A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Pence: Christian before Public Servant

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Mike Pence describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” So, it’s not surprising that he voted against the Head Start program because federal funds allocated to that program cannot be used for Christian proselytizing. The Richmond Palladium-Item takes issue with Pence’s reasoning.

Now, let us be clear in our belief that religious groups and organizations should be permitted to place religious tests on whomever they choose to hire or fire without interference from government.

So long as they are using their own money.

Therein lies the problem. A higher or at least more public standard needs to be met when tax dollars are at stake, as they are in this case.

The way to avoid that federal entanglement? Reject the federal dollars. Those cries of religious freedom are compromised by the federal infusion of funds.

Allowing churches to take government money to hire workers for the government-funded Head Start program, yet denying employment to particular workers because they are members of the “wrong” religion is unconscionable. Period.

(H/t Blue Indiana).

Looks like perhaps Pence’s priorities have him rendering unto God that which is Caesar’s.

Citizens want something for nothing

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Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article entitled “Property Tax Foes Join Forces.” However, it could have just as easily been entitled “Some Citizens Want Something For Nothing”. 10 taxpayer groups have decided to create the Indiana Property Tax Repeal Alliance to promote the idea of repealing the property tax entirely because complete repeal is supposedly popular.

The equation, as presented in the article, is incomplete because it does not tell which government services will be eliminated or which other sorts of taxes will be increased and by how much. Obviously “Hey Citizen, you want something for nothing?” is more popular than “Hey Citizen, you want deteriorating roads, bad drainage, spotty police protection, run down schools?” or “Hey Citizen, you want us to jack up taxes on your next bread or car purchase or take more out of your paycheck?”

Mmoja Ajabu, a Marion County member, said the issue can be boiled down to a simple question: “Will government be of the people or will it be a government that preys on the people?”

Actually, no. It’s not anywhere near that simple.

Request for hearing en banc on Legislative Prayer

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Bill Ruthhart, writing for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled ACLU asks review of legislative prayers. The initial appeal of the legislative prayer case was heard by a 3 panel judge of the 7th Circuit who decided that the Plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the practice of sectarian prayer as official business of the Indiana House of Representatives. They did not reach the question of whether such sectarian prayer was constitutionally permissible or not.

I think that’s probably a good idea. In fact, the standing decision could have a greater long term impact on citizens attempting to challenge pernicious practices of their government than the particulars of this prayer dispute.

Counties: Let the State Raise Taxes

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There are some proposals floating about the State House to ease property taxes by raising income taxes. Specifically the Kenley Plan seems to contemplate raising local option income taxes to get the job done. According to the Association of Indiana Counties, a lot of county officials if the State wants to raise income taxes, it should just raise them itself and not look to the counties to raise taxes.

[L]local officials are well aware that Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson was voted out of office last week in part because he pushed to raise local income taxes.

Kenley’s commission, on the other hand, says:

The commission said property taxes pay for local services and that local governments should take some of the responsibility for those expenses by raising income taxes.

I beg to differ. It was the action of State officials that primarily got us into this mess. It was a State Court that ordered the overhaul of our old property tax system. It was the General Assembly that eliminated the inventory tax. It was the General Assembly that structured the trending reassessment process. It was the General Assembly that cut homestead credits and property tax replacement credits to balance the State’s budget. Sure property tax dollars pay for local services. But we’re not building a tax system from scratch here. The changes are all coming from on high, and now State officials seem to want local officials to bear the pain of the changes they mostly didn’t have any say in implementing.

From Lafayette

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A couple of interesting ideas out of Lafayette, Athens of the Midwest.

The Tippecanoe County Council isn’t happy about having to cough up $30,000 to mail out the property tax rebate checks mandated by the General Assembly. Adding further annoyance is the requirement that the rebate checks contain language that state that this is “tax relief being provided by the General Assembly.”

An editor of the Purdue Exponent was denied the right to vote because of Indiana’s restrictive voter ID law. (This one has been mentioned by other state blogs, Blue Indiana and Taking Down Words coming immediately to mind.) The editor is a student at Purdue who hails from New Jersey and has a New Jersey driver’s license. However he resides in Tippecanoe County and is registered to vote here. The BMV wouldn’t give him an Indiana ID and, in fact, gave him the run around about why he couldn’t vote. First they cited IC 9-24-16, and then they effectively told him he wasn’t an Indiana citizen eligible to vote until he registered his vehicle in Indiana. IC 9-24-16 governs the issuance of identification cards for nondrivers.

IC 9-24-16-10(b), in fact, requires issuance of an ID card without a fee to an individual who is or will be 18 before the next election and does not have a valid *Indiana* driver’s license. IC 3-7-13 sets out the voter eligibility requirements. You have to be 18, be a U.S. citizen, and reside in a precinct continuously for 30 days. Nothing in there about not being a licensed driver in another state or owning vehicles registered in other states. The Voter ID law is supposed to be nothing more and nothing less than a mechanism by which a citizen can prove that he or she is who they say they are. I don’t know whether this individual is complying with the state’s vehicle registration laws or driving licensure laws. Point is — it doesn’t matter. If he is who he says he is, and if he is eligible to vote, he should be allowed to vote – not have to wade through the BMV’s bureaucracy.

Borrowing money until tax disbursements

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The Lafayette Journal & Courier has a brief article reporting that the Lafayette School Corporation will be borrowing $17.7 million to meet its obligations in 2008 until property tax disbursements are made by the state. Apparently this is not at all uncommon around the state.

I wonder how much money is spent servicing the debt on these short term loans. Seems to me there is some potential for savings here by getting the disbursements to the school corporations in time to meet the schools’ obligations.

State Tax and Financing Policy Commission to vote on tax plan

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Mary Beth Schneider, writing for the Indianapolis Star, has an article entitled Cut property tax bills in half? Panel votes on plan today. The State Tax and Financing Policy Commission will apparently vote on a proposal. These legislative study committees have only an advisory role, so legally the vote has no particular effect. However, as bills work their way through the legislature, if a bill has been recommended by a study committee, the digest of the bill will mention something to the effect of “The introduced version of this bill was prepared by the State Tax and Financing Policy Commission.”

I could have sworn the committee had declined to make a recommendation. Perhaps they have new information. Perhaps the Indianapolis mayoral election results have them spooked.

Senator Kenley, who leads the commission declined to provide many details. However, the recommendations will apparently include a focus on “restructuring Indiana’s local government revenue process.” To me, that suggests township assessors, at least, are in for a world of trouble.

If you want some hard numbers on Indiana’s tax system, LSA has prepared a nice summary (pdf) of Indiana Property Tax Revenues. Some quick stats. Of the 2007 county levy, the revenues are consumed in the following proportions: Schools 48%, Counties 22%, Cities/Towns 18%, “Special” 5%, Libraries 4%, and Townships 3%. Counties spend 24% of their money on Child Welfare, 57% on operating costs, 10% on debt service, and 9% on capital.

The summary also has information on revenue by tax source, comparisons with tax structures of neighboring states, and loads of pretty charts.

The AP also has an article on Kenley’s proposal here.

Kenley, R-Noblesville, said the commission will consider a package of ideas that could be turned into bill proposals for the 2008 legislative session. The upcoming session is expected to be dominated by the issue of property taxes because although taxes on homeowners were projected to increase by 24 percent on average statewide this year, many taxpayers have faced even higher bills.

Kenley said the recommendations that will be presented to the panel will include ways to restructure Indiana’s local government revenue process.

“The commission recognizes property taxes are a big issue and that many other problems are created because of them for businesses, homeowners and senior citizens on fixed incomes,” said Kenley, who also is chairman of the Senate Tax Committee.

The Evansville Courier Press expresses optimism that the legislature will begin work early on a property tax plan. Their logic is not crystal clear — they somehow think that an early start is proof against the usual tactic of legislators waiting until the last minute to make agreements, hoping to wring concessions from opposing legislators as the clock winds down. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

Also in the Evansville Courier Press is an opinion column by David Coker, head of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers Association who claims that Gov. Daniels has “turned his back” on his conservative roots with respect to The Daniels Plan to reduce property taxes and increase sales taxes.

By refusing to put into place firm and lasting reductions in the spending and borrowing habits of all forms of state and local government, or consulting the taxpayers of this state prior to devising his plan, Daniels has turned his back on his own conservative roots and the political culture of this state.

As the twin beasts of state and local government continue to devour a larger and larger portion of private wealth and income throughout this state, one must ask the following question: Where are all the real conservatives among our state’s elected officials?

When will this madness ever end?

Madness!

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A prayer for the state’s lawmakers

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The Lafayette Journal and Courier has a good editorial entitled A prayer for the state’s lawmakers.

As state legislators gather in coming weeks and months to do the public’s business, please remind them, God, that they represent people of a multitude of faiths — and of no faith at all.

Let lawmakers understand that people of good deeds and intentions have included Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Baptists and Buddhists, as well as atheists, Hindus and more than a few agnostics.

. . .

We’ve never quite understood the benefits of mixing government business and religion.

Certainly the faithful have opportunities to pray, alone or together, before and after legislative sessions.

Certainly they should use their beliefs to guide them as they consider legislation.

Is the public display of prayer more about religion or politics?
. . .

My sense is that praying during official government functions is mostly an attempt for a certain vocal minority of politically influential Christians to mark their territory.

The editorial concludes:

And although the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the individuals who launched the lawsuit lacked legal standing to challenge legislators’ right to sponsor Christian prayers in the Capitol, we pray that the ruling does not mean a return to sectarian prayers that do as much to divide Hoosiers as inspire lawmakers.

Rather, we ask that you give lawmakers the wisdom to understand that religious tolerance means more than protecting the rights of those with whom they agree. It means respecting those who hold different beliefs.

It means conducting the state’s business in a way that welcomes those of different faiths and is hospitable to those with none.

Amen, brother.