{"id":516,"date":"2021-02-23T20:36:43","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T01:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/?p=516"},"modified":"2021-03-03T08:43:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T13:43:20","slug":"letter-to-the-editor-the-indiana-gop-doesnt-care-about-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/23\/letter-to-the-editor-the-indiana-gop-doesnt-care-about-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the Editor: The Indiana GOP doesn&#8217;t care about you."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>UPDATE 3\/2: The local newspaper decided to publish my probably-a-little-too-long letter. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bannergraphic.com\/story\/2868774.html\">You can check it out here<\/a> (give them clicks!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To the editor,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re all tired. It\u2019s been a long year. We need our leaders to cut the crap and work on addressing the challenges Hoosiers face every day &#8211; a better economy, improved healthcare, education for our kids. The General Assembly should focus on these issues, but the GOP Supermajority has a different agenda &#8211; they would rather fight culture wars and help their wealthy friends. The republicans that we sent to represent us aren\u2019t solving our problems; they\u2019re creating new ones for us.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s what the Indiana GOP has decided to prioritize over the issues Hoosiers care about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Taking money from our schools <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wdrb.com\/news\/indiana-voucher-plan-could-take-1-3-of-school-funding-boost\/article_7a7acb2b-758a-54e4-8218-565d76007fd3.html\">to fund vouchers<\/a>,<\/li><li>Lowering <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheWheltonGroup\/status\/1351698061484052489?s=20\">lead standards and relaxing lead reporting requirements<\/a> in schools,<\/li><li>Redrawing school district lines so that<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2021\/02\/18\/indiana-gop-lawmakers-boo-shout-down-black-colleagues-house-floor\/4491682001\/\"> schools are more segregated<\/a>,<\/li><li>Taking away <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2021\/02\/18\/indiana-gov-holcomb-signs-covid-19-liability-bill-lawsuit-protection\/4493184001\/\">any recourse you\u2019d have<\/a> if your employer doesn\u2019t take necessary safety precautions,<\/li><li>Punishing people who make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wboi.org\/post\/bill-proposed-curb-unemployment-fraud-some-worry-it-goes-too-far\">honest mistakes on unemployment forms<\/a>,<\/li><li>Keeping teacher pay among the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.in.gov\/gov\/files\/Teacher-Pay-Report-FINAL.pdf\">lowest in the midwest<\/a>,<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibj.com\/articles\/senate-committee-narrowly-approves-indygo-bill\">Fighting a turf war over Indianapolis<\/a> and rescinding ordinances that Indy residents support,<\/li><li>Making it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2021\/01\/29\/senate-bill-to-prevent-indianapolis-name-change\/4291362001\/\">illegal for cities to change names<\/a>, despite no city wanting to,<\/li><li>Allowing developers to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/environment\/2021\/02\/08\/indiana-wetlands-bill-law-program\/4310796001\/\">destroy wetlands<\/a>,<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/indianahousedemocrats.org\/news-media\/pryor-offers-budget-amendment-to-increase-funds-for-food-banks\">Stripping funding for food banks<\/a> when more Hoosiers need them than ever,<\/li><li>Preventing even having a debate about the <a href=\"https:\/\/indianahousedemocrats.org\/news-media\/indiana-house-republicans-reject-minimum-wage-increaseagain\">state minimum wage<\/a>,<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwitimes.com\/news\/local\/govt-and-politics\/house-republicans-vote-down-attempts-to-include-democratic-priorities-in-proposed-state-budget\/article_62a16b8e-bbaa-5bb8-ad71-65da9d3bfbaf.html\">Blocking sales tax breaks<\/a> to help small businesses during the pandemic,<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibj.com\/articles\/indiana-missed-big-by-not-adopting-work-share\">Blocking workshare programs<\/a> which keep people working,<\/li><li>Changing rules to make it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/opinion\/2021\/02\/17\/op-ed-muzzling-charitable-bail-would-burnish-money-bail-legacy\/6726067002\/\">harder for people to post bail<\/a>,<\/li><li>Allowing cops to<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2021\/02\/19\/indiana-senate-civil-forfeiture-unlawful-assembly-government-property-seizure\/\"> take your property<\/a> even if you have not been convicted of a crime.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what the Indiana GOP has deemed essential during a global health and economic crisis. The leaders we sent to Indianapolis aren\u2019t interested in making your life better; they want to fight culture wars. They\u2019re not helping workers and folks struggling to get by; they want to ensure wealthy business owners\u2019 profits are growing. They aren\u2019t taking steps to help students; they want to give their own businesses unfair advantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re all tired of this pandemic, we\u2019re tired of politics, and we\u2019re tired of the everyday challenges that are becoming the new normal. Increasingly, we\u2019re tired of the politicians in the statehouse. We\u2019re tired of being failed by those who run our state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Senator Bray, Senator Crane, and Representative Baird &#8211; how much longer will you test our patience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin Verhoff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re all tired. It\u2019s been a long year. We need our leaders to cut the crap and work on addressing the challenges Hoosiers face every day &#8211; a better economy, improved healthcare, education for our kids. The General Assembly should focus on these issues, but the GOP Supermajority has a different agenda &#8211; they would rather fight culture wars and help their wealthy friends. The republicans that we sent to represent us aren\u2019t solving our problems; they\u2019re creating new ones for us. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42,28],"tags":[10,22,35,43],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indiana-politics","category-local-politics","tag-general-assembly","tag-gerrymandering","tag-indiana","tag-letter-to-the-editor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":521,"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinverhoff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}