CPAC had a gathering of Republican Governors today. As Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) on Twitter noted, the Brownback/Walker/etc. panel was called “How to ruin your state’s economy with one easy tax cut.” So naturally my thoughts shifted to the one way blowing up your state’s economy could be ameliorated: if some unearned windfall occurred. Could a Legislature be saved from itself? Lo and behold, the PowerBall jackpot was won by a ticket in Lafayette, IN, last night. The Indianapolis Star (Dan Quayle’s ancestral paper, fwiw) notes that this is the second large-value ticket won in the Hoosier State in the past nine months: A Powerball ticket purchased in Lafayette is worth about 5 million this morning, a Hoosier Lottery official said Thursday…. In July, another Hoosier hit a big jackpot in the Mega Millions game. That ticket, worth about 1 million, was sold at a Speedway gas station in Cambridge City. One great thing about having people win nearly ,000,000,000 in the lottery is the tax windfall for the State.
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CPAC had a gathering of Republican Governors today. As Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) on Twitter noted, the Brownback/Walker/etc. panel was called “How to ruin your state’s economy with one easy tax cut.”
So naturally my thoughts shifted to the one way blowing up your state’s economy could be ameliorated: if some unearned windfall occurred. Could a Legislature be saved from itself?
Lo and behold, the PowerBall jackpot was won by a ticket in Lafayette, IN, last night. The Indianapolis Star (Dan Quayle’s ancestral paper, fwiw) notes that this is the second large-value ticket won in the Hoosier State in the past nine months:
A Powerball ticket purchased in Lafayette is worth about $435 million this morning, a Hoosier Lottery official said Thursday….
In July, another Hoosier hit a big jackpot in the Mega Millions game. That ticket, worth about $541 million, was sold at a Speedway gas station in Cambridge City.
One great thing about having people win nearly $1,000,000,000 in the lottery is the tax windfall for the State.
So what is the brilliant Indiana State Senate planning to do with those windfall profits? If you guessed “invest in human capital,” you must be an idiot or an economist (but I repeat myself):
A powerful Indiana Senate panel on Thursday slashed a proposed funding increase for a state program that sends poor children to preschool, jeopardizing a major pillar of Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s agenda.
The move imperils efforts by Republican and Democratic education advocates to help Indiana catch up with more than 40 other states that offer significant preschool programs, according to 2015 figures from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.
So much for that Rutgers-joining-the-Big-Ten thing meaning that Indiana State Senators pay attention to the needs of their constituents:
Increasing state funding for preschool programs was a major issue in the governor’s race last year. Democrat John Gregg called for a universal program, while Holcomb said he supported expanded access for poor kids. The state currently spends $10 million a year on a preschool pilot program, called On My Way Pre-k, which is offered in five counties. But advocates say demand far outstrips available funding and sought $50 million for preschool programs in the next state budget.
The Thursday vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee reduced a $10 million a year increase that Holcomb sought to $3 million.
Maybe that $7MM savings will go toward saving two more jobs at Carrier. Maybe the Fed could get interested; I hear an unpopular ex-Governor from that State might now have a position of power there.
The current pilot program was created at the behest of former Gov. Mike Pence, now the vice president, over the objection of many skeptics. But Pence shocked advocates when he opted not to seek $80 million in federal preschool funding for the effort.
Gosh, I wonder why he “shocked” them?
The adoption of a statewide program has proven politically difficult with tea party groups, religious conservatives and a network of home schoolers opposed.
Oh, right, because they were stupid enough to believe he cares about his constituents in the first place.
Short of destroying the entire Midwest with a neutron bomb, there is no chance those states will contribute positively to the economy this century. But economists will keep pretending that they aren’t destroying their seed corn, which may be even more pathetic.