"Here's a tale of two states that should make Hoosiers glad they live on the east bank of the Wabash..."

"-- at least when it comes to paying for state government."

Last week in Indiana, the Daniels administration announced that the state's budget reserves had topped $2 billion, enough to trigger $100 rebates for individual tax filers and $200 for couples who file jointly. In total, the state will give back about $300 million to taxpayers....

Meanwhile, in Illinois...

Last year, Illinois lawmakers scrambled to close a budget shortfall estimated at $11 billion. Despite substantial tax increases and deep cuts in services, the state ended the 2012 fiscal year, which closed June 30, with a shortfall of more than $8 billion. In fact, Illinois' auditor general recently released a report describing the state's deficit as the nation's worst based on the percentage of revenue.

I'm observing this from the next state over, Wisconsin, where we've been fighting over which of these 2 states we'd prefer to resemble.

At the Bead Shop Café...

... you can string words into sentences.

(The photograph is from West Lafayette, Indiana — in part of a grand old place called Von's, which is mostly a bookstore, where I bought this book, which contains the sentence "You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.")

A farm in Perrysville, Indiana.

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Brick and stone.

Seen today, in West Lafayette, Indiana:



This detail shows the charming placement of 2 stones to make a chevron:

"Illinois is a lesson in why companies are starting to pay more attention to the long-term fiscal prospects of governments."

"Indiana's debt for unfunded retiree health-care benefits, for example, amounts to just $81 per person. Neighboring Illinois's accumulated obligations for the same benefit average $3,399 per person."

... Dana Levenson, Chicago's former chief financial officer, has projected that the average city homeowner paying $3,000 in annual property taxes could see his tax bill rise within five years as much as $1,400. The reason: A 2010 Illinois law requires municipalities to raise the funding levels in their pension systems using property tax revenues but no additional contributions from government employees. The legislation prompted former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in December to warn residents that the increases might be so high, "you won't be able to sell your house."

No additional contributions from government employees... In other words: Don't do what they did in Wisconsin.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, we've been pulled into a recall election to replace the current governor with someone who thinks Illinois has got the right idea.

The Marion County Election Board finds Sen. Richard Lugar ineligible to vote in his erstwhile home distict.

The vote was 2-1, with the two Democrats on the board deciding that Lugar, a Republican, has abandoned his residence to go live in Washington, where he has been serving in the Senate.

Hey, you need a real address in the state. He had a house, and he sold it.

Why did Mitch Daniels in Indiana get away with doing something more drastic than what Scott Walker did that set off the huge protests in Wisconsin?

Leon Fink (in Salon) wonders:

In Wisconsin, the union presence seemed wedded to a deep sense of civic identity, including connection to a long-standing state tradition of “progressive” innovation and peaceful reconciliation of differences among competing social and economic interests.

In Indiana, despite the fact that Indianapolis had once hosted more union headquarters than any other city in America, legislated reduction of the union presence triggered no visible sign of larger public hurt. That the union leaders themselves viewed the issue as “mere politics” betrays their own skepticism that worker rights can truly appeal to the public conscience...

That is, love/support/respect for unions needs to be firmly embedded in the culture of the place or you don't get the Wisconsin Effect. Noted. That means you can't suddenly whip up a political frenzy in response to one political move on the other side, no matter how drastic the move is.

Fink drifts off into a reverie. Here's his last paragraph before the one-liner "I’m dreaming, of course. This is Indiana.":

I could only think of how different was the determination of the 1968 Olympic athletes who raised a black-power salute at their official Olympic awards ceremony. If a similar sense of solidarity had been on display in Indianapolis, players from each team might have unfurled a “union” banner — Norma Rae-like — at halftime and carried it aloft to their respective locker rooms. Better yet, they would have handed off the emblems to Madonna, a long-established member of both the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America.

It's actually pretty pathetic when your dreams of deep embeddedness in the culture consist of showy gestures by sports/music/movie celebrities. Madonna, the union member? Why would organizations that boost Madonna resonate with Hoosiers and seem wedded to a deep sense of civic identity?

Face it, Fink: There's a price to be paid for locating liberalism in pop culture. It's not going to be deep. It's inherently shallow. Deeply shallow.

"Prosecutors Banned From 'Jaw-Jacking' Outside Judge's Chambers."

Jaw-jacking.

At the Disembodied Café...

... are you still available?

At the Dough Shack...

... in West Lafayette, Indiana, at dawn, today. A closer look reveals the text...



(Enlarge.)

... above the door: "Lick the Box!"

Amused.

A clothes store in West Lafayette, Indiana, photographed this morning at 7.

The Boilermakers came to town.

This was their big moment:



See Boilermaker Pete there? And the small contingent of black-clad fans from Indiana?



But we won. Yay! It was 62-17, which... I don't know... I heard there was something called "running up the score." Seems to me, we overwon it. Too bad the previous 2 weeks we underwon it.

Thanks to "The Elder" for sending us the tickets. First time I've been inside Camp Randall, and I've been living within walking distance of the stadium since 1984.

The Obama administration will challenge Indiana's attempt to defund on abortion.

Reports the NYT under the headline "U.S. Objects to New Law on Clinics in Indiana":

If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money...


Administration officials said the Indiana law imposed impermissible restrictions on the freedom of Medicaid recipients to choose health care providers.

Indiana is one of at least a half-dozen states that have taken aim at Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions, about one-fourth of those performed in the United States.

But we heard over and over, as the Democrats pushed health care reform, that federal law prohibits funding abortion. How then could Indiana's attempt to withdraw funding abortion violate federal law? How could federal law require states to fund abortion?

Asked for comment on the Indiana law, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provided this statement, cleared by the White House: “Federal law prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from being spent on abortion services. Medicaid does not allow states to stop beneficiaries from getting care they need — like cancer screenings and preventive care — because their provider offers certain other services. We are reviewing this particular situation and situations in other states.”

Medicaid is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, which must comply with federal law as a condition of getting federal money.

So a key point seems to be that Planned Parenthood offers plenty of services other than abortion, and Indiana's law isn't limited to withholding funds for abortion.

It seems unavoidable that abortion will be a central issue in the 2012 presidential campaign. Perhaps this is the real reason Mitch Daniels is avoiding running. He wanted "a truce the so-called social issues," but his signature is on that Indiana law, and he would have to defend it over and over again.

"Women don’t make this up! My Goodness!"

"This is the state of Indiana!"

Downtown Indianapolis.

Architectural details, photographed last Saturday.

The war monument.

This is the "War" side of the State Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis. This closeup shows one soldier using a dead soldier to place to perch his gun...



... and pigeons, in turn, using that gun.

"Moto Fever: Dig It."

No, you dig it.



We're rolling out.

Bulldogs vs. Blue Devils.

I'm watching — out of the corner of my eye — because I'm married... to a Hoosier.

"Politics in Indiana is the old boy’s school. They’re getting ready to put one of their own in," said Tamyra D’Ippolito...

... to FireDogLake.

"My gut feeling tells me they’re meeting in a room, I don’t know if they’re smoking cigars," D’Ippolito said, basically working under the assumption that Bayh’s announcement was timed so the state party could pick the nominee by themselves. "The timing of this is amazing."

D’Ippolito told me she is the first woman to ever run for the US Senate in Indiana. Her impression from working on prior campaigns and from this one is that Indiana political culture is a "tight old boys school, it borders on sexism." In a state where the population is 52% women, D’Ippolito says "in the future, we women of Indiana are not going to tolerate" the chummy, insider culture.

Is that the way to run in Indiana, by flinging about accusations about how sexist everyone is? And FireDogLake has to walk back in an update:

The fact that Jill Long Thompson was the Democratic candidate for Governor in Indiana just two years ago would seem to cut against D’Ippolito’s suggestion that Indiana Democratic politics is ruled by men.

Ouch.

But it's an interesting situation, because  D'Ippolito has been collecting signatures to get on the Democratic primary ballot, to run against Evan Bayh:

She’s collected 3,500 of the 4,500 signatures, 500 in each Congressional district in Indiana, which are needed by noon tomorrow [February 16th] in order to qualify. D’Ippolito said that she’s particularly short in IN-08, in the Terre Haute/Evansville area of the district. Her campaign manager has contacted all of the heads of the county Democratic parties asking them if they would help her get on the ballot.

But she’s not getting the sense that they want to be helpful in that effort.

Now that Bayh is out, there's a danger that D'Ippolito will be the only candidate on the ballot, and other Democrats will need to run against her as write-ins. It's not surprising that people don't want to help her. Here's her campaign website. Read her background. She's a café owner who has never held public office (though she was once a board member of something called Women Inspire).

Why did FireDogLake operate as a brainless mouthpiece for this woman? Are they hoping for a Republican victory in the fall?

Here's Politico:

It would be something close to a nightmare scenario for Democrats: were D’Ippolito to qualify for the ballot, she would be the likely nominee and the party would be left to face the GOP with a political neophyte who said she is running in part to take on a party establishment she said practices “sexism with a big S.”...

[I]n the mad scramble following Bayh’s surprise decision, worried Democrats in Washington and Indianapolis were taking the prospect seriously.

“This would be a complete and unmitigated disaster,” said a leading Democrat in the state. “We’d be up sh—’s creek.”...

And conservatives saw it as an opportunity to wreak havoc among their foes.

"This could be fun," wrote RedState blogger Erick Erickson. "Those of you in Indiana should go out of your way to help Tamyra get the signatures he needs by tomorrow at noon."

Here's the adorable troublemaker:

Watch out, Sarah-haters, she's wearing lipstick!

She says things like: 

“I’m saying it’s an inside job. Indianagate instead of Watergate... The White House set this up, decided who they are gonna put in office, called the democratic county heads and told them to secretly get signatures. Bingo-bongo.”

Bingo-bongo!

IN THE COMMENTS: Fred4Pres croons:

Not so tall or tan, but lovely, The girl named D'Ippolito goes walking..

And when she passes, each Hoosier she passes, goes oh...
But we watch her so sadly...
Ooh! We'll be up sh*t's creek so badly...

UPDATE: D'Ippolito says she's got the signatures... and then takes it back...

"We have enough signatures and we're ready to go to court. We're ready to fight," said d'Ippolito. "And yes it's politics, and I'm sure there are certain Democrats, I hope they are the minority, I'm sure there are certain Democrats who will try those underhanded activities. I hope they would be wiser not to take that road."...

D'Ippolito said the people of Indiana should choose the candidate, not a party committee. "And this is what the machine in Indiana does not want to happen, because they want to choose the candidate, they want to put another Blue Dog in there," she said. "It's a different body than Evan Bayh, same thing, different face, Blue Dog. We don't want any more Blue Dogs. It's bye-bye Bayh, and bye-bye Blue Dogs in the state of Indiana."

I asked d'Ippolito about the possibility that Republicans may have given her a hand. Erick Erickson, for example, personally encouraged his Indiana readers to sign her petitions. "God bless him, because anybody can sign the petition," said d'Ippolitio. "Republican, Democrat, independent, teabag person, any registered voter with a warm pulse can sign."...

Late Update: After telling TPM that she already had the necessary signatures collected, d'Ippolito is now denying to Greg Sargent that she has them yet, saying instead that she would have them in time.

Oh, she's cagey! Oh! But they watch her so sadly....

UPDATE #2: Sketchy reports that she failed to meet the deadline.

Q: "So is the battle of Tippecanoe the most important historical event that ever took place in Indiana?" A: "That and the birth of Evan Bayh."

A conversation that took place this past Saturday in front of this mural...



... in the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, in Lafayette, Indiana.

And now, Evan Bayh is moving on from the Senate to... ???.