O'Bannon looks to raise
taxes
By Matt Poston
City Editor
Gov. Frank O'Bannon's State of the State address
Tuesday night began by recognizing several Hoosiers who served others
at Ground Zero in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"These Hoosiers understand how important working
together is to the success of any mission. As their leaders, we can
do no less. Our mission this session is to do the things that must be
done if we are to build a better Indiana for all our citizens," O'Bannon
said.
O'Bannon stressed that if the projected $1 billion
budget deficit was not dealt with during this year's session, many of
Indiana's advances in education and attracting high-tech jobs would
be undone.
"We cannot slow down; we cannot stop; we cannot
wait," O'Bannon said.
Many of those advancements in education include
higher test scores among fourth and eighth grade students, new facilities
and groundbreaking research at both Purdue and Indiana Universities
and making higher education more readily available to Hoosiers through
community colleges.
O'Bannon said that without tax increases on cigarettes
and riverboat casinos, cuts in education would be necessary, reversing
the progress the state has made in recent years.
"In a choice between those taxes and our schools,
I will pick Indiana's children every time," O'Bannon said.
Cuts in the budget alone were not enough to make
up the projected loss without jeopardizing the state's education budget,
which makes up approximately 55 percent of the state's budget, O'Bannon
said.
This State of the State address is unlike many
of the addresses O'Bannon has given in the past. Instead of reporting
a budget surplus, O'Bannon had to report a grim reality that, without
action, the state would be broke by the summer of 2003.
"We were not elected to lead only during easy times,"
O'Bannon said.
Rep. Sheila Klinker, D-27th, agrees. She said that
legislators have a lot of work ahead of them, and hopes to have the
budget problems remedied by the end of the legislation's general session.
Klinker said that she believes there is a sense
of urgency within the legislators to resolve the issue as quickly as
possible and she said that she thinks there is a willingness to look
at new ideas.
"The current plan is not set in stone," Klinker
said. "But the rhetoric (between parties) is better than I expected."
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