Fla. college gives prisons image boost

Lucas Oil Stadium, Parkview Field and countless other arenas, stadiums and ballparks across the nation carry the names of corporate sponsors. The corporations get exposure and, with luck, goodwill. The stadium owners get – well, money.

There was a time when the renaming of a stadium brought outrage among fans accustomed to a previous name. But now, fans take it in stride when, for example, New Orleans’ Superdome becomes the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Still, this headline caught our eye: “Florida Atlantic University’s Stadium Named After a Prison Company.”

Based in Boca Raton, GEO Group is the self-proclaimed leading private provider of prisons and correctional management, and its foundation spent $6 million for the naming rights for 12 years. And, like other companies, GEO is likely looking for a little attention and goodwill, plus its CEO is an alumnus of the school and former chair of its board of directors. But if it helps the company’s image, how much will the association with a prison group help the Florida Atlantic Owls?

And GEO has not been without controversy. Among some of its properties with a history is the prison in New Castle, site of a 2007 riot and more recent employee transgressions.

House jettisons governor’s minuscule tax cut

Indiana Republican House leaders probably won’t say this out loud – at least in public – but we can’t help thinking that a big part of the reason they did not include Gov. Mike Pence’s call for a 10 percent state income tax cut in their first draft of a state budget was that it was clearly a Pence campaign tactic, and he didn’t bother to consult the legislators who would have to support it.

And it is worth repeating that a 10 percent cut would change Indiana’s income tax from 3.4 percent to 3.06 percent, a drop of just one-third of 1 percentage point. For a family making the median household income of about $48,000, that would be a savings of about $163, or $3.14 a week.

Pence says the state can afford to pay for the tax cut because of a record surplus, but remember that last year’s surplus brought Hoosier families with two wage-earners a tax rebate of $222. A Hoosier family with two incomes would have to make more than $67,000 a year for a tax-cut benefit to outweigh this year’s rebate.