The Outstater
The Statehouse: Our House of Mirrors
SPRING IS IN THE AIR and now is the time everyone — the Indy media, the legislative leadership, everyone — scrambles to pretend they know how the session will end.
They don’t have any idea, of course, for we once sent people to Indianapolis to represent us as our friends and neighbors. You knew what they/we thought about things. Now they go as mouthpieces for this special interest or that. Indeed, our democratic system has been broken for so long, and there is such a disconnect between the elected and the polity, that legislating has become mere guesswork.
Legislators do know that. They can sense it when they are in the home district. The type of people who want to meet with them are not reflective of the population at large, sort of like the front row at a rock concert. The predictions of these donors and true believers are unreliable if not downright daffy — a house of mirrors.
The obvious option for legislators, to think for themselves, is not within reach for most. So they depend on an army of lobbyists who outnumber the thoughtfully ambulatory at the Statehouse by at least four to one. That, and they try to mollify the GOP leadership (even more disconnected and clueless) so they can get their campaign lunch money to discourage any primary challenge.
By the way, have you ever met a real, live lobbyist? If so, did he ask your opinion about anything? I’ve been writing about politics for 40 years and have only known a half dozen, and then only because they were former legislators. No, lobbyists work in the shadows. A kinder way to say it is their time is valuable so they spend it with lawmakers and not with mere citizens.
Back to our point. The goal, again, is to seem to know what you are doing well enough to keep your title until retirement on the Gulf or promotion to the lobbyist ranks. Think Eric Holcomb.
A proof-perfect example is this session’s handling of property tax. Tone deaf though they may be, legislators have an inkling that the proletariate has had enough of taxes, especially those spent on failing local public schools. Their solution, worked out in painful struggle sessions with the lobbyists, was to cut property taxes . . . well, not exactly cut them, just slow their increase. It was hoped this would hold the ingrates for a while (legislators think of all budgeted money as their own, not yours).
The clinker this session is Mike Braun, a different kind of governor. He has been to Washington and unlike his immediate predecessors dared look behind the curtain hiding the Wizard. Braun does not seem to be buying into the Statehouse game here. Indeed, he seems intent on exposing it. This from his web site:
- Overhaul the homestead deduction to allow every homeowner with an assessed value over $125,000 to deduct 60 percent of their home’s assessed value from their tax bill.
- Freeze future property tax increases by capping the increase in tax bills at 2 percent for seniors, low-income Hoosiers, and families with children under the age of 18; and 3 percent for all other
- Require any proposed property tax increase exceeding the cap to be approved through a referendum.
- Establish a Property Tax Transparency Portal that allows taxpayers to compare their current tax bill with potential changes under proposed tax rates.
- Require that all property tax-related referendums take place during high-turnout elections (e.g., general elections in even years).
- Require a referendum to propose a total levy (e.g., “Shall the school district raise $5 million to the referendum’s impact on the median home’s property tax bill.”
Pretty heady stuff. As of today, the governor says the Senate version on property taxes, which cuts less than a fourth of his proposal, “has a long way to go before it gets my signature.”
Will Braun be resolute or will he fold in the final weeks? A veto? A special session? I have no idea, counting myself among those flummoxed by the corruption, rent-seeking and money of modern politics. The only difference is I admit it. — tcl
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