By Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - How best to create and protect jobs will be a key point of contention between Democrats and Republicans as the Indiana General Assembly enters the second half of this year's session.
Democrats say the state should move quickly on infrastructure projects, which would put Hoosiers to work immediately.
Republicans say the focus should stay on staving off the tax increases that passed the GOP-led Senate and Democratic-controlled House last year.
The two parties will try to get enough of what they want to agree on into legislation that can pass both chambers.
Last year, as the state ran its debt up to $1.5 billion through a federal line of credit to pay unemployment benefits, state lawmakers knew they'd have to hold their noses and do something to stop the losses.
They passed a bill that would raise the tax rates most businesses pay into the state's unemployment insurance fund, starting at the end of this year's first quarter. Along with it, they included a series of changes intended to ensure no one is receiving weekly checks who shouldn't be.
When that bill was approved in April, lawmakers estimated it would take until 2013 to pay off the debt. Now that looks improbable.
Republican lawmakers say the recession has lasted longer and cut deeper than anticipated, putting other states in the same predicament and raising the possibility of federal action. Therefore, they say, the state should delay the tax hike by at least a year.
Gov. Mitch Daniels said that allowing the new rates to take effect would be a job killer. He has lobbied the General Assembly for a one-year delay to see if Congress acts.
"If (lawmakers) want to really be helpful, that would be the single biggest thing they can do" to protect Hoosier jobs, Daniels said.
Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, has echoed the governor. His chamber passed Senate Bill 23, which would delay the rate increase until 2011.
That bill's fate in the House, where Democrats hold a majority, is less clear.
"I would hope that we don't fail to take action because we're hoping the federal government forgives us our debt. That sounds to me like one of the things they're always criticizing people for doing - not paying their debt," said state Rep. Dennis Avery, D-Evansville.
The bill is slated for a hearing Thursday morning in the House Labor and Employment Committee.
That's where Democrats could attach job-creation initiatives of their own.
House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, hasn't tipped his hand much, but he has indicated a general interest in spending some money the state set aside in the Major Moves lease of a northern Indiana toll road on infrastructure projects such as bridge repairs.
"It's clearly tied to jobs," House Majority Leader
Russ Stilwell, D-Boonville, said of the unemployment fund.
"The money pays unemployed workers, so if there's anything in there that can enhance job creation, we need to do it."
Stilwell pinpointed Village Earth, the proposed aquarium-museum in northern Warrick County that developers want to fund with sales tax dollars collected from restaurants and retailers they anticipate surrounding the educational attraction.
"It is a unique opportunity," he said. "It delivers what everybody says they want to deliver - good-paying, clean jobs."
Developers project 2,000 construction jobs would be created if lawmakers approve and Daniels signs legislation that would allow for their proposed funding mechanism, plus another 400 to 500 once the facility is up and running.
Senate Republican leaders have balked at the notion, saying they don't like the precedent and don't want the state to lose sales tax dollars it would receive if that money was spent elsewhere.
Still, a Senate committee will give the bill a hearing Thursday.
"For the life of me, I cannot think why we wouldn't move forward" on the project, Stilwell said.