation—regularly speaking at Tea Party rallies, and being the first member of the Republican Congressional leadership to join Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Congressional caucus.  To counter this, Pence, like Mourdock, has been trying to tack to the center—emphasizing on the campaign trail job creation, economic development, and restructuring education to give more emphasis to vocational training rather than college prep.  But Gregg and the Democrats charge that this soft-pedaling of social issues that Pence engages in now could all change in January 2013 should Pence become Governor, and have the power to force his prior widely-publicized far-right social agenda, which Gregg calls “social engineering.” Pence is also widely considered as planning to use his Indiana gubernatorial victory, should it come, as a springboard from which to launch himself as a future Republican candidate for President. 

 

Both Gregg and Donnelly are conservative Democrats.  Donnelly, a Congressman from Indiana’s northwestern Second District, is a member of the House Blue Dog caucus, while Gregg, former Speaker of the Indiana House from 1996-2002 who describes himself as a “gun-totin’, Bible-quotin’ Southern Indiana Democrat,” was Honorary Chair of the Hillary Clinton for President Indiana Campaign in 2008.  And while Donnelly supported aspects of Obama’s program such as the bailout and Obamacare, he’s also dissented from other aspects of it:  he supports building the Keystone XL pipeline, and opposes cap-and-trade legislation. 

 

While Gregg chose liberal present Indiana House Minority Leader Vi Simpson as his running mate for Lieutenant Governor and actively worked with liberal Democrats and Republicans as Speaker of the Indiana House, he implores prospective voters to “Look beyond the party label” in this conservative state that last elected a Democratic Governor in 2000.  Donnelly calls for tax cuts for small businesses to create jobs and supports a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, conservative measures criticized by this writer in his Examiner.com article, “Democratic Senatorial candidate Joe Donnelly’s jobs program is Tea Party Light,” reposted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist."

 

As for Indiana grassroots Tea Party activists, they are enthusiastically working for both Pence and Mourdock.  A news story from Indianapolis TV station WTHR, “Mourdock finding support among Tea Party,”  http://www.wthr.com/story/19608135/mourdock-finding-support-among-tea-party, quotes Indiana Tea Party activist Greg Fettig as saying that while Mourdock never said he was a Tea Party candidate, “The Tea Party claimed him.”  Fettig said this as he delivered a bundle of pro-Mourdock signs to a fellow Tea Partier for placing, 25,000 planed for strategic placement in Central Indiana alone.  WTHR political analyst Robin Winston says of the Indiana Tea Party and Mourdock, “He was bought and paid for by them and supported by them.”  Dr. Theo wrote enthusiastically in the conservative Dakota Voice of a 2010 “Get Out the Vote” rally in Plainfield, Indiana, where both Richard Mourdock and Mike Pence spoke, that was sponsored and organized by the Indianapolis Tea Party.  (Plainfield is a small town to the west of Indianapolis; the link to the story is http://www.dakotavoice.com/2010/10/pence-and-murdoch-at-indianapolis-tea-party/)

 

Of course, Pence always had Tea Party support in Indiana because of his open affiliation with the Party at the national level.  The Tea Party at Perrysburg blog gushed on January 18, 2012 that Pence had already raised $5 million for his campaign. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/9/tea-party-wins-in-indiana/) But William Teach admonished Pence in the June 17, 2010 Right Wing News for trying to tie the Tea Party movement to a moral agenda that was heavy on social issues such as support for “traditional” marriage and against abortion instead of focusing exclusively on political issues such as limited government, “loyalty to the U.S. Constitution” and individual liberty. (http://www.rightwingnews.com/republicans/mike-pence-states-tea-party-should-also-focus-on-morality/) Of course, sentiment such as Teach’s is not shared by many Tea Partiers, who are enthusiastic supporters of draconian social legislation such as Pence endorses.  Further, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party supporter Rand Paul avidly praised both the Tea Party and Murodck’s primary victory over Lugar in the conservative Washington Times of May 9, 2012. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/9/tea-party-wins-in-indiana/)

 

However, in mid-October a Tea Party group in northeastern Indiana was forced by the property owner to move a billboard comparing Obama to Osama Bin Laden from its original spot near the Allen Co. line (Indiana’s second-largest city, Ft. Wayne, is located in Allen Co.). (http://www.courier-journal.com/viewart/20121015/NEWS0203/310150113/Indiana-tea-party-group-forced-move-anti-Obama-sign)  In September, John Gregg got into trouble for calling Mike Pence a “Teabagger,” a term many Tea Party members consider a slur. (http://blogs.wishtv.com/2012/09/10/did-john-gregg-direct-a-slur-at-mike-pence/)  And in early October an outside group supporting Gregg, Believe in Indiana, posted ads in Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne that show Pence speaking at a 2011 Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C. and tying him to Mourdock as “Tea Party and extreme.” (http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/politics/new-ad-attacks-mike-pence)   Tensions and tempers are running high this election season in Indiana.

 

As is seen from the above, the Mourdock-Donnelly and Gregg-Pence races, and the role of the Tea Party in each, are generating a lot of media attention, far more than usual in Indiana elections.  And this attention is not just confined to Indiana media.  Nationally-read newspapers such as the Louisville Courier-Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Slate have all run stories on these races and the significance of Tea Party involvement, and the defeat of Richard Lugar by Richard Mourdock was a national story as well. Mike Pence and his political career and predilections have long been items of national interest, and have generated further commentary in such Internet outlets as the Daily Kos, Politico and Talking Points Memo.  Indiana newsman Brian Howey published a piece on the vicissitudes of John Gregg’s campaign that was reprinted widely. (Linked at http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/brian-howey/brian-howey-the-curious-campaign-of-john-gregg/article_bd0c126f-2010-5982-9e79-f774baa6cd8d.html)   From these extensive media sources both nationally and in Indiana this writer has drawn much of the material from which this story has been composed—and the links that carry these items of reference,  while far too numerous to list, show up readily on Internet search. 

 

Indiana is normally a sleepy place for news, even local news, so it’s really unusual for such media attention to be drawn to anything Hoosier outside of the Indianapolis Colts.  However, these are unusual elections, and considerably more than usual rides on the outcomes.

 

Riding especially on the outcome of the Mourdock-Donnelly race are control of the Senate and the political future of the Tea Party, both intertwined.  The Tea Party’s had a history of winning handily with its candidates in the Republican primaries, only to lose by large margins in the general elections, and turn what should’ve been easy victories for Republicans for Senatorial seats into resounding defeats and major victories for Democrats.  It happened three times in 2010, with Sharon Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Ken Buck in Colorado.  It could happen again twice in 2012:  had Lugar won the Republican primary, he would’ve been close to invincible in November; and had Todd Akin not won the Missouri primary against the  Republican establishment candidate, that seat, too, would’ve probably gone to the GOP.  As it is, Akin, who notoriously bawled that women never get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape,” is in a tight race with Democratic former underdog Claire McCaskill; and Akin’s candidacy has been essentially disavowed by the Missouri Republican Party because of that remark.  While political handicapper Charlie Cook gave the Republicans a 60%-70% chance to gain control of the Senate in 2011, he now gives a 60% chance to the Democrats to stay in control.  (The information for the above comes from Dana Milbank’s October 19, 2012 column in the Washington Post, “The Tea Party is helping Democrats,” which has been syndicated widely; link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-tea-party-is-helping-democrats/2012/10/19/815e07e0-1a08-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_story.html)   Tea, anyone?        

Indiana FSSA and the shredded Hoosier safety net

Originally published March 2013 on Examiner.com.  Since then, while there has been some improvement in some areas, overall the situation in Indiana has gotten worse.  This particular article was much praised for the thoroughness of its research.  Some editorial changes--GF

Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) was established in 1991 as an umbrella agency to coordinate and provide all human services in Indiana, from welfare through mental health, child care and rehabilitation services.  The brainchild of Democratic Governor Evan Bayh (1988-1996), it was supposed to make the delivery of these services more efficient, and also cut costs.  It has five major divisions: the Division of Family Resources (DFR), which handles eligibility for Medicaid, SNAP benefits or food stamps, and Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance, i.e., what is generally known as welfare; Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning (OMPP), which administers Medicaid; the Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services; Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA); and Division of Aging, which handles long-term care under Medicaid. (State of Indiana, http://www.in.gov/fssa/2406.htm)

 

Also in need of mention under human services, though not part of FSSA, is the beleaguered Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), which handles issues of child neglect, abuse and foster care in the state.  Indiana’s child abuse and neglect rates are among the highest in the country, where child deaths due to neglect and abuse are noticeably high, standing at a rate of 12.2 instances per 1,000 children under 18 in 2011, according to the Indiana Youth Institute.  (http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=IN&loc=16; Indiana Daily Student, “Indiana child abuse rates 1.5 percent times the national average,” September 13, 2007, http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=56055&section=search; Niki Kelly, “Indiana’s fatal child abuse rate increases,” Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette, April 2, 2010, http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20100402/NEWS07/304029971/1002/LOCAL; “More Indiana Children Die from Abuse, Neglect, Report Says,” November 1, 2011, http://www.sjccasa.org/images/images/Indy%20Channel%20News.pdf)

 

The DCS’ “Annual Child Fatality Report, July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010,” issued February 2012, http://www.in.gov/dcs/files/fatalitiesreportSFY2010.pdf, has a revealing chart on p. 3, which I’ve copied below:

 

SFY Total   Abuse   Neglect   Previous Involvement

2003   51      34           7                               11

 

2004   57      22         35                               19 

 

2005   54      24         30                               20

2006   53      30         23                               11

2007   36      17         19                                 9

2008   46      24         22                               15

2009   38      24         14                                 9

2010   25      19           6                                 4

 

As shown, there were 360 children’s deaths from abuse or neglect in Indiana in the eight years from 2003 through 2010; further there were over 50 deaths annually from 2003 through 2006.  Also, and quite disturbing, these deaths occurred despite DCS prior involvement in 98 instances, and DCS intervention was quite prevalent during the years 2003-2006, when the most death occurred.  While both the number of deaths and the pattern of previous DCS prior involvement both tapered off from 2007 on, the DCS had already established itself as a troubled and troubling government agency which had undermined itself and its mission; and even the DCS itself admitted in 2002 that there had been ongoing underreporting of abuse and neglect deaths since at least 1999. (Indiana Youth Institute, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/Map.aspx?state=IN&ind=1131&dtm=2469&tf=18)

 

These are but some indication of malfunction in the delivery of human services in Indiana.  As for the FSSA itself, its performance generally pleases no one.  The various Divisions often do not communicate with one another, as I directly experienced from the 1990s through the present—when disability had not only made me eligible for food stamps and Medicaid, I was also receiving mental health services through Community Mental Health Centers operated under the aegis of the DMHA.  I found out directly both through my experiences and the anecdotes provided by my psychotherapists that persons receiving both welfare and mental health services are stymied by lack of coordination among programs and services.  My long-term pharmacist regularly complains of the arbitrariness and sudden rule changes under Medicaid, as well as the opaqueness of the language FSSA uses, often decipherable only by a lawyer.  Further, three times I’ve been ruled ineligible for benefits I was entitled to, which I won back on appeal—a process usually taking six months, and in one instance, over a year.

 

In 2006, under Republican Governor Mitch Daniels (2000-2012), the FSSA contracted out its welfare eligibility determination to IBM, an ill-fated move that lasted until 2010, and was marked by repeated malfunction by IBM, resulting in delays for benefits and the turning down of applicants who were, in fact, eligible for benefits.  Ironically, Daniels privatized welfare services in the same year that Texas, which had earlier privatized such services, abandoned privatization because it hadn’t worked.  Now Indiana has a hybrid system of local offices and centralized call centers and document centers which Indiana residents can use to apply for benefits, handle appeals, and provide documentation for their cases.  However, as I’ve directly experienced, at least in 2012 these centralized services worked none too well; in particular, I remember a call on December 18, 2012 to the central call-in center on a denial of eligibility issue, and found that the center only had data through the middle of November.  Also, as I no longer had a specific case worker, each time I called I talked to a new case worker who was unfamiliar with my case, and had to waste time reviewing the documents which were each time presented anew.  However, I must say that services from the FSSA had considerably improved in 2013, when I received prompt phone calls in both January and February from an FSSA representative on my pending cases, and where the service provided was competent.

 

Indiana has been hard hit by the recession that started in 2007, with both massive increases in poverty and unemployment, making more Hoosiers eligible for both welfare benefits through the FSSA and unemployment benefits through the Department of Workforce Development under the Department of Labor.  However, the response of the Governor’s office and the Indiana General Assembly has been to cut benefits and blame the poor and unemployed for their plight.  In 2011, the General Assembly passed a law which governor Daniels signed that reduced unemployment compensation by 25% and capped the maximum weekly benefits allowed at $360/week, or the equivalent of a full-time job paying only $9/hour.  In 2012 the General Assembly passed legislation, which Gov. Daniels signed, making Indiana a Right-to-Work state, the first such state to enact such legislation since Oklahoma did in 2001.  Touted as a job-creation measure, to date it has not paid off in increased employment, but has, instead, undercut worker protection on the job and undermined unions.  However, Indiana’s unemployment rate stood at 8.3% in December 2012, above the national average of 7.9%; (Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST8000003) and if the Bureau of Labor Statistics U-6 measure of unemployment is used, which includes not only those officially unemployed (i.e., actively looking for work), but also discouraged workers and those only marginally attached to the workforce, as well as those employed only part-time when they’d rather be employed full-time, the rate jumps to 14.2%.  In people terms, this represents 262,000 officially unemployed Hoosiers statewide, and if the U-6 measure is used, 448,500 persons. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST8000003; http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt/htm)

 

Similarly with poverty.  Indiana had a 2007-2011 average poverty rate of 14.1%, which compares to 14.3% nationally.  However, Indiana’s poverty rate for 2007, before the recession, was only 11.8%, and climbed steadily thereafter:  in 2008 it was 14.3%, 1n 2009 16.1%, in 2010 16.3%, and in 2011 15.6%.  Poverty among children under 18 stood at 22.6% in 2011. (Indiana Youth Institute, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=IN&loc=16 )  So, from 2007 to 2011, Indiana’s overall poverty level increased by 32%, rendering 989,000 Hoosiers living in poverty in 2011, out of a total Indiana population of 6,500,000. (US Census Bureau, “Table 21.  Number of Poor and Poverty Rate, by State: 1980 to 2011,” http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html)

 

However, this actually underestimates the number of Hoosiers, as well as US residents in poverty, as the Census Bureau’s poverty threshold stands at only $11,945 per year for single persons under 65 and $11,011 for those 65 an older; while that for a family of four stands at only $23,681. (US Census Bureau, “Poverty Thresholds for 2012 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 Years,” http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html)  But based on calculations of the increase in the Consumer Price Index since 2001, when Indiana’s Economic Development Commission stated a “livable wage” standard of $10/hour for full-time work, that “livable wage” (also called a Living Wage) would equal $12.99/hour as of December 2012 and $13.03/hour as of January 2013.  Since the Living Wage is economically defined as at least 130% of the poverty wage, that would make the upper threshold of poverty $9.99/hour for a single person in December 2012, and $10.02/hour in January 2013.  Indeed, statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics have argued in research papers prepared for the Bureau that the actual poverty thresholds should be 1½ times what they are now to accurately reflect costs of living, which would make the poverty threshold for a single person nearly $18,000 a year, and that of a family of four over $35,500 a year.  As it stands now, the federal income limit for food stamp eligibility for a single person is only $1,211 a month, (communication from DFR, FSSA) or $14,532 per year, the equivalent of a full-time hourly wage of $6.99/hour—less than the minimum wage.  But few who are really informed would call a year-round minimum wage adequate to lift one out of poverty!

 

However sobering these measures of actual Living Wage and poverty incomes are, and which themselves call for extending benefits to combat poverty, both the federal government and, above all, the State of Indiana, are going in the opposite direction, which can only worsen an already bad situation.  Newly-elected Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Republican Tea Party stalwart (first among the Republican House leadership to join Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party caucus) (This, and more, was elaborated on in George Fish, “The Tea Party and the 2012 Indiana elections,” Examiner.com, October 22, 2012, which is also posted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist.") has proposed a biennial budget for Fiscal Years 2014-15 of $29 billion that, while increasing Medicaid spending by $200 million each year, also eliminates dental care, financing for hearing aids, and podiatry services; it also does not provide funds for increasing Medicaid coverage to 133% of the federal poverty level for entitlements, as called for by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.  Instead, Governor Pence is calling for a cut in the state’s personal income tax of $790 million, reducing the tax rate from a 3.4% flat rate to 3.06% rate, a measure that has garnered even Republican opposition.  (Sunshine Review, http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Indiana_state_budget) But Pence’s tax plan is in line with general Republican strategy to cut social entitlements, and thus shred the already-fragile social safety net.  And despite a stated commitment to job creation, this Republican budget under Daniels allotted less than 1% of its funds to economic development, even less than it allotted to conservation and environmental protection.  (Pie graph provided by the office of State Sen. Jean Breaux)

 

As it was, the Fiscal Year 2012-13 budget signed into law by Governor Daniels spent 23% of its revenues on welfare and Medicaid, (Breaux, op.cit.) with some of the lowest levels of benefits in the country.  TANF cash assistance benefits, for example, were only a maximum of $288 a month for a family of three in 2005, (National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, http://www.nccp.org/tools/table.php?states=IN&submit=Create+Table&ids%5B%5D=12-288&db=pol&data=text) and are not available to many unemployed families—the breadwinner(s) receive too much in unemployment compensation to qualify!  Income limit for full Medicaid coverage is a paltry $710 per month, (communication from DFR, FSSA) and receiving more than that means paying a spend-down before Medicaid will pay for any medical expenses.  In my particular case, with a Social Security income of $822/month (the national average is $1,400/month) and occasional work through temp services, my “total countable income” of $990.24/month means I have a spend-down of $280/year.  Further, as I am now working full-time in a warehouse job that pays $9/hour, I will be losing my eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid entirely, although my work income for the nine-and-a-half months of work expected for 2013 will only amount to $14,800 for the year.  However, not only can I expect my medical expenses to substantially increase, I can also expect to pay an additional $300/month for groceries.  All on a job with only a $360/week gross income and net of approximately $298!

 

But I’m now one of the “lucky ones” among my fellow “overqualified” older Hoosier college grads in that I have a full-time steady job, my first in 12 years.  Several of my friends have only seasonal work, and then often don’t even work a full-time week.  One such friend only qualifies for $64/week in unemployment compensation when she’s not working.

 

Indiana is about average for the nation economically.  Its cost of living is near the national average, and while wages are low, so are also housing and other costs.  Its unemployment rate is generally just a little above the national average.  But loss of manufacturing jobs has cost the Hoosier state immensely, so that Indiana had only a 2007-2011 per capita income of $24,497 and a 2007-2011 median household income of $48,393, compared to the national per capita income of $27,915 and median household income of $52,762. US Census, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/18000.html) Indeed, Indiana’s per capita and median household incomes have been falling steadily compared to their national counterparts for the past ten years.  (Indiana Business Research Center, Kelly School of Business, Indiana University, STATS, http://www.stats.indiana.edu/dms4/new_dpage.asap?profile_id=339&output_mode=1; Indiana Institute for Working Families, “Status of Working Families in Indiana, 2011,” p. 24, http://www.incap.org/statusworkingfamilies.html)

 

 Educationally, Indiana is far worse off:  only 22.7% of its residents aged 25 or over had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to the national rate of 28.2%.  (US Census, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/18000.html) In 2010, Indiana had only an 84.5% high school graduation rate.  (Indiana Youth Institute, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/stateprofile.aspx?state=IN&loc=16)

And even though the Fiscal Year 2012-2013 budget allotted 53% of its spending to K-12 education and 12% to higher education (a significant drop in higher education spending from previous years), its primary and secondary schools are still mediocre and  among college graduates, 60%  leave the state each year due to lack of job opportunities.  In 2011, 43.1% of Indiana’s residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher suffered long-term unemployment, while 7.4% were underemployed, and16.2% only worked part-time. (Indiana Institute for Working Families, op.cit., p. 20, p. 14) “We're stuck,” said Philip Powell, Associate Professor of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington, to the Indianapolis Star in 2009.  “We're stuck because we don't have the knowledge base we need in the labor force. A lot of that is because of our really mediocre primary and secondary educational system." (Quoted in George Fish and Dave Fey, “Mediocrity—a Hoosier affliction,” Bloomington Alternative, July 12, 2009, http://bloomingtonalternative.com/articles/2009/07/12/10039)

 

Such is the State of Indiana, March 2013—inadequate social services, shredded social safety net, too-high unemployment, an inept FSSA administering human services, poor education, a Brain Drain, and politics dominated by Tea Party Republicans.  Only thing “good” to report is that it’s about the national average. But that was in 2013; since then, Indiana has sunk below the national average in crucial socio-economic indices, poverty has increased, and though employment has improved, the employment growth has been in the low-wage sector.  Indiana is now ranked 9th among the states in which the middle class is disappearing, http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/01/22/states-where-the-middle-class-is-dying/3/.