Shame On Our Government

The good governor of our great state campaigned on a number of issues, but the one that caught my ear – and a number of other Hoosier homeowners – was property tax relief.

We don’t need to go over the history. You know it far too well. Property taxes have gone up and up and up. Republican Mike Braun talked a lot about it on the campaign trail. Democrat Jennifer McCormick didn’t.

Braun even was so bold as to craft a plan to create immediate changes in our state’s property tax situation by rolling back the amount we all pay to 2021 levels.

Bully for him.

So Senate Bill 1 was introduced and it looked like there might actually be some positive things happening at the corner of Capitol and Washington in downtown Indy.

Enter Indiana cities, counties, towns and schools.

You see, if property tax bills are reduced for you and I that means the money the state makes available to our communities will also be reduced. And that means cities, towns, counties, schools and any government entity may (and likely will) get less of our money.

Heavy emphasis on OUR MONEY.

As our pal the Bard would say, ay, there’s the rub.

The status quo is a powerful thing. The government (and I care not whether it’s local, state or nation) – OUR government – is not held to the same standards as you and I. Life dictates our circumstances more times than not. Someone loses a job? They cut spending. An unexpected repair can mean a dip into savings, or worse, a loan. If our needs suddenly outpace our abilities, we adjust. Sometimes dramatically. Often painfully.

Not so with government.

Government just keeps growing.

And growing.

And growing.

Did I mention lobbyists?

Here in the state, groups representing Indiana cities, towns, counties and schools rolled up their sleeves and went to work before the ink was dry on Braun’s proposals. They’ve bombarded legislators and anyone who’ll listen about how reducing property taxes would negatively impact government. If Braun’s initial ideas go through, there will be less money for the government to spend. That is a fact.

Make no mistake about it. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the crux of the entire issue. Property tax reform means that somebody, somewhere is going to have to figure out how to make do with less. It is important you understand that the hired hands in Indianapolis are trying to make sure that’s you and me and not their constituents – the people behind the lobbyists.

Oh, do you think I said that wrong? Do you think that their constituents are us schmucks on THIS SIDE of the checkbook?

Silly people.

What was it my Grandpa used to say? What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying. Our elected representatives are telling us with their words, deeds and votes that their constituents, the folks they REALLY represent, are the mayors, councils, superintendents and such – not us lowly taxpayers.

How do we know? We know because any fool can see that government spends like a drunken sailor on a three-day pass in an exotic port. From statues in roundabouts to plush high school athletic facilities to spec buildings to . . . oh, never mind. I don’t have time to list all the ridiculous things our tax money goes for and you don’t have time to read something that long.

The right answer, the ONLY answer that is sustainable over time – is to reduce government spending. Yet everyone from the schoolhouse to the statehouse to the White House is doing the opposite.

OK, in the spirit of transparency, let me be very clear. My business – the newspaper business – has our own problems with legislators. Every year lawmakers try to hide what they do by taking away the required publication of public notices. It’s a battle we keep fighting, some years faring better than others. Ironically, lawmakers say they can save taxpayers money by taking away public notice advertisements from newspapers, despite the fact that they pay pennies for them – AND despite the fact that it will cost the government more to publish those same notices than they are paying my industry to do it now. (Not to dive too far into the weeds here, but you should know that the state tells newspapers – private businesses I might add – how much we can charge for legal ads. In most cases, it is the cheapest – by far – ad rates we have. Just saying.)

And yes, I know this is repetitive, but how many high paid assistant fire chiefs does a municipality need? How many recreational facilities need to be built with our money? How many spec buildings? How many assistant school superintendents, expensive new pools, new fields, new buildings do we need?

To be fair, are they all guilty? Of course not. There are mayors, city councils, county councils, school boards and school superintendents who are not good but great stewards of their resources. Unfortunately, too many are not.

Friends, this is not a front-line problem. Teachers are not overpaid. Cops, firefighters, first responders are not. The issue is almost always the top-heavy side – the administrations, the bureaucracy, the infrastructure Throughout Indiana, we see tax money – OUR money – spent on things that would never fly in private business. It’s long been said in this space that elected politicians would never spend their own money this way. They just don’t hesitate to spend yours.

It leaves us smack dab in the middle of a whirlwind where Hoosier lawmakers are telling us they need our money more than we do.

Please.

Say it with me now. Someone is going to have to do with less. It’s absolutely shameful that those in office – at any level – are telling us it can’t be them.

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at [email protected].