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.

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.

Tuesday morning at the Indiana Statehouse was a good time for catchy phrases. Whether the rest of the week will see substantive legislative action is yet to be seen.

House Speaker Pat Bauer has reconfirmed his plan to adjourn this session by the end of Thursday (10 days before the March 14 deadline date for such action). His closing words to House members (before calling for a recess until 2:30 today) as he urged them to work diligently on conference committees: "If you can make an agreement, so be it; if you can’t make an agreement, so be it."

Prior to that, House Minority Leader Brian Bosma said his caucus was not opposed to a Thursday ending as long as all the needed business was taken care of. He cited five priorities, led by a clean and clear delay in the unemployment insurance tax increase, that would thwart the "go home early" plan. His final comment: "It’s better to be a little slow and right than quick and wrong."

The Senate has not publicly weighed in today (it has a light calendar with a 1:30 beginning), although President Pro Tem David Long has previously stated there is nothing wrong with an early ending, but not before key issues are addressed.

The real work is taking place in conference committees and in negotiations among leadership. Stay tuned for the outcomes.

A popular phrase about Washington politics is that the the republic — or at least your tax dollars — are safer when Congress is not in session. If that is the case, one can rest easy for a fortnight (always liked that British term). Snow shut down the nation’s capital last week and a President’s Day recess takes lawmakers back home or elsewhere in the coming days.

What about in the Hoosier state? Legislators seem determined to exit Indianapolis quickly. Whether any harm is done before that time remains to be seen. The General Assembly session must end by March 14, but the committee deadline is being pushed ahead by a week and all involved are trying to wrap up business by March 5. Is that good or bad for you?

• Good if the increase in unemployment insurance taxes is delayed. It seems straighforward. Leave last year’s increase intact and companies will pay near $350 million more in taxes, the trust fund will remain woefully out of balance and employees will lose their jobs because battered businesses have no other place to cut. Legislators, particularly those in the House, need to hear from you. Check out the details and make a difference
• Bad if they proceed with passing legislation that prohibits employers from having a policy that disallows guns in the workplace. This appears headed to the governor, however, so a veto is likely the best hope for common sense to prevail. Here are the details
• Good if someone in power stands up for taxpayers and the poor and strives to bring about meaningful township reform. Our money is not being used wisely and the poor are not getting all they deserve with administrative costs that exceed actual relief. Meaningful is not a township-by-township referendum, but — for a start — getting rid of advisory boards and letting county councils have binding budget overview. Read more

Sure, there are a few other issues out there. But get these three right and the good will exceed the harm.

OK, we realize it’s February and the end of December/beginning of January were the times for the "top 10" lists for the past year or decade. But in looking at Indiana Chamber advocacy efforts, we couldn’t resist putting together some of the top issues in which we’ve been fighting the good fight for the business community. We didn’t rank them; that would be a really tough job.

I, and quite a few others on the Chamber team, have been here throughout (not the 1922 official start of the organization) — dating back to the 2002 tax restructuring and including key victories in economic development, education, tax, local government and more. The one-pager can be found here; but first a few observations.

• 2005 was simply a big year. Daylight Savings Time became a reality after only more than a few decades of trying, a series of important education policies were enacted and a variety of tax credits were expanded
• The most underrated item on the list, in my view, has a 2005 connection as well. The creation of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation took place in 2003 with a scheduled implementation in July 2005. Gov. Mitch Daniels, however, made the transition priority one upon taking office that January and the IEDC was off and running on a record-setting period of private sector investment and job creation
• A 2008 entry, removal of township assessors, MUST be complemented by additional local government reform measures. Whether it’s this year, in 2011 or through other measures, it’s time has more than come for taxpayers, local residents and all involved

Advocacy, of course, is just one way the Chamber works for its nearly 5,000 members and 800,000 employees of those Hoosier companies. But it’s a big one, making a difference each and every day.

In the final years of the Bush administration, Washington was noted for its lack of substantive action on Capitol Hill. In 2009, many were wishing for a switch back to the previous inaction. In 2010, it’s "are we going to get anything done because we have to get re-elected and we don’t want to make anyone mad?"

Excerpts from a CongressDaily analysis of what’s to come:

House and Senate Democrats plan a 2010 agenda aimed at leaving the second half of the 111th Congress as firmly identified in the public’s mind with economic measures as 2009 was with healthcare reform. In 2010, virtually every bill will be sold as a jobs bill.

That agenda suggests 2010’s legislative output will be far leaner than last year’s, and could once again bode badly for key measures that were shoved aside in the push to pass healthcare legislation.

And if Massachusetts state GOP Sen. Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley, the state’s Democratic attorney general, in a special election today to give Senate Republicans a 41st vote, virtually every key 2010 initiative, including health care, will be endangered in the Senate. Democrats last year regularly needed 60 votes to move legislation, and Republicans might be even less cooperative in an election year.

Despite a continued push by backers, climate change legislation, which the House has passed, and an overhaul of immigration law appear to face long odds of passage, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

"It is going to be a very hard year to do what we have to do to meet the needs of the American people and to maintain the fiscal soundness. And that requires some very tough decisions," House Speaker Pelosi has warned.

Pelosi, echoed by other top House Democrats, said she is determined this year to reduce the deficit, which the CBO says hit $1.4 trillion at the end of FY09 and is projected to hit $1.5 trillion for FY10.

But how to pair these seemingly conflicting goals — passing multi-billion-dollar, job-creating packages with cutting spending and reducing the deficit — must await, in part, the president’s budget, set for release in early February.

Many observers speculate Senate Majority Leader Reid will push an energy bill aimed a creating green jobs and improving energy infrastructure without a cap-and-trade provision that Republicans argue amounts to a major energy tax. In a statement last week, a Reid spokeswoman mentioned "clean energy legislation," financial regulatory reform and immigration among priorities for the first half of the year.