are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week Weekend Review is produced by Wfyi in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

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Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

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Childcare is a crisis in Indiana after state the state's funding for vouchers, more families are struggling to afford care, and a growing number of daycares and preschools are closing their doors.

Dylan Pierce McCoy reports that lawmakers are looking for ways to make care more affordable without increasing state funding.

Indiana used federal pandemic aid to substantially expand the number of child care vouchers for low income working parents.

When that money ran out, the state froze enrollment and reduced reimbursement rates.

That's left daycares and preschools vulnerable to closure.

A recent analysis from Early Learning Indiana found the state lost more than a thousand childcare spots from mid-August through November.

Republican legislative leaders say the state is unlikely to increase funding.

Instead, they hope to reduce regulations and encourage more informal, low cost care.

Democrats have floated other solutions, including allowing local communities to ask voters to raise property taxes to pay for child care.

So what can or should the state do to address this crisis?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel.

Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Ebony Chapel, director of brand and community strategy at Free Press Indiana.

I'm Jill Sheridan, managing editor at WFYI.

So and do you think Indiana legislators are going to be able to help or offer any help for Indiana families that are struggling with, if.

They put the money where they should?

Yes.

I mean, changing the regulations.

A you're actually giving parents the choice between putting their children at risk for safety or working.

You know, it's just it's crazy.

They took this.

We had 30,000, vouchers.

And these are, by the way, not the vouchers for private schools, which they did expand for the wealthy people.

These are vouchers for childcare for people who need it.

And we cut them from 30,000 to 15,000.

And then we cut it from 300 a week to 150 a week.

It is ridiculous.

We want people to work.

When they work, they pay taxes.

When they pay taxes, the state revenue grows.

And we need to to assist on this.

If we're not birthers and we're really about right to life, then we ought to be helping these parents make the the transition to good quality.

daycare and preschool and and we show that they make they when they have that they do better in school.

They're less likely to wind up in prison.

They're all these down the road advantages of doing this.

And it's very shortsighted on our part.

If we if we just did you know that the, equipment taxes that we're playing with, where you're not going to pay anything for $2 million, and now you're going to be able to depreciate any equipment you buy completely in the first year.

That costs us hundreds of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue, more than enough to not only replace what was taken away, but expand it for the people who need it.

It is shocking that we don't do that.

Well, should we put more priority here?

You know, we have a brighter budget forecast.

Should Indiana lawmakers be looking at ways that, you know, we can close the gaps for for families?

Because right now, a lot of people are struggling.

Yeah.

Well, they are looking at it.

the idea that you can do it without actually paying for it, it seems, seems unlikely.

But I do think you look at this and the subsidy enhanced premium subsidies for, you know, health insurance policies and some of these other Covid era things that we that were provided.

You know, we spent one time money on a, on a thing that that we thought that we, you know, you you enhance these things and you spend these enhanced dollars at a time of crisis thinking that people like the needs are going to go away and they don't.

So I think to decide it on the front end that like, look, unless there's a guaranteed way to pay for this forever, we're not going to take it on to begin with.

but we did.

And in this in a lot of other areas with, with, with Covid dollars.

And we were flush for a while and now we are not we're even even with the the rosier, the relatively rosier budget forecast that comes out of the doom and gloom forecast that we're still trying to, you know, we're still trying to climb out of I thought the Democrats ideas, the one mentioned about local property tax referenda.

I like that real high.

I don't know if we should.

You know, how you do that really matters on how you're going to bring tax dollars and give us a private, private child care services.

But like, so there's there's some there's some ideas here, that I think are worth exploring.

That was a Republican idea, by the way, way back when to allow locals to increase their own property taxes if there was a cleaner need than the community priority.

So why not?

but, you know, you deregulating and loosening requirements and stuff.

I don't think that that's a it's.

Not going to do not going to do anything if we stop the tax cuts, okay.

If we stop giving the money to the wealthy, you never vouchers to the wealthy, to the businesses buying millions of dollars worth of equipment, depreciating it in one year instead of five, if we stop doing that, we could do this.

All the cuts that we do in this state affect the poor and the people who need it the most, and that's what's shameful about it.

Well, I think all the, you know, data does show, Jon, that, you know, the high quality care is really, what families do need and can benefit from.

And, you know, there was that initial investment with the with the pandemic money.

But now we're seeing, you know, such a pullback on that.

how can we get back to a place where we're living?

I mean, it's not as if the, the, the General Assembly is unaware of this issue.

And in fact, they sort of declared a crisis a couple of sessions ago and did make some of the regulatory changes in terms of the age of the people who have to be, you know, what age to oversee the care of children, how many people can be in the care, of a professional caregiver.

And that that was changed.

but now the ball's moved, the funding has changed, and we've seen some child care operations go under.

a couple dozen, maybe just since this summer because of, not only the sort of the freeze of that waiting list, but then the scale back of the reimbursements.

You know, it's, I think states eventually will probably have to do what, say New Mexico has done and say this is an economic development issue.

We can differentiate differentiate ourselves from the rest of the country.

So just last month, in November, was the launch of universal, care.

You know, it doesn't matter what income you have, you can get a voucher for quality and even grandparents, who are providing care.

Other states, Connecticut does a little differently.

They have a relatively new law in place where if you it's a salary of $100,000, if you fall below that in terms of household income, I think you can you're it's maybe 7% is the max you can pay on child care.

So there's a cap.

And the newly elected mayor of New York has made certainly child care a priority too.

So we've seen one state do it.

We've seen a large jurisdiction municipality with New York trying to do it in other states.

Are we going to have universal care here?

No, but I think the state and every other state will have to wrestle with this issue, because when you have people, there's a demand for people in the workforce.

I mean, something's got to give.

do you think, you know, in Indiana as well, we've heard, you know, that solutions might be, you know, just make have families, you know, taken care of for, you know, bring bring your baby to work.

Possibly.

But, you know, do we have any hope of really like, coming back to this high quality, you know, care position knowing that that this is this is what is going to move these children forward.

I think it is imperative that we do, to your point about just, you know, family or bringing them to work, telling people to bring their children to work is not going to cut it.

Telling them to send the children with family is not going to cut it.

Because what if everybody in the family is working?

We want people who have the ability to to work that helps, you know, rising child lifts all boats, right?

That helps everyone.

and the quality I think is an issue as well, because there's been talks of lowering the standards and the regulations to create more access.

So more of these centers can open.

So then what happens when we end up in a situation where we're just sending our children anywhere?

That to me is unacceptable.

One of the bright spots that I've noticed recently is the involvement of philanthropy, which I think is a is a good step in the right direction.

We shouldn't rest on philanthropy just solving every problem.

But I know that philanthropy, for example, in central Indiana, has stepped up to help support providers so that they can expand their capacity, whether that be through, re utilizing their buildings to be able to bring more students.

And so capital improvement is really what that's focused on.

And there are some other examples as well, out of the United Way of Central Indiana and, and other communities.

I think that is a bright spot.

However, the state has to see this in.

Jon, I think you bring up a good point.

They have to see this as an economic driver, because when people are able to put their children in a safe space, they're able to go to work without that worry on their minds.

And then those children are then more properly equipped to step in to pre-K and kindergarten and know what's going on.

We have situations now where kids are going to school and they don't know how to write their names because they haven't had those crucial early steps.

So I think, the legislator has got to get it together.

They've got to get it together when it.

Comes to makers have even labeled this an infrastructure issue.

They see it is no different from access to water, access to sewer and roads and sidewalks and libraries.

I think a lot of times when we separate these issues into a special interest group, like apparently women are the only ones in charge of children.

So if we can just, you know, shuffle it over, there is a special interest issue.

It's not on the slate of what we think are important issues.

And this is I'm so glad you brought up that point.

This is just as important as any of those other things.

When we think about the overall health of our state long term.

Well, I mean, it it will be an economic issue, continuing forward as well as so many things that we're talking about right now.

And the cost of living continues to climb in November through a little less than two months ago, as of, 7 in 10 Americans say that they're barely able to pay their bills.

And this is according to reporting from NPR.

Consumer prices in November were up 2.7% from a year ago, according to a recent report from the Labor Department.

The department did not provide an October comparison because the government shutdown kept workers from conducting their usual price checks that month.

Forecaster Inflation Insights suggest the absence of rental data from October may have skewed the November inflation figure lower.

The data comes as growing concerns about affordability remain a drag on President Trump's approval rating.

Make it free.

So affordability is a buzz word right now.

Where do you think Hoosiers are really feeling the pain?

Thanks.

All the high impact stuff that's still dragging.

We've gone a long way from 9% to 2.7% getting from the economists say getting from 3 to 2 is going to is going to be painful.

in part, the things that are driving right now are housing.

food is still nagging.

it's come down, but it's still it's still, you know, if you look at the turkeys from November and previous months as it's coming, it's come down, but it's it's still expensive.

the bright spots are, you know, things like meat, things like that, like gas prices are down or they're flat year over year.

so there are some bright spots, in the economy that there are I think the, the perception from for a lot of people, I think, is that the economy is just humming right along because the Dow's at 48,000. and that does benefit a lot of people, including middle America.

but there's still there's still work to be done.

I think, you know, I think coming out of Covid, we we part of this is going to resolve itself because we flooded parts of the economy with a lot of money.

And that drove the inflation, that drove inflation predictably.

Right.

And especially when you targeted at certain industries and certain certain places, of course, didn't drive up the cost.

The good services are driving are driving inflation.

But the good news with services, it's kind of a double edged.

There's a good side of that story.

And the reason that inflate inflation is we are still being driven by providing services, because the wages of those service workers have gone up so much in the last five years.

and when they go up, they don't come down.

It's like a sticky inflationary indicator.

It just what was it goes up, it stays there because you're not going to go in and go, well, you're making 16 bucks an hour now you're making 12.

So we guess you.

Want to eliminate.

Negative three.

Yeah.

So we could lower the price of dinner you know dinner going out.

So there's a lot of factors at play.

It's certainly better than it was a couple of years ago.

But you know, people are still feel that in some key areas housing is just something we've got to figure out.

Generally inflation or no inflation, housing is driving a lot of issues for especially lower income people.

And I mean, you know, the president can tell you that affordability is not real issue for people, but you can't tell that to, you know, the mom that's going to the grocery store.

And as soon as, you know, coffee.

Or the child, the child, the young person who would like to buy a house, you can't tell them.

That.

So that's not going to be, you know.

And coffee's going through the roof.

Absolutely through the roof.

So the inflation is really 3%.

That's what every all the economists are telling us, they just don't have the November figures in there because of the shutdown.

But that's the same inflation rate it was when President Biden left.

Okay.

And we did have inflation obviously during during Covid.

And it was in many ways it was intentional.

He was trying to prevent a recession.

And it worked okay.

And there was a byproduct of that.

I mean, for stimulus after Covid, it was Donald Trump's well okay.

But Biden.

Doubled down.

On it.

That's right.

And we knowing it was going to increase inflation.

Yeah.

So all right it's coming down.

It's not coming down the way it should.

And the other problem we have is that the chaos surrounding the tariffs that are out there, you just don't know from one day to the next whether something you're looking at buying as a big investment is going to be at one price, or it's going to be double that price, it really is leaving a lot of uncertainty for people.

And that coupled not only with the housing prices and the cost of food in the grocery store, but even to go out to dinner anymore, I mean, that price has gone up dramatically, partly service, but also the cost of the goods provided.

So it's it's a worrisome thing.

And it is the you cannot tell the people that are looking at what the dollar's not stretching as far as it used to, that you're doing fine.

You can't do that.

I know the president's trying to do that, but it's not going to work.

What do you think?

I mean, I mean, you know, people are feeling it, there's no doubt about that.

you know, we have a rosier forecast for the state.

You know, they're going to be making a little bit more money.

Hopefully our regular Hoosier is going to be making a little bit more money and helping to make these ends meet.

You know, I think we would I hope so we would I would hope that Hoosiers can, have a little bit more money and experience a higher quality of life.

But to the affordability issue, what I think is going to happen is that you're going to see more and more people become, for lack of a better word, radical lies by the lack of affordability, because there's no way that an elected official can keep telling you, you know, it's it's raining and it's not it's not rain you're feeling.

That's something else.

you guys catch my drift?

Yeah.

Or doing anything that might help that situation.

When we talk about housing, for example, here in Indiana, we are seeing, a continued issue of a lack of inventory.

You have a lack of inventory and then no regulation on the on the behalf of these land owners and landlords, a lot of them not slumlords, these investors coming in.

So it's creating this environment where people cannot find a place to live and they cannot find, affordable, safe, comfortable places to live.

So it just creates, you know, more of this chaos.

So I think what's going to end up happening is the people that are not paying attention, they're going to see that on the other side, when people show up to the polls and you're paying attention.

You talked about, New York City's new mayor, and we know that a lot of what drove that was his insistence on making this city more affordable.

So that is the name of the game.

It's kind of the other thing it's important to know about the affordability of housing is it's not just here, it's world wide.

Absolutely.

And it's a partly the function of a variety of different things, not just cost, but also not my neighborhood or, I'm building a house and I need five acres or you can't put aluminum siding on, you know, all of those things together, which requires, it seems to me, again, just like the utilities a step backwards.

And let's look at what all the impediments are to construction and figure out a way to solve that so that we can build what we need to build.

Yeah, there are solutions that exist.

We just have to be able to explore them.

Yes.

Well, that's the New York mayor or, you know, whomever.

It's going to be extremely difficult job to bring prices down for your average jean industry.

There's not a switch you can just flip.

Even if you had the political ability or wherewithal to to take the hit, it just doesn't work like that.

But yes, the market was flooded during the pandemic by designed to ward off a recession.

But also there was supply change.

chain issues.

So there was an increased demand.

People had more money in their pockets temporarily, and they were willing to buy things, but the things weren't there because they were, you know, you couldn't tide off.

You know, ships weren't unloaded for weeks at a time just because of the pandemic.

So and this doesn't affect everybody the same.

You know, on one end of the spectrum, it's like I'm going a different, cheaper cut of steak, instead of the, you know.

All right.

but but if you look at child care, if you look at in basic utility costs, if you look at food, if you're on the if you're, if you're, you know, or if you're trying to just squeak by.

Yeah.

It's not I'm going to go out to eat three times a week instead of seven or different cut of of prime rib.

I'm going to I'm just trying to figure out how to keep the kids fed.

Right.

It's going to be an issue that we are closely looking at as well as candidates for the 2026 Indiana secretary of State race, a race that we'll be definitely following.

We're already pulling campaign donations for that race.

That Castle reports that since he announced his candidacy in October, Democratic candidate Bobby has gathered dozens of large donations.

By is an attorney and the son of former Indiana Governor Evan Bayh.

He has already raised at least $1.16 million in large donations.

About 60% of the funds are from donors with out-of-state addresses, while about 40% are from Indiana donors.

These include Maryland based billionaire Robert Johnson, Chicago based attorney Dan Webb, members of the Indiana based Simon family, and former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson.

Incumbent Diego Morales, a Republican, has reported at least $911,000 this year in blinds.

Potter, a Democratic challenger, has raised at least $20,000.

The annual filing, due in January, will give a clearer picture of the candidate's finances.

So, Jon, these are some big dollars that we're seeing.

Is this a forecast of things to come?

Every race is getting more expensive.

Look at some of these legislative races are unimaginable numbers based on what we would have seen ten, 20 years ago.

But it used to be this was a seat.

People weren't necessarily growing up wanting to be the Secretary of State of Indiana and be the keeper of the seal, and give back unclaimed property.

It it was seen as a stepping stone.

His or that.

See, that's why it's.

You don't want to do that.

You go.

You can't even get back the property anymore.

police security.

So that's what we'll do.

you know, that's his father.

another member with the by name, use the secretary of state's office as a first step.

back in, 86 and, and, and it worked.

And so I think that has people have viewed that see, it has always worked as the springboard people hoped.

but I think this because of the name involved.

And keep in mind, again, his father knows a few people.

Yeah.

I'm not surprised that money's coming from outside Indiana.

A given that his tenure not only in the governor's office, but in Washington, in the U.S.

Senate.

It's probably better that it's coming from outside Indiana than from the people he's supposed to regulate, which is where Morales's money is coming from.

so we're going to see this trend continuing, Mike, as we move into the 2026 campaign.

And, yeah, the funny thing is, it's like the first step is a convention.

And so these guys are going to walk into the convention hall with them, you know, 2 million bucks in their pocket and not need any of it.

Maybe, maybe ostensibly.

So all of, you know, the Republican convention is in Fort Wayne this year.

Will be interesting to see how that played.

That plays out.

Sometimes those out of out of central Indiana conventions are a little get a little dicey in terms of the people in the room.

so we'll see how our hours, are shakes out.

but out of state.

You know, it's funny, like the first instinct I have because I've been doing this a long time.

Just like to go, like, go on the attack for the out of state money.

But we have that ship has sailed for everybody.

Like most of this money is coming from out of state.

They'll be national secretary of state's secretaries of state organizations, political organizations that spend in this race.

and, I think Republicans need to take it like, take it, as I've said on here before, we need to take it seriously.

The the the outcomes are not automatic for us anymore.

And we need to start thinking that way again.

and really make sure we work.

Those are going to be a competitive race.

And oh, it's certainly is.

I think the Republicans will nominate Morales again, and he has a long list of things that he has to be accountable to the voters for and the problem or that from our perspective, from the Democratic perspective, we haven't had the resources to tell the voters about the problems with Diego Morales.

We'll have those resources this time.

Do you think Diego has a chance?

And he's a he's a lot of critics, across the state.

Yeah.

Looking at that approval rating, not in Ice Cube's chance.

And you know where?

I don't think so.

I think it is really interesting to see.

You know, you know, a shade on him and 20.

Two.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think, you know, it is interesting to see so many people, especially such high name people interested in this race.

Do you think about Bob Johnson, the founder of Betty you like, what does he care about the Indiana secretary of state?

You know, outside of, I think, one big thing, the secretary of state runs elections.

So that, to me is a very compelling, point in this whole conversation.

So I'm interested to see how it all works out.

as Indiana lawmakers have filed bills to expand how the state carries out death sentences, reporting debate over capital punishment, the stalled in the statehouse earlier in 2025, according to our reporting partners at Indiana Capital Chronicle.

At the heart of two bills are additional execution options beyond lethal injection, which is currently the only method authorized under Indiana law.

One bill, authored by Indianapolis Republican Senator Mike young, would allow Indiana to use a firing squad to carry out executions under certain circumstances.

Under Young's proposal, the death penalty could be inflicted by firing squad if an execution by lethal injection was not possible.

A House bill authored by Republican Representative Jim Lucas and Andrew Ireland would allow executions to be carried out, either by firing squad or nitrogen hypoxia.

Lucas said lethal injection would remain the default method.

So are these solid solutions for the capital punishment question in Indiana?

I think a silent solution is to look at something that doesn't cost Indiana hundreds of thousands of dollars for one dose of lethal medication that is not costing us millions of dollars.

We can't even access the mess that they were trying to use.

I think there is a strong argument for just letting go of it altogether, and I think that's something that the state should explore.

it's telling to me that Representative Lucas is framing.

This is just a simple bill.

But adding on that, this is an ask from the white House.

I think that we have learned a lot in the past year about, from the white House.

Like we would get a lot of attention if, you know, these bills move forward in a timely manner.

We would.

I'm not for the death penalty.

As a Republican, I can't square it with my conservative brain that if I'm not going to trust the government run health care, that I should trust that to kill people irreversibly, you know, and that was that was very goal, that was very way to kill something that was very good.

That was very Goldwater's position by the way, and William F Buckley and Ronald Reagan at the end of his, at the end of his presidency, when we were getting it wrong and, and needed to end it.

Well, it's just a distraction.

That's Indiana week in review for this week.

Our panel has been Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Ebony Chappel, director of brand and community strategy at Free Press Indiana.

You can find Indiana Week in Review podcast and episodes at wfyi.org/iwir or on the PBS app.

I'm Jill Sheridan, managing editor at WFYI.

Join us next time because a lot can happen in Indiana week.