And the Show Continues
Now that we’re in the final week of the General Assembly Session the stakes to find a solution to the property tax problem have increased. For Hoosiers, the problem has always been the same: we’re watching our property tax bills go through the roof and we can’t afford that. For Republicans at the Statehouse the problem has been finding a plan that provides immediate relief and leaves open the possibility of future, and more extensive reform, if revenues allow for it (here I am referring to the House GOP Caucus’ plan in January to try and eliminate residential property taxes, a goal that the Governor has said he supports for down the road). For Democrats the plan has always been the same: help create the problem, then let the Republicans try to develop a solution, and then come back with your own “solution” when it’s too late.
A few weeks ago we had the Democrats advocating a half-baked solution of indexing property tax caps to personal incomes. Then in the past few days the Democrats unveiled a new plan (after the Republicans brought forward their compromise) that takes the Governor’s one percent cap on residential property and one percent sales tax increase and pretty much strips everything else away. The referendums, gone; the cap on local spending, gone; the constitutional caps on property tax rates; gone. The Democratic “plan” really amounts to a stripped down version of what Republicans have already brought forward.
Now the question is whether or not Speaker Bauer and his fellow caucus members will actually compromise on their “plan” and support the true compromise put forward by Republicans. If the General Assembly fails to pass property tax reform before the end of the session at the end of this week, then Governor Daniels has raised the possibility of a special session. I can’t imagine legislators, especially those facing primary races, enjoying being called back to finish the work they failed to do.
March 11th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I’ve given up hope that we’ll ever solve our property tax crisis until we can convince people that the government needs to live within its means. I don’t know if we’ve been able to convince people of the wisdom of that philosophy.