Even though it wasn’t Bart’s fault…hmmm. That makes sense.

As a Democrat (actually Democan, leaning towards Daniels) I thank the Guv for having some courage. This time around he behaved far better than the Dem leaders. Unfortunately, the Dems are in disarray from the top down. The only hope is for Obama to provide new leadership. I guess that doesn’t matter as much to Evan Bayh as that V.P. slot. Oh, that’s right, first he has to carry the state for Hillary.

i can’t buy that bart was blameless. city-county tax entities get about half of the levy. he did nothing to reduce that. moreover, he added to the pain by passing the COIT all the while thinking he was bullet proof. guess what? he wasn’t.

this was all compounded by the fact that he as the leader of marion county democrats had lost control and the embarrassing bad behavior by monroe gray and friends disgusted many.

maybe bart wasn’t the root cause but he was a contributing factor. if you don’t believe me, look at the little pie chart that accompanies your tax bill.

Zinda-

There are a million reasons that Bart wasn’t to blame. If he was to blame, why have all the eyes been on the Statehouse?

And it’s not true that city-county tax entities get most of the money. Actually, the city-county on average is less than 25% of your property tax bill.

Should he have not raised the COIT? Maybe. But he did it for public safety pensions. NOW the question you should be asking is what is Ballard going to do. Most of the tax increase went to fix a problem that had been around for 30 years. Believe it or not, I’m happy the city is getting some help. But now ask your Mayor what he intends to do with that money.

He should give it back. If he doesn’t, then his campaign rhetoric from last year will ring hollow.

Finally, Bart was no more responsible for Monroe Gray and others than George Bush is for Mark Foley and Larry Craig.

Bart epitomized the ‘I don’t care what you think, I’m King’ political mentality. He wasn’t directly to blame for property tax issues, but his city was feeling the pain or that and other taxes and while Bart was making large monetary handouts to big business. That pain needed a release. Bart was standing in the center of the bullseye and had the gall to wave that COIT red flag at the charging bulls (we voters).

So if you just want to say he took one for the team, fine. Message signed, sealed, and delivered: “More taxes aren’t acceptable to we the taxpayers anymore. Enough is enough.”

PIR. I wanted to respond to your note with a thought or two. One, I’ve got to start with the notion that Bart was not responsible for Gray. Sorry, but I cannot agree here. Yes, he is not responsible for what Gray does and says, but he is (in my opinion) responsible as the “then” city/county leader to see that the Gray issues were addressed, either directly or indirectly. He chose, in my opinion, the politically cowardly approach. In the end, he was responsible because he chose to do nothing.
Two, I totally agree that our new Mayor needs to be held accountable to return money to the people. He did campaign on a platform of reform, and this included a reduction in spending. No gamesmanship allowed. He told us he would make the tough calls. It is now time to man up and make those calls.

Daniels is the best thing to happen to Indiana in 100 years. This law is the second.

There’s much to do, through the election process, to get consensus, to eliminate property tax; replacing it with a transparent, reality based method, like sales tax, and real or adjusted dollar reductions, of government’s size and spending.

Indy’s mayoral election may well have been an issue driver during this session, but there’s a lot more racing to do.

It was incredibly wasteful for Mitch to use all those pens just to sign his name! ;-)

Oh great. An increase in sales tax to bale out the property tax fiasco, which had mushroomed into a full-fledged war.

Do we learn nothing from history? Re-read: Gov. Bowen’s 1973 tax plan. A complete disaster, which gave us the PTRF, which became a worthless state govt. hedge fund that allowed legislators to “blink” every year for 34 years. At about 5-6% nonsense factor per year, there is where we’ve suffered. Yeah, we got some property tax relief. But the cost was an increase in sales tax, which will never, ever go away. But I digress.

In addition to too many units of local govt. wasting money, your state government is a colossal sinkhole of waste.

Shepherd-Kernan gave us a blueprint on all of this. I guess it’s asking too much for our feeble-minded legislature to tackle more than one big problem at a time. And so now they’ll tackle Shepherd-Kernan next year.

Stay in touch with them. Itll be a new legislature, but most of the crackpots will be back. The problem of wasteful government is not gone–at all. This miserable legislature gave us a sugar pill of fleeting property tax relief. It shouldn’t mask the bigger problems.

Oh yeah, Bart responsible? What a belly-laugh. At least try to make a factually-based sensible argument.

Expansion of Gambling at Taverns

Looks like the bars can add the unclaimed revenue from these Euchre card games, pull-tabs, punch boards, and tip boards to the Cherry Master and Pea Shake revenue they have been enjoying tax free.

It has become clear that the enforcement bill that was advertised as a crack down on illegal Cherry Masters was actually a Trojan Horse to expand gambling to all Foreign Legion, Knights of Columbus, Moose Lodge etc…

Add this to the addition of slots at the Horse Tracks, and it appears that Mitch Daniels campaign promise not to expand gambling was a complete lie.

P.S.
Can’t wait for next session when they legalize Cherry Masters and Pea Shakes. Sell the State Lottery. Expand slots to every airport and truck stop. Add two downtown Indianapolis and Fort Wayne casinos. Maybe they will even get around to legalizing prostitution and “recreational” drugs.

All for the purpose of increasing state tax revenue

Guess what……Baron Luke Kenley has a competitor in District 20. Looks like his constituents didn’t much care for his leadership roll in the “tax increase now but we’ll really cut them later” approach to tax reform. The guy running against him is a no-nonsense, cut spending hard liner also from Noblesville named Ken Geesaman. He is obviously an outsider to the elites in the Republican Party but has a great organization with some grassroots backing.

WE are talking about the “swiss Cheese property tax relief bill” aren’t we.? If the cost of schools was transferred from local (Property) taxes to the state, then my tax bill should drop by 50% because that is the amount of property taxes that is dedicated to IPS (tax district 801) for tax year 2006. We don’t know about tax year 2007 yet. This whole system MUST be reformed and that starts with repeal of property taxes.

I am ready to test the aerodynamics of every moron at the statehouse, by tossing them from the 4th floor balcony, into a pack of hungry pit bulls… After all, if the only difference between repeal and reform is semantics. Then, the only difference between lying and flying, must be the fact that they added the “F”, when they “F”aked us.