2005
Week 20
May 18, 2005

Hi

This email is coming early because I am so old. My 50th reunion class at graduate school is meeting Thursday in Chicago. This is the first time I have missed a day on the floor, but friends told me that Northwestern/Garrett would not run my fiftieth again.

June also marks 52 years since my first assignment as a pastor. Yes, we had no TV in our home. Hurt the dinosaurs' eyes.

I have about had it with the "tax relief" mentality. These earnest souls assume taxes are bad, like a headache, and one must find relief. I understand the challenge of taxes that gives appeal to such language. However, when we think that way too long we screw up the process and miss some real opportunities.

So I propose we spend a little time thinking about "tax assets." I examine them every day. We all manage assets and if we listen to those with experience we can do that very well. We can avoid poor long-range choices. With the other language/thought pattern, if we see our public responsibility as a pain we are not going to be very creative.

Tax assets include funding for schools, roads, police, fire, courts and prisons, and health services. I do not want relief from any of those. I do want creative, efficient, community-planned management.

That is what we have been doing this week as we wrap up days of budget discussion.

Concealed Carry and fetus protection have been carried over to next January. There is support, but not a lot of enthusiasm, for either one and each would chew up 8 to 20 hours on the floor. We only have 8 days left, with much to cover.

We have been looking at future salaries of the governor, secretary of state, treasurer, etc. We are at least 20% under the average figures for the surrounding states. Will try to get up to today's standard for the period from 2007 to 2011 -- which will catch us up to 20% below what other states will be doing by 2011. Argh. We can only change every four years, to affect those to be elected in the future.

We had a group hyperventilation last week, but it has not yet been therapeutic. The issue is a small one, but some declared it to be the biggest deal in the history of legislation. Oversimplified, it is part of business incentive -- we see the value of providing some funds to retrain our present work force over the next few years. Grants are offered for prospective businesses to review our work force pool and provide training for new jobs. Might take $15 million for the first years. Since no one knows who will bite on these grants, the proposal was to "front end" the money -- put it in the budget now.

That is a terrible way to budget. It made far more sense to set aside a special fund for these grants and see what happens. We chose to do this by ear marking, in a way, some of our cash. If it is used we will know how to budget for the future. If it is not used, it returns to the cash reserve. It is a somewhat unusual procedure, though we often use cash funds like this and have done this before with the training fund, but it was a most unusual request. Several senators promise they will not recover for a long time to come.

The good news: senators are 100% together on something! We have united in recognizing that the meth drug is a powerful enemy of our state and citizens. We must develop solid plans, but it is clear we have the political will to do "the needful," as the old-time preacher put it.

Go Thou and Do the Needful.

Lowen