An Appeal to My Friends Regarding H.J.R 6

My friends, I ask you today to consider Indiana House Joint Resolution 6, a bill before the Indiana legislature that would amend our state constitution to ban the recognition of any same sex partnership. The text of the bill reads:

Provides that only marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana. Provides that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.

I know many of my friends will agree with the first statement. Marriage is a religious term, and for you, you would prefer that the state not use this term in recognizing same-sex unions. While I disagree, I would like to instead focus your attention on the second sentence. The second sentence bars any same sex couple from enjoying the rights assigned to a married heterosexual couple under any name. I have spoken to many of you who oppose the government recognizing same-sex couples as married. In all cases that I remember, those who feel this way have had no issue with recognizing a same-sex couple as a civil union. The language of this bill would specifically deny those rights of married couples to a same-sex couple even if they agreed to call their relationship a civil union.

What does this mean for same-sex couples? There are a variety of rights that married couples enjoy that will be explicitly denied to these couples. Among these rights:

• Filing of joint taxes
  
• Veteran's disability
  
• Domestic violence intervention
  
• Joint parenting rights
  
• Permission to make funeral arrangements for deceased spouse, including burial or cremation
  
• Right to inheritance of property
  
• Next-of-kin status for emergency medical decisions or filing wrongful death claims
  

Many of my friends feel that same-sex marriage is acceptable, and I agree with you. Many of my friends feel that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the rights of married couples, but should be assigned a different term from their religious definition of marriage, such as civil union. I am not aware of any of my friends who feel that same-sex couples should be specifically denied the rights assigned to their married counterparts. I am pleading with you today to consider the impact of this bill on same-sex couples in Indiana. I am pleading with you to contact your state representative and let them know that this bill does not represent your thoughts on the rights of same-sex couples.

Minimum Wage and Poverty

Unions, collective bargaining, and fair wages are getting a lot of press due to the attempts in several states to introduce Right to Work laws, eliminate collective bargaining for public employees, and generally reduce the power of unions. It got me curious about what the current rules were according to the Department of Labor's Fair Labor Standards Act. What are the minimum benefits that an employer must offer?

The first item that comes to mind is minimum wage. Effective July 24, 2009, the minimum wage was increased to $7.25 per hour. There are some caveats though. If you are under 20 years of age, the employer is permitted to pay as little as $4.25 per hour for the first 90 days of employment. This falls under the subminimum wage clauses of the FLSA. That's pretty convenient for employers who look to pickup temporary help during the summer when schools are out. A fairly shrewd employer could substitute these youths for regular employees during the summer months and cut their wage expenses nearly in half. The hourly rate is even lower for those who regularly accept tips. Employers of tipped employees (anyone who receives more than $30 in tips in a month) may pay an hourly wage of $2.13 per hour, so long as the total of tips and hourly wage for the hours worked in that month at least equals the minimum wage rate.

So let's say that you are single, and you are entering the workforce after graduating high school. You are 18 years old and on your own. You canvas the town and are able to find a job with a local business. The business owner is very shrewd, and is only willing to offer the absolute minimums since you have no prior experience and no higher education. The owner offers you $4.25 for your first three months, with a pay increase to $7.25 at the end of those three months. The business is closed on all federal holidays (9 days in 2011), and is also closed the friday after Thanksgiving. You will not receive pay for holiday closings. You are permitted to take 5 unpaid sick days with short notice, and 10 unpaid vacation days with a minimum of one month notice. The employer notifies you that you may work a maximum of 40 hours in a week, but indicates that those 40 hours will regularly be available.

So how does this first year go for you? First, let's assume you work all of the hours that are available to you in that year.

Assumptions:
52 weeks in the year.
40 hours per week

13 weeks at $4.25 per hour = $2,210
37 weeks at $7.25 per hour = $10,730
2 weeks at $0 per hour (holiday closings) = $0

Your total pay for the year would be $12,940. According to the census bureau, the threshold for poverty in 2009 for an individual under the age of 65 was $11,161.

That's pretty bleak, but that is also assuming the best case scenario that you were able to work every day of the year. In the worst case scenario, where you exhausted all of your sick and vacation time at the $7.25 rate, your annual income would have been $12,070. Minimum wage is just barely keeping you above the poverty line.

Now imagine if you were coming out of high school with a pregnant girlfriend. You move in together, and the baby is born during the year. You are now a house of three. One of you stays home with the baby because the cost of childcare is greater than the wage you are able to earn. The 2009 threshold for poverty for a 3 person family was $17,098. You've worked a full-time job for a year and you are still under the poverty threshold.

I've seen several remarks indicating that Governor Mitch Daniels has indicated that $9 per hour is a livable wage. Unfortunately, I can't find any documentation of this quote, so take it with a grain of salt. Even so, a quick perusal of the job postings in a newspaper or online will show that $9 per hour is a fairly common offer from folks looking for appointment setting and phone support staff. How would that $1.75 increase in pay affect our earner? Let's assume that our worker gets that rate throughout the year, and again, isn't paid for holidays but otherwise works all the hours available.

$9 per hour x 50 weeks x 40 hours per week = $18,000 per year

That would put them above the poverty line for a family of three, but just barely. Keep in mind that this is gross pay too, not take home pay. This has to cover not just food, housing, and transportation, but medical benefits (likely not offered at this wage level), retirement savings, taxes, and all of the other expenses of life.

So what does it all mean? I don't pretend to know. In theory, the appropriate wage for a particular role is what the market will bear. We all want to save money though, so we encourage businesses to seek methods to cut costs by demanding lower prices. Labor is one option for cutting costs, and this can lead to reduced quality when those who are qualified to do a job are not willing to accept the wage offered, but those unqualified to do the job are willing to accept it.

It will be interesting to see how the legislative moves in progress in several states impact their local economies.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting

There has been a lot of discussion recently concerning federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The CPB is a non-profit, private organization created by the federal government in 1967, and is charged with the stewardship of federal funds for promoting public broadcasting. The lion's share of these funds are awarded to local television and radio broadcasters. A much smaller portion of those funds is awarded to companies like National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Both of these companies are private, non-profit media enterprises that generate content such as Car Talk, All Things Considered, Radiolab, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, NOVA, and others.

According to CPB's 2009 Revenue report, the CPB had total revenue of $2,643,336,000. Of that total revenue, 81.9% came from non-federal sources, leaving 18.1% of the CPB's revenue coming from federal sources, or $478,443,816. In 2007, there were roughly 138 million federal tax payers in the US (the most recent number I could find). We don't all pay the same amount in taxes in the US, but if we did, that would work out to just under $3.47 from every federal tax payer going to the CPB.

Two of the biggest issues in politics today (or any day for that matter) are taxes and jobs. The tea party, and by extension republicans, have suggested that eliminating federal funding for the CPB is one method to help reduce overall taxation and move towards a balanced budget. This has met with a mixed response across party lines. Fans of NPR and PBS have expressed concern, and have taken to social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook to plead for continued federal support of these organizations.

In my view, the majority of those pleading for continued support of the CPB are doing so because they enjoy the programming provided by NPR and PBS. I don't have any numbers to back this up, I'm basing this off of what I'm seeing from my social media streams, so this is hardly a scientific analysis. What may not be clear to these fans of NPR and PBS is how little of those federal funds are appropriated to the media enterprises. According to the CPB's Fiscal Year 2010 budget, $28,535,000 was allocated towards radio programming grants. According to NPR's records, federal grants make up around 2% of their annual revenue, which in 2010 were just over $184 million. So doing the math here, NPR received around $3.7 million in federal funds. Television is a similar scenario. The CPB allocates $71,587,500 in grants for television programming. I had trouble finding information on the portion of those grants that were awarded to PBS, but even if it is the full amount it represents a small percentage of the $571 million in total revenue that PBS received in 2010.

The funding to NPR and PBS represents a very small portion of the total funds the CPB distributes. The vast majority of funds are given as grants to local radio and television broadcasters. This is where the real impact of de-funding the CPB would be felt. By de-funding the CPB many broadcasters in rural locations who could not otherwise support their operations will go silent. These rural broadcasters are often one of only a handful of sources available in their area. Growing up, we didn't have access to cable at our home, as our home was in a very rural location. Satellite television involved very large dishes, not the Dish Network and DirecTV that you see today. The stations we could regularly receive at our home were our local PBS station, NBC, ABC, and CBS. Our home was certainly not as remote as what you might find in states farther north and west.

Given this analysis, I don't have a big problem with revoking funding to content producers, such as NPR and PBS. These media enterprises receive a very small portion of the federal funds allocated to the CPB. While any reduction in revenue is painful, to those pleading for continued funding based on their love of the programming, I say, make a bigger donation! I highly doubt that the revocation of funds to either of these media enterprises will result in the end of Sesame Street or Click'n'Clack. However, I do feel that the CPB provides an important service to Americans who do not represent a profitable investment to major network broadcasters. I do feel that revoking funds to local public broadcasters very likely might mean the difference between them staying on air or going off air. I do support the continued funding of these local broadcasters, and I hope that the CPB continues to receive funding to support them.

However, I hope that the CPB's mission is modified. Radio, in my opinion, is a medium on the death march. When do you listen to broadcast radio? At the home? Likely not. In your home, you are much more likely to be watching television or browsing the web. In your car? Maybe, or you might be listening to satellite radio, or your MP3 player. At work? Again, there has been a major shift towards streaming content over the web by office workers. Television, too, is not the media powerhouse it once was. I believe that the CPB's mission should be modified to help meet the president's call to improve broadband internet service to every American. By using the CPB's funding to retrofit local broadcasters with LTE data services (or some other data technology) more Americans will have ready access to broadband internet service. This will provide more than just a public media outlet, it provides access to the wealth of content on the web.

Indianapolis Water

How much attention do you pay to your bills? Do you go through them line by line? Do you save the invoice? I drive my wife bonkers because I save all of the invoices from every bill. I also go through them line by line. I've gotten into the habit of scanning the invoices and destroying the originals to save on stored paper in the house, but at any time I can go through our old bills and make comparisons.

I'm also a nut for maintaining a budget in our house. I know how much to expect on a bill for any given period, and when a bill is off from that expectation I go through it line by line to find out why. Our cable and internet bill is usually the one that gets the most attention as I'm always watching for those introductory discounts to fall off. I was a bit surprised over the course of the last year to find that the Indianapolis Water bill was also fluctuating in seeming erratic fashion.

For those of you in the Indianapolis area serviced by Indianapolis water, go take a look at your bill. You'll notice that there are a few factors that make up your bill: a base rate, volume of water used (in 100's of cubic feet), rate applied to that volume usage, and a tax percentage. The Indianapolis Water utility folks come out from time to time and take a look at the meter leading into your house to get a reading on how much water you have used. They don't do this every month, so you may notice some bills marked with an 'E' to indicate that the volume usage was estimated for the month, and that the next month they will come out for a proper measurement.

Over the course of the last year I've noticed a significant increase in our bill. I was curious why: were we using more water, had the rate gone up, or was it some combination of both. I naturally suspected that our summer bills would be a bit higher as we watered the lawn and filled the inflatable pool for the kids, but I was very surprised to see that our winter bills were higher than those from the summer. What was going on?!

I went through all of those saved bills (huzzah!) and made a spreadsheet looking at our usage and costs throughout the year. Here is what I found:

This chart shows our bill from 01/30/2009 through 02/25/2010. For the first half of 2009 the trend was fairly level, but then we see that increasing trend, even through the winter. That concerned me. So what about my usage?

Well, that explains part of it. Our usage did go up through the winter months. I have a couple of theories on that. One, we have three kids, and in August our youngest hit the one year mark. Three young kids get dirty, no matter what time of year, and that means lots of baths. It also means lots of laundry and lots of dishes. So this could conceivably account for our usage increase. Still, our bill increased by nearly 50%, while our usage only increased by around 30%. Where did the additional cost come from? The Indianapolis Water bill indicates the base rate (what you pay regardless of how much water you use), but does not indicate the usage rate (what you pay for each 100 cubic feet of water). So I charted those as well.

Yuck, our base rate went up by about a dollar each month.

Whoah, and we had a 20 cent increase per 100 cubic feet. Double whammy!

So that explains why my bill has increased: increased usage coupled with increased base and variable rates. All together, the bill breaks down as follows:

Item	Jan 2009 Rate	Jan 2010 Rate
Base Rate	$8.21	$9.10
Cost per 100 cubic feet	$1.82	$2.02
Tax	7%	7%

The only part of this bill that remained constant over that period was the tax rate of 7%. I'm still curious why the base rate and variable rates fluctuated from May through September of 2009. I would have expected a clean cut-over from one rate to another, but instead we see it bobble up and down until it settles on a rate in October. Have you noticed similar behavior in your bills?

An interesting bit of trivia - Indianapolis Water provides the water, and Hamtilton Southeastern Utilities takes care of sewage. In this same period, my Hamilton Southeastern Utilities bill remained a constant $33.55.

The Hoosier Plate Debate

Here in Indiana, you have a few options when it comes to your license plate. Assuming you are driving a car (not a commercial vehicle, truck, motorcycle, RV, or some other vehicle which requires a different plate) you can choose among the plates shown below.







There is no difference in cost between these. By default, the license branch is supposed to offer the simple blue background plate first, and offer the other two as options upon request. If you would prefer, you may pay extra for a plate that benefits the organization of your choice, such as your favorite university, or perhaps Habitat for Humanity, with a portion of the extra fee given to the organization represented on the plate. Further, Indiana permits personalized license plates (PLPs) with some restrictions on what is allowed on the plate. I'm paraphrasing, but the essence of the restrictions are that the common man will not find your combination of seven letters and numbers offensive.

If you live in Indiana, you've probably seen these plates already, and you may remember that the "In God We Trust" plate got some attention when it debuted. The ACLU brought suit against the state, not for the content of the plate, but to contend that it should carry an extra fee. The ACLU lost the case, and the plate continues to be available to anyone who asks for it at no additional charge.

Now, a bit of trivia. Do you consider the phrase "In God We Trust" to be a religious message? If you said no, the Indiana and US courts would agree with you. You see, "In God We Trust" is the official motto of the United States, and as such, is not considered religious speech. Way back in 1782 the phrase E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one") was chosen as the text to appear on the Great Seal of the United States. This became the de facto motto for our nation, although there was never any action taken to make it official. In 1956, the lack of an official national motto was apparently a major concern, so congress worked on a bill and President Eisenhower signed into law that "In God We Trust" would become our national motto. This wasn't the first use of the phrase in our government, as it had appeared on our coins and bills since the late 1800's.

That effectively kills any religious argument against the "In God We Trust" plate, but what about speech on PLPs? Should I be able to reserve a PLP with the text "LUVSGOD", "BE GODS", or "NO GODS"? That's exactly what Jason Borneman wants to know. Jason, an atheist, applied for a PLP with the text "NO GODS". His application was rejected on the grounds that it might be offensive, and he is pursuing this through an appeal. Some have suggested that a more positive message might have been accepted, such as "GODFREE" rather than the negative statement "NO GODS". What do you think? If a "BE GODS" PLP is allowed, should a "NO GODS" plate be allowed too?

UPDATE: Mr. Bourneman received notice from the BMV that his PLP application has now been approved, and he will receive his "NO GODS" plate in February.

Should Secretly Tracking Vehicles with GPS Require a Warrant?

There is a really interesting case in Wisconsin that got a write-up in the Chicago Tribune. In the case, the judge ruled that the police did not violate the suspect's 4th amendment privacy rights when they acquired a warrant for and placed a GPS tracking device on his vehicle. The defendent in this case was suspected of stalking a woman. The police received a warrant, although there is no law that requires that they do so, in order to place the tracker on the defendent's vehicle. It was retrieved a few weeks later and the data on the tracker used to get a warrant to search his home and vehicle for further evidence of stalking. He was later found guilty.

It's a sticky legal situation. In my opinion, the judge made the right decision in upholding that the use of the GPS device was legal and did not violate the defendent's rights in any way. The judge expanded on the decision to make it clear that, although the police did get a warrant in this situation, there was no law that made that effort necessary. The judge clearly called this out to get attention for the issue (congratulations, it was a resounding success) and for legistlators to consider a law that would require a warrant for such use of GPS. So what do you think? Do you agree with the ACLU that the police must receive a warrant in order to place a GPS tracking device on your vehicle?

The 4th amendment is a slippery devil. It is the amendment that guards against unreasonable search and seizure. The definition of what is unreasonable is pretty subjective though. It is currently codified for telephone tapping as, (paraphrasing) "If you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the government must seek a warrant". This means that when you use your home phone from your home, you have a reasonable expectation that your conversation is private. As such, the police need a warrant to listen in on that conversation. However, if you are at the mall chatting with your friend, you have no reason to expect that conversation to be private. Anyone present could easily eavesdrop, and so the police are also permitted to eavesdrop in that situation. Applying the same idea to your vehicle, anytime you travel on a public roadway you have no reasonable expectation that the information about your position is private. Police have and exercise the ability to track you, and this is how people get speeding tickets, traffic violations, citations, or pulled over for an outstanding warrant for their arrest. What's more, anything observable from public grounds is also considered to have no expectation of privacy. So if the police stand in the middle of the road and watch you park your car in the garage, the location of your car is public knowledge (until we catch up to Star Trek with transporter tech anyway). The judge applied this reasoning to say that the information on the position of the defendent's vehicle never had a reasonable expectation to privacy. Given this, the judge ruled that placing a GPS tracker on the vehicle was no different than having an officer tail the vehicle at all times, as the position of the vehicle would always be publicly knowable anyway.

The judge was hoping to get a reaction with the inclusion of the note that the warrant the police received in this situation was not required, and boy did he. The ACLU is sounding the alarm that this is a "gateway drug" of sorts for the government which will inevitably lead to every man woman and child wearing a tracking chip from birth to death. I don't believe that, but I do think it is an interesting question as to whether a warrant should be required for all GPS tracking of vehicles. On the one hand, I don't relish the idea of my location (which is tightly coupled to the location of my vehicle) being public knowledge. Even though it would be possible for any interested party to track me day and night, they don't. As such, I have a relative expectation that my whereabouts are unknown to all except for those I give that information to. In fact, it would be a bit of a danger if my location was always public. If you could easily determine that I was, say, out of state, it might present an enticing opportunity for a burglar to break into my home. Worse yes, someone with violence in mind would know when I at home or at work.

On the other hand, I believe that the scenario cited in the case was a just use of surveilance. It was carefully applied (only the suspect was tracked) and it resulted in someone who really was dangerous being apprehended. I also think to another use of GPS that is used in high speed chases. The police fire a "GPS canon" at a vehicle in a high speed chase. The GPS unit sticks to the vehicle, and the police can then drop off the chase and monitor the vehicle remotely, and thus greatly lessen the danger to the general public. High speed chases are very dangerous, and when a criminal is running he is much more likely to drive dangerously when he feels he is being pursued rather than when not. If warrants were required, either the criminal would require pursuing, thus increasing the danger to the public, or he could contend that the use of the GPS tracker was illegal and thus he must be let free. Either scenario is unsavory.

So is a law necessary to govern the use of GPS tracking units by the police? If so, how should the law be framed? No matter which way you think, the fact that our legislators will be debating it means that it is going to cost you some of your taxes, so it is worth being interested in the answer. If no warrant is required, it might lead to greater use of this technology without the careful application shown by the Wisconsin police. If warrants are required it may create an environment more permissive for those with ill intentions for doing harm to others. Personally, I think that in most cases a warrant is probably in order, although special exceptions should be made to permit applying a tracker in chase situations or other intense situations where the use of the device could alleviate an immediate danger to the public. What about you?

I Voted!

Have you? Today is the big day! If you are registered to vote, haven't voted yet, and are able to get to the polls.... GET GOING!

Monitoring

I work for a company that makes security equipment: video surveillance cameras, video recording equipment, access control equipment, etc. Our business is to protect life and property for the folks that purchase our equipment. I am also a part owner in a business that offers global asset tracking. Both are successful businesses, especially during this era of fear and uncertainty in the world.

Over the summer I had a college intern working for me, and we had several good discussions on the issues surrounding surveillance and monitoring. My intern was of the opinion that businesses and property owners must have restrictions on how much monitoring they can do. My opinion is that if you own the property, you can do with it what you want. I hold this opinion because I believe in the free market system's ability to correct for bad behavior. As a homeowner, I believe I should have full authority to plant as many cameras, microphones, RFID tags, or anything else on my property that I want, and without asking permission from anyone else. I extend this same mentality to private businesses, who should have authority to install cameras, microphones, and track their assets however they like. If the business does this in a way that customers or employees don't like, they are free to go buy / work somewhere else. My intern was worried that really big companies or really wealthy people might be able to do really bad things, and while I agree that in the short term a corrupt, powerful business could do harmful things, in the long run the market will win out.

I think I really threw my intern for a loop when I said the same rules should not apply to our government. We afford our government special privileges which mean that our free market doesn't really have any influence on the government. Although we do vote for our representatives, we do not get to "buy" a new government when our existing government no longer suits us (I hear some snickering...cynics :-p ). Since we afford our government special privileges, we also need to have oversight. One specific example is in the case of wire taps. Before we allow our government to "install a microphone" aka wiretap a phone line, we require that the government submit a very good reason to a judge so that a warrant can be issued for the wiretap. This is a check and balance to prevent our government from wiretapping at will, which could be utilized as a mechanism to wrest control of the government away from the people of the country and to put that control in the hands of the few already in power.

Are these contradictory positions? I don't think so. As I said, we afford the government special privileges that are not afforded to private businesses and individuals. For that reason, the rules that apply to an individual or private business are not the same rules that apply to our government.