Published: October 04, 2008 10:55 pm         

ELECTION '08: Indiana House District 43

TERRE HAUTE — A former Terre Haute city councilman is hoping to unseat a 12-year incumbent for the District 43 seat in the Indiana House of Representatives.

The district largely encompasses Terre Haute and Seelyville in Vigo County and Staunton in western Clay County.

Republican Ryan Cummins, 52, advocates limited government, allowing people “to pursue their own life largely using their own money.” Democrat Rep. Clyde Kersey, D-Terre Haute, a former Vigo County councilman, said “we need to use government to lay a foundation of support in all aspects of our society.”

On education, Cummins favors free choice of schools and school vouchers as well as advocating tax credits. Kersey, 70, a retired high school teacher, opposes vouchers. On economic development, Kersey says government can encourage business growth, such as helping a medical research partnership at Indiana State University. Cummins, co-owner of the Apple House, a Terre Haute lawn and garden business, said government cannot create jobs, only encourage private investment.

Both candidates would support a state constitutional amendment for property tax caps in the 2009 Indiana General Assembly and both support a measure to use voting centers for future elections to encourage more voters to cast a ballot.

“I do believe that freedom of choice in education is fundamental,” Cummins said, adding that vouchers are one possibility to strengthen education.

“Another very good way is tax credits, which avoids a problem [of vouchers] that a lot of folks have with taking tax dollars that have been collected by the government and handing it to religious schools or to a school that might teach something that some folks vigorously disagree with and don’t want their money going to support,” he said.

“Tax credits, either individual or a business, pay taxes to fund education. [Taxpayers] can claim a direct credit against taxes owed if they use that money for education of choice. In other words, it is money that never makes it to the government that provides that choice and competition in education,” Cummins said.

He also advocates for the use of weighted student formula, where dollars follow a student to a school they attend, rather than money given to a school corporation based on the number of children enrolled. The formula uses an accounting system focused on results, instead of programs or activities.

“Freedom of choice, competition, the government not picking winners and losers applies just as much to the field of education as it does to anything else,” Cummins said.

“I am opposed to vouchers,” Kersey said. “School vouchers would destroy the public school system, because I think that we have good schools and some not so good, and I think students would tend to gravitate toward the good schools and schools not as good would really suffer.

“I think we have a good public education system right now; great teachers who are professional. They know what they are doing and I think if anything, we should get out of the classroom and let them teach,” Kersey said.

Kersey said a big concern for education in Indiana will be funding schools, especially in 2010, when property tax caps are fully implemented. House Enrolled Act 1001, passed in March, provides a local option income tax to raise additional revenue for city, town and county budgets. That option may need to be extended to school corporations, Kersey said.

Kersey said for higher education, he would support a provision from Gov. Mitch Daniels to use lottery revenue to back a $1 billion bond, using that to pay two years of college tuition for students whose parents make less than $60,000 a year.

“I like that because these are students who are probably potential dropouts and from families who have never gone to college,” Kersey said. “I think these are the ones who need that incentive to keep going, and also it will provide an incentive for the parents, because they will be interested in encouraging the student to go on and graduate because of the opportunity to go to college.”

Kersey said he is working on a partnership among Indiana State University, Indiana University School of Medicine and the Richard G. Lugar Center for Rural Health. The idea is to focus on medical research.

“We are trying to get $4.5 million in this [upcoming] session to provide for an engineering planning study for a new building on the north side of [ISU’s] campus. It will be a new college — the college of nursing, health and human resources. It will be part of the rural health innovation corridor, with this building being the southern anchor and the Lugar Center being the northern anchor,” Kersey said.

“That new building will house nursing, sports medicine and Indiana University’s medical school. Also, IU has a medical research program at ISU and that would house that as well,” he said.

“We are trying to address the shortage of doctors in the rural areas. Indiana ranks 42nd in the state in terms of doctors per population. We are hoping that [research corridor] will spur economic development,” Kersey said. “It would be a revitalization of that area, plus be economic development as companies move into support services for what is going on” for new medical research.

Cummins said government’s role is to create an environment for private investment.

“I do have a substantially different view than a lot of folks who hold political office, believing they can pick and choose and give a subsidy to this group and give a favorable tax consideration to the other group, which causes a negative tax consequence to a much larger group of citizens. That, I think, achieves the opposite of what most people are looking for in economic development,” Cummins said.

“Everybody, regardless of party, is generally working toward the same end, which is prosperity and opportunity for themselves and the next generation. It is how that is accomplished is what is the most important thing. When it comes to economic development, most important is what works and what doesn’t.

“What works is individual freedom to do what you like to do with your own money and own life. That, historically, using common sense, is what works,” Cummins said. “Government interference and government interventions almost uniformly have almost always delayed, inhibited or destroyed that prosperity and opportunity that we are all searching for.

“I would seek to remove government interference and allow people’s individual creative energy to create that opportunity,” he said.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.