It sounds good on paper, but personally I’m not buying it. In this case, "it" is a New Jersey proposal that says if the state is going to give you your paycheck, you have to live within its borders.

With our capital’s geographic presence in the middle of the state, I can’t imagine too many are commuting from Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky or Michigan to Indy. But state workers are not confined to the big city. The New Jersey bill would impact teachers, police officers and firefighters as well as all city and county government employees.

There are strong Indiana connections to Cincinnati, Chicago and Louisville in addition to numerous other areas in the four neighboring locales. I grew up in Dearborn County, a lot closer to Cincy than Indy, and a tri-state ingredient seems to be active in all four corners of the state.

The full New Jersey article is here. Below is a quick summary:

State Sen. Donald Norcross (D., Camden), the sponsor of the bill, said, "It is very simple. If you want a paycheck from New Jersey taxpayers, you should have to live here, pay your taxes here and be part of your community."

Norcross, who also leads the 85,000-member South Jersey AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, said an estimated 10,000 public employees live out of state, costing the state about $22 million in income taxes.

"What really gets me is when I look at the mass exodus every night out of Trenton to Pennsylvania," Senate President Stephen Sweeney said. "If it’s good enough to work for the state, it should be good enough to live in the state of New Jersey," he added.

Public employee unions said that while relatively few of their members work out of state, they strongly oppose the measure for those who do.

"I think it’s a ridiculous proposal," said Bob Master, regional political director for the Communication Workers of America. "It will have no meaningful impact in the long run on the state’s budget problems and it will cause completely unnecessary hardship for our members."

Master said that if New Jersey’s neighboring states were to adopt similar tactics, the results would not be pretty.

Jobs are — or should be — the number one priority as economic recovery (in that sense) remains elusive. For those currently without jobs, however, how much unemployment compensation is too much? It’s a tricky question, but one that is starting to be asked by more than a few people.

The unemployment comp program, created during the Depression as a temporary aid for laid-off workers, is now termed by some as an "expensive entitlement." While those out of work once received six months of payments, that has now surged to as high as 99 weeks in some states. Half of the more than 11 million unemployed have been jobless for longer than six months.

This is a downturn unlike any other since the program was created and many of those jobs will likely not come back. And while the vast majority are very likely doing all they can to find meaningful employment in the effort to return to their previous lifestyle, nearly two years of unemployment benefits has also undoubtedly led some to adopt the option of "let the government pay the tab" for awhile.

Few seemingly agreed with Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning’s recent filibuster that delayed the latest unemployment benefits extension (he wanted Washington to find a way to pay for it), but his logic was accepted in some circles. Colleague Jon Kyle of Arizona commented that the continued benefits are a "disincentive for people to seek new work" and that no one can argue that the current system is a "job enhancer."

Employers pay the bill through taxes in nearly all states (a few require worker contributions). Benefits have been extended before, but rolled back when the unemployment rate declined. That decline is proving difficult to achieve this time around.

A Washington Post article this week included the following:

"It is appropriate and natural for Congress to extend the time limit of unemployment insurance with the job market as bad as it is," said James Sherk, a labor economist at the Heritage Foundation. "But by quadrupling it, it is no longer an unemployment insurance program but a welfare program."

Phillip L. Swagel, a former Treasury Department official who is now a business professor at Georgetown University, said that some people might take longer to find a new job as a result of unemployment insurance extensions, but that right now it’s a needed benefit.

"The reality is that it’s hard to find a job even for people who really want one," he said.

But as the job market improves, Swagel said, unemployment insurance extensions must be pared back quickly, as they have been in previous downturns. "It’s important to let the extensions lapse as the job market recovers — to avoid having disincentives to work once the job market is better," Swagel said.

Part of the question is timing. For a program that is currently costing $10 billion a month, that’s something that needs answered sooner rather than later.

There has been plenty of talk lately about high-speed rail. If that talk eventually turns into action and Indiana ends up in the fast lane, all we can say is it’s about time.

America takes a back seat (way back) to other countries when it comes to moving people on the rails. A few examples from around the world:

• Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train between Tokyo and Osaka, built in 1964 and averaging 150 mph, was the first. Seven more lines have been added and 300 million passengers a year are served
• France’s major cities are connected by the TGV line with additional links to Germany, Belgium and England. Passengers: 100 million a year; miles: currently 1,800 with 1,200 more planned
• In Spain, more people travel between Madrid and Seville by rail than by car and air combined

Some question whether American efforts will add up, with proponents saying true high-speed requires dedicated track, no freight traffic and speeds of at least 150 mph. Midwest plans don’t meet that criteria, but at this point any realistic rail options would be better than what we have now.

We hear the unemployment rate each month, but here are a few other numbers to look at in regard to the economy and jobs:

• Bad news: 8.5 million or so jobs lost in the recession, with more than 40% of those people out of work for more than six months (in 1983 that figure only got as high as 26%)
• Better news: While January of this year saw a decline of 20,000 jobs, that paled to nearly 800,000 jobs lost in the same month a year ago
• Interesting statistic: Many people forget about the job churn that constantly takes place within companies, industries or the economy as a whole. In the second quarter of 2009, 6.4 million people found jobs, but 8 million lost their positions

They’re not all coming back, but bad and better will give way to good and great eventually.

Communications firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas out of Chicago released an article warning employers to be wary of resume fudgers, especially with so many applicants these days. Here is an excerpt for your company to heed:

As millions of Americans struggle with long-term unemployment, the temptation to stretch the truth on one’s resume to gain a competitive advantage is becoming harder to resist. Some desperate job seekers are going so far as to establish fake references. However, the payoff may not be worth the risk, according to one employment authority.

“There is very little proof that any form of resume boosting directly results in a job interview, much less a job offer. In contrast, there are scores of examples of individuals who have been eliminated from candidacy or fired after a fraudulent resume was uncovered,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., the global outplacement consultancy which provides job-search training and counseling to individuals who have been laid off…

They also added this list:

Top Resume, Interview Fabrications

Education: Listing degree from a school never attended; inflating grade point average and graduate honors; citing degree from online, non-accredited "education" institution.

Job title: Making up a title or boosting actual title by one or more levels in hopes of obtaining better salary offers.

Compensation: Inflating current or previous salary and benefits to secure more money from prospective employer.

Reason for leaving: Saying it was a mass downsizing when the discharge was based on performance; asked to leave, but saying you quit; underplaying or completely hiding poor relationships with superiors.

Accomplishments: Overstating one’s contributions to a team project or company performance; claiming to have received special recognition; exaggerating level of participation in an important aspect of the business.

Chamber President Kevin Brinegar recently appeared on Inside INdiana Business discussing a potential delay in the unemployment insurance fund tax increase.

The President of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce is "cautiously optimistic" a deal will be reached to delay a tax increase on businesses to support the state’s bankrupt unemployment insurance fund. Kevin Brinegar believes a two-year delay in implementation is the most likely scenario. He says there are still some "differing views" that need to be worked out, including issues such as higher benefit levels, automatic benefit increases and paid family and medical leave…

Brinegar says the unemployment insurance system is not designed to fund family and medical leave.

He says a two year delay would provide time to see what Congress will do to deal with the issue because several states are dealing with dwindling unemployment insurance funds, which is part of a national program.

Brinegar also says the chamber is "very disappointed" a bill allowing employees to keep guns locked in their vehicles parked on company property has gone to the governor’s desk.

He says the chamber is also monitoring a tax proposal that would give companies more time to file amended personal property tax returns on their business machinery and equipment.

If you’re like me, you pretty much prefer watching Netflix films on your couch versus actually putting on pants and going to a movie theater. But when you go, there’s a certain expectation of customer service, especially considering the prices of tickets these days. So imagine the shock of one Minnesota woman who wrote a letter to theater ownership, and got a less-than-cordial response from a VP. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune reports:

The first problem, she said, was that the theater didn’t accept debit or credit cards. They had brought cash for popcorn and sodas, but not enough to buy tickets. The lobby’s ATM was out of cash, so their friends covered them by writing a check.

That was just the beginning.

"I would say within the first five or 10 minutes, a woman came into the theater and announced that eight people were in there who weren’t supposed to be in there," she said. For about 20 minutes, she said, staff members flashed their lights, checking ticket stubs and being a distraction. "Once I got back into the movie, it was great," Kohl-Leaf said, but the first part of the night out had been marred.

Once home, she decided to e-mail the theater management to complain. Her note went to Evergreen Entertainment LLC of New Brighton, owners of St. Croix Falls Cinema 8 and five movie complexes in Minnesota.

"I did not pay 18.00 to have a distracted experience," she wrote. " … I would rather drive to White Bear Lake, where they obviously know how to run a theater than have this experience again." The e-mailed response that greeted her the next morning left her stunned.

"Drive to White Bear Lake and also go [expletive] yourself," began the reply from Steve Payne, Evergreen’s vice president. "If you don’t have money for entertainment, get a better job, and don’t pay for everything on your credit or check card." It also included a couple more expletives before ending.

"I was surprised — I honestly didn’t think it was the vice president who sent it," said Kohl-Leaf. She showed it to her friend, "and we were just like, ‘What?’ … I’ve worked in retail, and I would never think to say something like that, or write it or anything."

Payne later sent a second, less-heated, message: "As vice president I should never have reacted that way, no matter how I felt about your e-mail."

Ya think? Trust me, when I worked as an editor of a community newspaper, I took several phone calls laden with vitriol, and in some cases that feeling was mutual. But dang. Let’s all let this serve as a reminder to take a breath before dealing with unhappy customers and clients. As with most things in life, firing back with emotion before thinking it through just creates more problems for yourself and your business.