Pelath Calls For Focus on Income, Jobs
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath (D-9) believes Governor Mike Pence is not coming up with enough ideas to help middle class Hoosiers. In his reaction to the State of the State address, Pelath says lawmakers should be focusing on improving incomes, reducing wage disparity and creating jobs. He says instead of addressing those issues, time during the current legislative session “will be wasted” on what he believes is a “needlessly divisive debate over who marries whom.” January 14, 2014
News Release
Indiana House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath from Michigan City today released the following statement after Gov. Mike Pence’s annual State of the State address:
“As always, the governor is a fine public speaker.
“But his eloquence cannot mask an agenda that fails to meet Indiana’s biggest challenges. Threadbare ideas do little to ease the pain faced by our state’s aching middle class.
“We are asked to believe that the cure to putting Hoosiers back to work is a proposal to either eliminate the business personal property tax, as the governor proposes, or scale it back substantially, as the Republican leadership in the Indiana House and Senate have advocated.
“In any or all of the above, the proposals will put money into the pockets of corporate boardrooms across Indiana, rather than into the pockets of Hoosier families that have the ability to spend that additional income in a manner that actually benefits our economy.
“The governor’s proposal is a jobless creation plan.
“It will not improve household incomes, which have declined by a greater percentage than 47 other states.
“It will not increase the average income for Hoosiers, which is more than 10 percent below our fellow Americans.
“It will not help reduce the wage disparity faced by women in Indiana, who make 73 cents on the dollar for what the average man makes.
“These are the problems we should be solving the rest of this session.
“Instead, our time and attention will be wasted on this needlessly divisive debate over who marries whom. Even the governor will not douse the flames that will burn for the rest of the year.
“Based on the debate that took place in committee earlier this week, it is apparent that any action on House Joint Resolution 3 and its companion measure (House Bill 1153) will only serve to sow more seeds of confusion among lawmakers and the public. Quite frankly, no one understands the full impact of what is being proposed here, and that is why we do not need to muddy the waters any more this session.
“There are better things for us to do with our time.”Source: Indiana Democratic Party