The State balances the budget on the backs of local government and then state politicians rush to get out front to offer tax refunds based on the “surplus.”

Under Daniels’ plan, outlined Tuesday, anyone who filed a state income tax return would receive a credit on the following year’s return if state revenues came in above a predetermined level.

The Republican governor suggested that level should be 10 percent of the money needed for the next budget year. Any credits, which would be subject to the legislature’s approval each year, also would depend on whether enough money was being preserved to protect the state in case of a downturn.

The State’s current fiscal health is directly related to the distress in which local governments currently find themselves.

Jill Long Thompson doesn’t think Daniels goes far enough.

She has proposed returning the state’s current surplus to taxpayers by suspending the state sales tax on gasoline.

“I’m glad that he finally responded to my repeated calls for tax relief for Hoosiers,” Long Thompson said. “But I think Hoosier families in many communities are economically stretched now, and the governor has the authority to suspend collecting the Indiana state sales tax on gasoline, and that would give immediate relief.”

Long Thompson said that when she was in Washington, she never voted for legislation that included a new tax or a tax increase. Daniels, she said, has sought multiple tax increases in his four years as governor.

This exchange makes me pessimistic that Long Thompson will close the gap to overtake Daniels at the poll. She apparently is not questioning the manner in which the “surplus” was generated. Under Governor Daniels, the state has been rather heavy handed in its interactions with local government. Long Thompson does not appear to be tapping into this reservoir of ill-will. Instead, she seems to be trying to out “tax cut” the Republicans, criticizing Daniels for his, frankly, good ideas to impose a temporary tax on those with incomes greater than $100,000 and cigarette taxes devoted to health programs.

Lower taxes are good, but good government programs often bring greater value than those tax dollars paid in. For example, the portion of my tax dollars attributable to building and maintaining roads are far more valuable to me in the form of roads than they would be in the form of a few extra bucks in my pocket and no roads. Same goes for the drainage systems that take water away from my property, the courts that allow me to enforce my contracts, etc. etc.

I just think that Long Thompson is embracing Republican electoral frames which will make it very hard for her to beat Daniels.

Sen. John Waterman, a Republican who made a furtive attempt to run for the governor’s seat as a third party on a platform of eliminating property taxes obtained only about 6% of the number of signatures he needed – 2,200 out of a necessary 32,000. I don’t know if that reflects the relative support of Hoosiers for property tax elimination or simply a luke warm feeling for Waterman as a gubernatorial candidate.

Democratic candidate Jill Long Thompson has some ideas.

Expand the responsibilities of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to include working directly with organizations that focus on parenting skills, preventing teen pregnancies, reducing the high school dropout rate and lowering the rate of recidivism. She also proposed creating a statewide Board of Faith and Community Partnerships to advise her administration on those matters.

Government and religion go together like fish and bicycles.

She also wants to expand the list of permissible documentation to prove one’s identity in order to exercise their right to vote. Currently, the list is arbitrarily limited to state and national identification with an expiration date.

She wants to give teeth to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission. And, she wants to give tax incentives to companies to provide high speed Internet access in rural counties.

I’m not a political strategist, but this campaign reminds me a little of the Gore-Kerry approach which, often times, looked like they were giving voters a laundry list of proposals. The more successful campaigns, it seems to me, take a page from some advice I’ve been given on trial presentation. You try to build a narrative. Tell the jury a story, and you weave the laundry list into a narrative. Maybe Long Thompson has been constructing such a narrative but I haven’t been listening very well.

Daniels more or less has a narrative that goes something like – bold, yet folksy, outsider brings outsider business leadership to sleepy, unresponsive government. It doesn’t matter if it’s bullshit. It’s easy to swallow. Americans are willing to suspend their disbelief while someone tells them a story.

Readers of this blog will know that I am inclined toward Not Mitch Daniels for Governor. My main beefs with the man are Daylight Saving Time, privatizing the Toll Road, a dogmatic love of outsourcing regardless of how well government employees are doing the job, and an autocratic governing style, impatient with the niceties of representative government. That said, he doesn’t seem to be a particularly ardent social conservative of the sort that really gets my hackles up; though he is willing enough to look the other way and/or play along when Eric Miller and his disciples go to work.

So, we have the Democratic nominee running against Daniels, Jill Long Thompson. Based on the above, she’s probably more than half way home in terms of my support. But, I got to thinking, I don’t really know much about her intentions. I heard something about her supporting a suspension of the gas tax on the news, but that drives me up a wall. It’s a pandering, ineffective non-solution. What else?

That’s what the Internet age is for – a candidate can post the issues he or she regards as important and his or her approaches to those issues. Onward to Long Thompson’s issues page.

1. Communities: She will divide Indiana’s 92 counties into three tiers, based on unemployment rate, median household income, population growth and assessed property value per capita. Counties within each tier designation would be allotted different tax incentives. Primarily, it appears that companies creating jobs within those counties would receive tax credits based on the number of jobs created with the tax credits varying by tier.

2. Economic Development: Tax incentives to businesses linked to new technology, productivity, provision of health care, and environmental impact. Tax deductions to individuals for health care and education. Creating a health insurance purchasing pool. Emphasizing vocational education. Bring broadband internet connections to every county.

I’m not against any of this in particular, but there is a terrible blandness about it. Daniels is out there saying, effectively, “Of course I’m breaking eggs, I’m making a damn omelette!” The Long Thompson campaign seems to be telling us that, not only is the omelette making process breaking eggs, it’s high in cholesterol as well, and wouldn’t we like a nice bowl of oatmeal?

What we need, somehow, is a candidate who will point out that Hoosiers should not content themselves with breakfast alone – here’s a plan for lunch, dinner, and even the occasional tasty snack. If I knew how that was done, I’d be a highly paid political consultant instead of blogging for free.

Jill Long Thompson leads Jim Schellinger in the Democratic gubernatorial race by about 5,000 votes with something approaching a million having been cast. The Secretary of State’s site hasn’t yet been updated, showing Schellinger in the lead 451,000 to 443,000. Lake County looks to have put her over the edge, but any candidate who narrowly loses by late results out of Lake County is presumably going to want to take a second look.