Loading ...
By BRIAN A. HOWEY
INDIANAPOLIS - For the second consecutive year, property tax reform is threatened with the introduction of 11th hour economic news. On Friday, House and Senate Democrats did a Chicken Little redux. Recession, they said, will make Gov. Mitch Daniels’ 1-2-3 cap proposals risky. With just a week left in this session of the Indiana General Assemlby, the Democrats announced a completely new plan.
“We have respected the integrity of the process,” House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Crawford said, presumably with a straight face.
.jpg)
Ways & Means Chairman William Crawford (left) and State Rep. Earl Harris. Both face May 6 Democratic primary opponents. (HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
A year ago, it was a Legislative Service Agency report in April that predicted a 24-percent property tax increase that doomed State Sen. Luke Kenley’s plan that he said would cut property taxes by 60 percent. Crawford and House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer pushed for and won the rebate scheme that used $300 million in money the state was to receive from the slots at the two race tracks. Within two months after that legislative cave-in, the property tax crisis began surfacing in communities around the state.
After more than four months of protests, Gov. Daniels introduced his 1-2-3 cap ‘n cut plan on Oct. 23, 2007. Legislative hearings began in November, and there wasn’t a counter proposal from any legislative Democrat - or the two Democratic gubernatorial contenders - until Friday with just a week left in the session. The Daniels proposals passed the House and Senate by large bipartisan margins in January and February. A statewide Howey-Gauge Poll on Feb. 17-18 found 61 percent of those surveyed supported the governor’s plan. In Marion County, the scene of many of the protests after many residential properties saw double and triple digit increases, In the 7th CD over sample in the Howey-Gauge Poll, 68 percent either favored or strongly favored the Daniels plan.
Despite passing the House and Senate by wide margins, fissures in the HB1001 support began showing last week. Democrat gubernatorial Jill Long Thompson criticized Daniels plan calling it a "shell game." Thompson said, "Like all Hoosiers, after years of waiting for Governor Daniels to address the property tax issue, I was hoping that this year we might finally see fair and comprehensive property tax reform that could help to restart the state’s economic engine. Unfortunately, what we got from this Governor was more of the same. His property tax plan is nothing more than a well-orchestrated shell game designed to shift the blame and the burden of collecting taxes to local government - not to reduce property taxes or government spending." But neither Thompson or her primary opponent - Jim Schellinger - offered up their own plans similar to then-House Speaker Doc Bowen’s successful 1972 gubernatorial campaign that was based on the property tax plans that would ultimately pass by narrow margins in 1973. Schellinger’s campaign has been virtually mute on HB1001 despite the fact that it has been the most conspicuous public policy topic this winter.
While Crawford claims legislative Democrats won’t "negotiate in public," the Democratic proposal will not get the kind of scrutiny - public town hall forums, legislative committee hearings, House and Senate floor debates, media commentary, public official and citizen commentary - that HB1001 has received over the past four months.
This is a classic cave-in by the Democratic Party that, other than the rebate, has been virtually devoid of public policy ideas. One pushed in February by Crawford that would have tied household income levels to the caps but had no statistical data laying out what the fiscal impact would be. Crawford backed off that folly last week. Friday’s Democratic proposals were also sans any kind of impact studies.
This is indicative of the kind of inertia that has characterized the Indiana General Assembly. It fails to take long term approaches to problems and easily derails at just about any economic news. Gov. Daniels has threatened a special session if the pillars of his plan aren’t passed. With 19 House members facing May 6 primary races and seven in the Senate - with many challengers basing their campaigns on the property tax issue - it might not take long for the white, hot, heat of public opinion to manifest itself if legislative Democrats continue this course.
Related posts
This entry was written by and posted on March 8, 2008 at 2:26 pm and filed under HPI Weekly. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.