According to the lede by Rick Yencer of the Muncie Star Press, at a local House forum:
Indiana House Democrats and their party’s candidates generally support property tax caps, local rules for CAFOs and a living wage, while House Republicans are advocates for privatization of state government, right to work and making those tax caps permanent.
I threw in a link on the “right to work” position because it’s one of those pieces of jargon that sounds good on its face but is problematic in practice. Basically it creates free rider problems wherein a person can work at a place where a union has created better conditions without having to pay dues to that union.
Making tax caps permanent refers to putting property tax caps in the Constitution. Personally, I oppose such a move since we don’t know what tax policy is going to be most prudent in the future. Currently those caps have been legislated, and that legislation is being implemented and it will probably be awhile before we can tell whether this policy works well. And, even if it ends up working well now, putting it in the Constitution ignores the possibility that property tax caps might not be the best policy in the future when conditions change. Nobody likes taxes, and all taxes have their pros and cons. I don’t think there is anything peculiarly pernicious about property taxes that warrant special Constitutional treatment as compared to income taxes, sales taxes, estate taxes, excise taxes, or whatever.
Privatization can work in some situations, but it’s not automatically better than having government perform a function. At times, it feels like privatizing a particular government function or asset is selling our seed corn and, too often, simply enriching well connected bidders.
Property tax caps scare me because no one ever talks about AV’s going down. And they will be going down – they follow the market and the market is…well that’s obvious.
As AV’s shrink tax rates go up in order to bring in the same levy. However, a higher tax rates makes more properties eligible for the circuit breaker.
So most local units are already hurting. Some are already losing a substantial amount of money due to the caps. And as AV’s go down units will continue to lose more money.
I’m a big fan of protecting taxpayer money. However, units do have services to provide.
Putting a particular rate into the constitution just rubs me the wrong way. The constitution should be more of a policy document; particular rates should be statutory and always up for adjustment by legislation.
Couldn’t the answer to “right to work” laws be that if someone wants to work at the union rate, they pay the union dues, and if not, they can do the same job for the non-union rate and benefits?
Should be easy to do in the HR office: WidgetMover-Grade1-NonUnion and WidgetMover-Grade1. Each as their own pay rate and benefits package.
However, if you start the company as a NonUnion, you would need to re-hire and zero out your years of seniority to go with the union plan.
I don’t like the idea of someone telling me I need to pay union dues to have a job, but I’m all for being allowed to see the benefit of a union (if there is one) and then buy-in if I agree.
Nah, then no company would ever hire union workers.