More Property Tax Blues

From the South Bend Tribune, we see once again a REPUBLICAN governor, "Butterknife" Daniels, and a REPUBLICAN-controlled legislature stick it to regular property owners and average Hoosiers. As the Tribune reports in its first paragraph:

A new cap on state property tax relief could save Indiana's government hundreds of millions of dollars, but thousands of homeowners and businesses could pay the price.

Notice how it's worded. This will save Indiana's government. The rest of us "could pay the price". Just to clarify, we the people always pay the price when the incompetents in the State Capitol can't balance the books. What we're saving with this giant screw against the Indiana property owner is the legislature from its own failure to balance the budget. We went through years of a Democrat legislature that spent money like it was going out of style. When they finally lost power, did the new Republican majority try to curtail the Democrat's massive spending increases? Not really. They made symbolic little snips here and there, but there main thought has consistently been "How do we stick the citizenry with this giant almost-billion dollar deficit and get away with it?"

Although the list of already existing hits on taxpayers is long and not-so-distinguished, the proposed income tax hike on high-income earners for example, it shows no signs of shrinking. In fact, rather than proposing new, real cuts in how the state of Indiana does business, they're still talking how to soak the taxpayers. The property tax relief cutback is just another in a long line of insults to us as voters. It's not the only measure that is out there to stick it to us.

A plan drafted last session by Republican Luke Kenley of Noblesville, chairman of the Senate Tax Committee, would have allowed counties, cities, towns and schools to impose new local income taxes to reduce their reliance on property taxes. The proposal failed after local officials said it was too complex and contained too many uncertainties.

Look for the legislature to end up passing some or all of the tax increases. With a supermajority of tax and spend Democrats merged with tax and spend Republicans, nothing can really stop them. Maybe, in honor of those old enough to remember the Transformers, we can see a merging of the Deceptocrats and Republicons into a new super transformer, Taxocron (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

What should truly shame Republicans is this little snippet.

Otis "Doc" Bowen made state-backed property tax relief his top pledge in his successful run for governor in 1972 because property taxes had more than doubled in the previous decade.

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.

Daniels hoped to erase that deficit within a year, and the property tax relief credits, or PTRCs, quickly became a target. Republicans controlling the legislature agreed to cap the relief at just more than $2 billion a year for the next two years.

Daniels later said the subsidy "eats you alive" as a state and that he would be reluctant to reinstate the system of automatic increases.

Of course, erasing the deficit doesn't mean anything like cutting unnecessary programs to the bone or fighting the feds for a larger control of our own income base. It entails how they can raise taxes on the citizenry. What eats us alive, Governor, is a party that acts like its ideological nemesis, the Democratic Party, while taking for granted the base of limited-government low-tax loving citizens who put you in office. I hope one day you wake up and see that, preferably the day that base abandons you on Election Day. You certainly can count on me singing the praises of all your tax increases to anyone that will listen. And I hope whoever the Libertarians decide to run against you gets a chance to shove that rotted piece of meat down your throat during a televised debate. Then, I think, dear Governor Daniels, you will see the true meaning of being "eaten alive".