This article originally ran in The Daily Journal on December 24, 2024.
I have often thought that the words we choose when marketing our ideas reveal much about our underlying values. Over the last two decades, Hoosier policymakers have certainly gone heavy touting the dismal science of our state. Sloganeering like Aiming Higher, Major Moves, A State That Works, Restart Your Engines, and Indiana is for the Winners all speak, to one degree or another, of the economics of Indiana. After a 7-year run, we’re finally coming to the end of the Next Level Agenda era. Which, I’m sure there is a creative director at some branding firm still giddy about getting the green light to weave a gaming reference into a statewide policy campaign.
With so much emphasis placed on ROI, it shouldn’t surprise you that our state’s default policy focus is economic development. International trade missions and capital investment press releases are the lens through which we filter Hoosier success. Whether you're an elected official, or an employee of the BMV, everyone is–if even unbeknownst to them–expected to be a job creator. If every sailor in the Navy is ultimately a firefighter, every member of state government is an agent of the IEDC.
While it was roundly mocked at the time, I was always partial to the admittedly twee tourism slogan Honest To Goodness Indiana. As the father of a son on the spectrum, I find myself less concerned with a quantity of place than I am a quality of place. After all, when everything is reduced to its actuarial components, it’s easy to forget that an economy ultimately exists to serve people, not the other way around.
Disability issues–particularly those involving intellectual and developmental disabilities–have been a policy domain that I’ve leaned into during my time in the State House. While the last two legislative sessions have not been without wins for Hoosiers living with a disability, special needs families have increasingly been forced into a defensive posture, often caught up in belt-tightening measures whenever the budget necessitates.
As the legislature prepares to convene in January, many friends and colleagues who share my conviction on these issues have expressed a spectrum of emotions that range from skepticism to existential dread. Certainly, opportunities to move the needle on these issues face strong headwinds: the long term growth of Medicaid, revenue forecasts missing their mark, and the still-raw $1B Medicaid rounding error by FSSA have many in this policy space lowering expectations. However, I remain optimistic.
A new General Assembly will also see a new administration. And, budget constraints aside, a new Governor will bring with him fresh perspective and fresh leadership. If internal transition personnel alone is any indication, then Governor-elect Mike Braun represents the first truly new GOP administration in over a decade. His restructuring of state government from scores of agency reports into a cabinet model of eight policy verticals reveals that he understands that Indiana is a complex organization that serves a much broader constituency than the site selectors of the Fortune 500.
More to the point, as a special needs dad, I appreciate the words he chose to define his agenda: Freedom and Opportunity. Good marketing, by design, is meant to be interpretive. However, it strikes me that the choice of such words is an intentional gesture toward policymaking on a more human scale. “Winning,” “boldness,” and references to motorsports are the banalities of boardrooms. Those concerned with matters of human flourishing do not speak of life in such terms.
To be clear, I’m not saying that advocates for disabled Hoosiers will not have to continue to play fiscal defense this session. Rather, tautologies aside, I believe there could be more opportunity in a Freedom and Opportunity era to help special Hoosiers achieve greater measures of both.
Many of the solutions that I, and others, who care about this policy domain are advocating for this session are essentially fiscally neutral. It begins with removing many of the perverse incentives and regulations that keep so many disabled Hoosiers from achieving greater independence: burdensome restrictions around earning, saving, and marrying.
Concerning Opportunity, it may surprise you to learn that nearly 80% of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are unemployed or underemployed. For individuals on the spectrum, that number is closer to 85%. These are unconscionable statistics in 2024. They pervade the thoughts of every special needs parent as we are universally haunted by one question: “What will become of my child once I’m gone?” Because, when I watch my son put his left shoe on his right foot every morning as he has for the last four years, despite teaching him the correct way–every morning as we have for the last four years–I cannot afford to presume that he will be among the fortunate 15%.
However, those who do work often have to turn away raises, bonuses, or overtime due to extremely low resource limits to qualify for Medicaid. If that wasn’t enough, the government caps how much an individual may save for their personal rainy day fund. Many disabled Hoosiers are one broken household appliance away from being financially devastated.
In terms of Freedom, the system currently treats one’s marital status as a net negative, often finding individuals choosing between access to much-needed services, or marrying the one they love. At best, it has led to a sort of relational black market of unofficial unions and cohabitation; at worst, divorce or forgoing marriage altogether. With so much angst on the Left over marriage equality, and natalist hand-wringing on the Right over the growth of the never-marrieds, this ought to be a source of common ground.
While the intent of such limitures was to prevent those who would game the system, in practice these policies have had the unintended consequence of denying both freedom and opportunity for thousands in order to prevent the fraud of tens. Raising limits, or better yet, removing them altogether, while
disregarding marital status, would cost the state nothing while opening up greater opportunities for Hoosiers living with a disability. Which, in turn, will lead to more individuals living lives of greater independence, less dependence, and contributing more within our society. After all, isn’t that the Neoliberal promise of economic development? Using the levers of government to remove barriers that will ostensibly pay future dividends? How much more that we should treat human capital with the same regard as a data center.
I enter the 2025 session with a degree of hope, because I believe that the words we choose matter. And, if Freedom and Opportunity is this administration’s justification for governance, then I look forward to working with them to ensure special Hoosiers see more of both.