From the Goshen News:
With the General Assembly intent on finishing its business by the end of this month, state legislators are busily sifting through numerous bills dealing with everything from state education standards to confined deer hunting in order to determine what should and should not be passed before the current legislative session ends.
In an effort to shine some light on the status of the legislative home stretch, State Sen. Carlin Yoder joined State Rep. Wes Culver in Goshen Saturday morning for the final Third House gathering of the current legislative session at the Goshen Chamber of Commerce.
“As has been said, we are hopefully a week away, and I’m fairly confident we’re a week away from closing things up,” Yoder said of the General Assembly’s current status. “Everything is in conference committee right now that’s still out there.”
According to Yoder, when the state’s economic forecast was released last week, it gave legislators a better picture of what’s in store for the state financially as they work to fashion a passable budget.
“The forecast was fairly optimistic. It really projects income taxes to go up, and other taxes to kind of stay the same. That being said, it shows a fairly good forecast, which I think gives some of us more confidence to pass a budget that is optimistic in nature and not so pessimistic in nature, which is good I think for everybody,” Yoder said.
With the proposed budget now in conference committee, Yoder described some of the negotiations currently being considered for inclusion such as a possible 10 percent income tax cut being sought by Gov. Mike Pence.
“The House version didn’t have one,” Yoder said of the proposed tax cut. “We (the Senate) had maybe around 3.5 percent in tax cuts, so that’s being negotiated, as well as plenty of other things.”
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Additional bills Culver said Hoosiers should keep an eye on over the coming week included a possible criminal code revision, a bill that would require the state’s horse track casinos to hire live dealers versus automated dealers, and a bill that would require the horse track casinos to give money for the next 20 years as a loan to the Indianapolis 500 to help with improvements and upgrades.
http://goshennews.com/breakingnews/x1097430312/THIRD-HOUSE-End-of-session-in-sight
