Rob Beck has really been sharpening his pen knife in his blog "Shall Not Perish". His latest entry is excellent in its scathing challenge to Republicans to honor the memory of Doc Bowen, who capped property taxes when governor. Bowen stands in contrast to Mitch Daniels, who may be known as 'The Blade' in reputation, but to Beck, is merely 'The Butterknife'.
Doc Bowen is a revered figure in the Party. A stately old gentleman who really felt like the kindly family Doctor you visited or your grandfather, Bowen was a great and classy governor. He saw Indiana through its earliest attempts to step out of its long-standing rural image and develop a more diverse economic base. He also seemed to genuinely care about the plight of Hoosiers, seeing that the role of government should be limited, but encouraging.
This sort of thinking spits on his legacy. The Republicans should hang their heads in shame. There's a strong chance that if asked, Bowen would identify ideologically more with Libertarians than our current Republican Party. Daniels, of course, sees room to justify the cut in the citizen's relief.
Fiscal conservatives- had enough yet? Get on board with the Libertarians once you have. After all, as regards trusting Republicans to cut the size of government: fool me once...
4 comments:
So, let me get this straight.
Libertarians believe that state government should perpetually subsidize local units of government, so that local units of government can continue spending at will without thinking about how their spending impacts taxpayers?
Put another way, does the Libertarian Party believe that state government should perform the ultimate property tax relief scheme and pay for all expenses of local government?
In short, that is Governor Bowen's plan taken to its logical conclusion. Bowen's plan shifts LOCAL SPENDING to the STATE BUDGET. Why does the Libertarian Party believe that the STATE should pay for LOCAL spending?
I thought Libertarians were the type of people who supported small government closest to the people.
First, Congressional Republicans spend our money like drunken sailors. Now, the Libertarian Party believes that the state should pay for local government expenses.
I am sooooo confused.
Ugh. Headache. Must. Get. Tylenol.
No- Libertarians do not believe that local units of government should be subsidized by the state. I get why you might conclude that based on the position on the cap, so I'll explain.
I think the main thing here is that Rob's article highlights that the Governor has failed to deliver cuts commensurate with his reputation as 'The Blade'. Remember that one of the first thing Daniels did, just 8 days into his term, was to put income tax increases on the table. That didn't create an environment of trust among budget cutters.
The ultimate tax relief scheme, whether discussing property taxes, income taxes, or any other tax, is spending fewer dollars. This is something Republicans have failed to do in any meaningful way, whether at the state or local levels. This year, despite the new majorities, yielded new levels of bureaucracy, more spending, and small but controversial cuts like BMV branch closures. County and local governments with Republican majorities leapt at opportunities to raise taxes wherever possible, usually in the form of food & beverage taxes.
That's the climate, so there is the basic distrust of those with the ability to tax.
If you know that virtually all Democrats will raise taxes, and most Republicans will also raise taxes, and you are a foe of increased taxes, you are pretty likely to argue in favor of maintaining the cap, no matter what effect it has on the mechanics of government.
There is another very good reason for wishing a moratorium on increased property taxes- it often hurts people unable to pay a higher bill. Retirees often own their valuable properties outright, but lack income. Increased property taxes hurt such people. This is probably the most common reason for the desire to maintain Bowen's cap.
I do believe that the subsidization shell games need to end. The best place to start is by ending the games played with COIT. The counties are levying the taxes. They should collect them and allocate them locally. The state should have no role.
Property taxes should be collected locally and allocated locally. The state should have no role.
The state should not be in the business of subsidizing local governments. As the state is in the hands of a Republican governor and Republican majorities in both the Indiana House & Senate, eliminating such subsidies should presumably be an easy task to manage. Alas. They've shown no taste for altering the formulas to date.
Elect Libertarians to the Statehouse and to local governing bodies like County Councils and Town Councils, and I promise you will see a move to make government more rational, where local governments pay for local expenses, state governments pay for state expenses, and fewer subsidization shell games take place.
"The ultimate tax relief scheme, whether discussing property taxes, income taxes, or any other tax, is spending fewer dollars."
Please provide a detailed realistic list of the cuts that Libertarians would make to state spending. Keep in mind, however, that the state's $12 billion annual budget is roughly as follows:
Education: $5 billion
Medicaid: $3 billion
PTRC: $2.2 billion
Corrections: $1 billion
Total: $11.2 billion
The other $800 million goes for various assorted departments, such as IDEM, DNR, State Police (250-300 troopers under authorized level), Dept. of Labor, Dept. of Health, etc.
"Retirees often own their valuable properties outright, but lack income."
True, I think the property tax system sucks. However, Indiana taxes pension income, so seniors will get hit even if you shift to income tax.
"Property taxes should be collected locally and allocated locally. The state should have no role."
They already are. Counties do not forward property taxes to the state. They collect them and distribute them locally.
"The state should not be in the business of subsidizing local governments. As the state is in the hands of a Republican governor and Republican majorities in both the Indiana House & Senate, eliminating such subsidies should presumably be an easy task to manage. Alas. They've shown no taste for altering the formulas to date."
Patently false. What do you think people are complaining about? The brakes have been applied to the state subsidization game, locals have been put on notice that the game is over, and they are not happy campers. The so called PTRC cap is the very change in formula you are saying doesn't exist.
True, a property tax alternative has not been implemented, but give the people time...they just got the reins of government and you don't turn the beast around overnight. Remember, the property tax system has existed for almost 200 years in this state, and you can't dump it in four months. I think everyone will see a significant shift away from property taxes over the next two years.
As far as The Blade is concerned, the Governor came into office in January and his people had very little time to find out where the bathrooms were, let alone analyze their departments and budgets well enough to know where and how to cut them.
You say you want rational government, well, ya can't cut until you figure out how the thing works and can identify inefficiencies, duplications, and just plain stupid stuff that the state shouldn't be doing anyway.
Judge the Guv after four years, not 10 months.
My realistic list of cuts is a 1% across-the-board cut. That's $120 million in cuts. Everybody shares the cuts evenly, so there is no finger pointing about favorites being played. This shouldn't be a hard position to enunciate, should it?
Personally, I would like to see a few whole departments scrapped, not added, as Daniels has done. But, I'm realistic. I know that it does take time, so I propose a very modest 1% cut.
I've taken note of the comment about taking the reins and time to learn. I'll grant that it does indeed take time to learn how things work. Again, only eight days into his term, Daniels learned enough to propose a 1% hike in income taxes. Why is it that it only took 8 days to get on the taxing learning curve? He needed much less than one year to add a whole department to state government.
I might take your advice and wait three more years to critique Daniels, but I'm afraid if we do that, we might have a bloated state government that makes Democrats proud.
Post a Comment