The Sensation of Running Through Quicksand

We know property taxes in Indiana are about to go from bad to worse. We know the system is horribly broken and that it took an election year for the words even to be mentioned by our politicians. Still, attempting to fix it appears to be about as realistic as running through quicksand. The more they meddle with little pet ideas for fixing property tax, the more hopeless the situation appears to be, as seen in the Indianapolis Star yesterday.

So far, we've had a four-hour lobbyist hearing that managed to waste four hours of the time allotted to the problem. There is a 285-page jumble of a variety of pet programs and projects thrown together by various legislators which has the generally related thread of having something vaguely to do with property tax. Do any of them suggest any meaningful cuts in the way counties and municipalities do government? Apparently not in any way worth mentioning, they don't. The general meme seems to be that other services should be taxed that haven't been taxed before or that taxes on other goods should be increased.

In an odd coupling, Governor Daniels and Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson have pushed a proposal from the Indiana Association of Cities & Towns, a group that was on the wrong side of the eminent domain issue. This lobbying group suggests that counties be given more freedom to tax whatever they wish to tax. They suggest that if the state were to free them to tax as they wish, say more restaurant food and beverage taxes for example, then they could lessen their dependence on property taxes.

If one were to assume for a minute that local governments would cut off a source of funding just because they were provided another source of funding, then I'd seriously want to know what meds that person was on, because they have to be good. Local governments have shown that with increased revenue comes increased pet projects. The less popular the project, the more likely the local government will attempt to pass it with as little public input as possible. Take the late-night one-day-announced sessions by towns like Carmel. They don't want public comment, so they make it nearly impossible for realistic access while maintaining the little facade that "they gave us a chance and we ignored it".

As an aside, I would note that if we were serious about our hatred of taxes and local governments not seemingly having their collective heads on straight, we might remind them that electing them in November was their chance. They'd do best not to ignore it.

Of course, they will ignore it. They thrive on politics as usual and apathy about government combined with ignorance of exactly who is running local government. This allows them to keep the masses at bay, operating just below their radar as they drive their municipalities deeper in debt. The rise in local property taxes is the result of these same municipalities being irresponsible with their money. And it's not always the local town and county councils. Sometimes there is judicial or federally mandated spending at a local level that does them in just as surely as their own greed. Those are other areas worth a serious look.

The idea that municipalities will handle raising other taxable revenue without putting a serious leash on them with property tax, even to the point of forcing them to go percentage point for percentage point in trading off new revenue for old property tax revenue, is laughable. They have to have a control. Mayor Peterson and Governor Daniels would do well to consider that as they hawk the junkies attempt to find new and more creative drugs to add to their mainline property tax squeeze.