Our poor man Mitch

God love him. He’s trying.




Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has been spending a lot of time and effort trying to deliver the property tax reform Hoosiers have been pleading for. He’s convinced of the obvious: to cut property taxes, spending will have to be controlled.
In every article and opinion piece of the last week or two in which Daniels has been quoted in relation to property tax reform and spending, he comes across as frustrated. He’s understandably frustrated with the Indiana General Assembly, local governments and special interests.
Our state legislators have given every impression that property tax relief has been their primary focus this session, and that they, too, understand Indiana taxpayers want spending controlled.
It is also true that what are often referred to as economic incentives for a particular industry are generally discriminating tax breaks or subsidies. These either outright cost money or reduce the money available for basic services and other forms of tax relief.
So it clearly follows there is no way our Legislature had any time or excess funds to be handing out new industry incentives this session, right? Wrong.
The Indiana General Assembly, including many members of Daniels’ own party, spent Valentine’s Day overriding his veto of their bill to grant incentives to the film industry. He sent them a love message, too, in his widely-quoted press release, calling their decision irresponsible and admitting, “I can’t imagine what they were thinking.”
It appears that while strapped homeowners are to stomach the news that less property tax relief than Daniels’ proposed is actually on the way, and local governments and schools are crying about the cuts they’ll be facing, there is an extra $30 million lying around for media projects, including advertising productions. That is, assuming, of course, those making the productions have at least $50,000 of their own lying around to invest.
The public education and local government lobbies aren’t making life any easier for Daniels. They are telling anyone who will listen that property tax relief will be the end of teachers, zoos, parks and any number of jobs including fire and police.
If there is an award for quoted hyperbole, it belongs to Hammond Fire Chief Dave Hamm. “One thing that I can assure you is that our response time will worsen, and there will be deaths,” Hamm stated during a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee in Indianapolis last week.
Deaths? Really? Maybe it is true that our names influence the people we become. This quote was so dramatic, I have yet to find coverage on the hearing that didn’t highlight it. It is also ridiculous.
Of all the services a city provides, of all the extra little events, agencies and properties it supports and all the expenses it incurs, would firefighters really be the first to go? This would happen if, and only if, the citizens of the city don’t value firefighters, and the city council has no sense of responsibility, and the firefighters don’t speak up at all, and there are absolutely no other ways to either cut spending or raise revenue.
Few, if any, of these are going to be the case, and as Daniels pointed out to columnist Brian Howey, the Hammond City Council is currently working to resurrect an entirely unnecessary health department previously eliminated because it duplicated the work of the county agency. There is surely some money to fight fires in a health department budget. Further, Hammond may actually have a few more firefighters than it needs since a full third were at the hearing.
The public schools are also offering their version of “there will be deaths” in the form of predicting mass teacher layoffs. It was recently reported that Indiana ranks particularly high in relation to other states in regards to teachers’ salaries, though it doesn’t rank exceptionally high in providing quality education.
Perhaps, if teachers need to feel these supposed cuts at all, it should be in the form of salaries more tightly bound to performance. We’ll either get better schools or save a few bucks. There is more likely no need for teachers to feel any pinch, as there is surely genuine waste that can be eliminated if needed.
http://www.news-tribune.net/archivesearch/local_story_056160128.html