Abortion debate hangs over advancing inflation relief bills
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Competing inflation relief bills faced little opposition Friday, but some lawmakers in a special session at the Statehouse wondered if the abortion debate could curtail those efforts.
Gov. Eric Holcomb originally called lawmakers back to Indianapolis to provide inflation relief to Indiana taxpayers. On Friday, the House passed its relief plan while the Senate finalized the language on its version and passed a supplemental bill aimed at family and maternal health services.
The House’s inflation plan combines the governor’s proposal of a $225 taxpayer refund with a host of child care provisions. Taxpayers could get an additional $100 on the dependent child tax exemption and get double the maximum amount for the first year they claim a particular child, yielding a maximum potential exemption of $3,200. Each adopted child under the age of 19, or under age 24 if a full-time student, could net parents an additional $3,000 exemption.
The bill also would set up a board to investigate ways to reimburse doulas for their services, a provision Democrats added.
Additionally, diapers would be exempt from sales taxes.
The Senate’s plan foregoes the refund and instead suspends utility sales taxes for six months and caps gas taxes for a year. It also puts $400 million toward paying down debt from the pre-1996 teacher retirement plan.
A separate Senate bill sets aside $45 million for maternal and neonatal care programs and increases the child tax credit to $10,000. Senate Democrats on Friday morning tried unsuccessfully to add a taxpayer refund and provide $1 billion in immediate, supplemental school funding. They cited advancing Republican-backed abortion legislation.
“If you don’t vote for (taxpayer refunds), how can you call yourself pro-life?” Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor, a Democrat from Indianapolis, asked. “These people are struggling of no fault of their own.”
In the House, multiple Democrats questioned Republicans’ motives for adding tax provisions related to children, though all Democrats ultimately voted in favor of the bill.
“It seems to me that if this is designed in some way to facilitate the result of the abortion bill, or react to it, we ought to know what’s in the bill,” Rep. Ed DeLaney, a Democrat from Indianapolis, said. “Instead, we have two fiscal bills that don’t even relate to each other and we have who knows what on tomorrow’s special Saturday party across the hall.”
House Speaker Todd Huston said he didn’t expect the inflation package’s fate would hinge on the Senate’s abortion bill.
“Obviously, the conversation around S.B. 1 had made it feel important to us to do both (inflation relief and family aid), and we have the financial wherewithal to do both,” the Republican from Fishers said, “and it’s good to go back and look through those programs and make additional investments in those programs that we think are moving the needle.”
The Senate’s debate on amendments to the abortion bill did not end until just after midnight Friday. As a result, due to calendar rules, the Senate will convene on Saturday morning for a final vote on whether to send Senate Bill 1, which would add to Indiana’s abortion ban, to the House.
The House will not meet again until Monday.