Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article on the General Assembly’s interim study committees. By and large (and with definite exceptions), these committees do not provide a lot of direct benefits. They tend to be a useful graveyard for ideas meeting resistance in the General Assembly. You can refer the idea to a study committee and you’ve successfully stopped the idea from becoming law while appearing to be doing something about the issue. Legislators get a per diem for attending the study committees during the summer, supplementing their income.

On the other hand, the study commissions do provide opportunities for legislators to become better informed about issues. When I was working for the legislature, my sense was that lobbyists had undue influence because of the information they had, not because of any ill intent or corruption on the part of the legislator. These representatives are confronted with a barrage of legislation on an incredibly wide spectrum of issues, and the landscape changes in a hurry during the legislative session. It’s very convenient to turn to a lobbyist known to the representative who has expertise on the particular matter. The more educated a lawmaker is, the less dependent on lobbyists they will hopefully be.

An index of the summer study committees is available here.

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.

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.

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.

Initial disclosure – the headline is hyperbole but Kevin O’Neal, writing for the Indy Star, has an article entitled Mismatched records may cost Hoosiers their licenses.

Beginning next week, the BMV will send letters to 206,000 people asking them to update their driver’s license or state identification card information. If the BMV doesn’t get correct information or does not hear from those people, their licenses or ID cards will be revoked.

This is something required by the federal government who wants the bureaucracy to keep closer tabs on the citizenry. The 2005 federal Real ID act requires that names, genders, and dates of birth match Social Security records. Certainly that’s desirable, but it imposes a burden on citizens for record discrepancies that may be the fault of the citizen or may be the fault of government record keepers.

This becomes particularly important because in 2005, the Indiana Republicans pushed through a requirement that, before exercising their right to vote, citizens prove their identity through state or federal IDs and not with any other sorts of proof. If you get your license yanked because the Social Security Administration made a mistake, that could also result in your losing your right to vote.

The Evansville Courier Press wrote an editorial endorsing The Daniels Plan. To recap, The Daniels Plan calls for a 16% increase in the state sales tax (from 6% to 7%). In return, it caps property taxes at 1% for owner occupied residences, 2% for rental residential property, and 3% for all other types of properties. To accomplish these caps, a Constitutional amendment would probably be necessary to allow treating different sorts of property in an unequal fashion.

The plan further calls for shifting the remainder of school operating costs to the State and do the same for child welfare expenses. A new level of government, a tax board, would be created for the approval of spending plans (isn’t that what a County Council is for? Perhaps I misunderstand this part of the plan.) Elected township and county assessors would be replaced by one appointed, professional assessor who reports to (I believe) a state division for overseeing assessment. Each major building project would have to be approved by a public referendum.

I don’t think this plan is all bad, but what I find that I keep getting annoyed with is the fact that this has become an “emergency” in significant part because Marion County doesn’t seem to have taken steps to mitigate the problem that has been coming for awhile. Here in Tippecanoe County, it seems like the county officials have worked hard over the past several years to limit the fall out. Among other things, they kept the county budget in check and they imposed a county income tax to offset the lost revenues from the elimination of the inventory tax. Maybe it’s just Indy-envy of some sort, but it’s annoying that Marion County’s problems have a way of becoming the State’s problems.

Update Meanwhile, the South Bend Tribune has a few questions. (H/t Blue Indiana).

# All public school operating costs would be paid by the state under the plan, rather than by local property tax. That may be good, but wouldn’t it also remove some local control over local schools?

# The plan would increase state sales tax by 1 percent, to help reimburse the state for its assumption of child welfare and school costs. Indiana’s sales tax would be higher than the sales taxes in the four neighboring states. How much would this hurt businesses near the state lines?

# Although tax on owner-occupied homes would be capped at 1 percent, the tax on landlord-owned properties would be capped at 2 percent. Undoubtedly that difference would be passed on to tenants of rental properties. So, in effect, wouldn’t renters be paying more property tax than homeowners? Is that fair?

# The tax levels would be constitutionally capped, so it would be of utmost importance to get the math right the first time. Would the loss of revenue caused by reduction in property tax truly be offset by reduction in local government and school system operating costs? That is an especially pertinent question in counties such as St. Joseph, where there are a large number of properties that are not subject to property tax.

According to the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, in addition to directly increasing sales taxes, The Daniels Plan will also have the effect of indirectly raising income taxes. This will happen because the various caps on property taxes will lead to a shortfall that will require local government to enact income tax hikes to continue to provide basic services.

Not only could many people end up paying an additional 1 percent in income taxes as a result of Daniels’ plan, but one top lawmaker said he might push legislation that would force every taxpayer to do so.

Because part of Daniels’ plan also would shift more school costs and child welfare spending to the state, Senate Tax Chairman Luke Kenley said he might propose withholding those changes until local governments raise income taxes.

Kenley, R-Noblesville, said that would further reduce the reliance on property taxes statewide.

“We could say that we won’t let the state take over your welfare fund or your school general fund unless you adopt this,” Kenley said. “I guess you could call that a carrot, but they may feel like it’s a stick.”

I respect Sen. Kenley a lot, but this strikes me as silly. If the State wants to impose an additional 1% income tax, the State should enact the tax itself.

In related news, some lawmakers are cool to Daniels’ idea of writing the property tax caps into the Constitution. I’m skeptical as well. Putting only one part of the plan into the Constitution lacks a necessary symmetry. If you are going to write a cap into the Constitution, I think you also need to write a new funding source into the Constitution or somehow limit government spending under the Constitution — or simply keep all of it in the form of necessary legislation. In my mind, Constitutionalizing only the cap is a little like pinching one end of a balloon. You’re just going to distort the balloon, not change the volume of the air inside. You also make it more structurally unsound. Future generations might decide that property taxes are a more equitable form of taxation than sales or income taxes.

Minority leader Bosma, Rep. Espich, and Sen. Long appear to be tripping over themselves in a hurry to amend the Constitution. Democratic leaders and the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns advocate a less hasty approach:

“Certainly, if there’s a proposed constitutional amendment, I would keep an open mind about it,” Pelath said. “But as a matter of general philosophy, I think you amend the constitution only with great reluctance, and only out of dire necessity.”

Pelath said the constitution is meant to be a timeless document, and legislators have to be careful to make sure they won’t regret the changes in the future as conditions and policies change.

Probably inappropriate, but the Republicans’ eagerness to amend the Constitution reminds me of Watson in the sex-education scene in Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life:

Headmaster: So just listen… now did I or did I not do vaginal
juices?

Pupils: Yes sir.

Headmaster: Name two ways of getting them flowing, Watson.

Watson: Rubbing the clitoris, sir.

Headmaster: What’s wrong with a kiss, boy? Hm? Why not start her
off with a nice kiss? You don’t have to go leaping straight
for the clitoris like a bull at a gate. Give her a kiss, boy.

Wymer: Suck the nipple, sir.

Headmaster: Good. Good. Good, well done, Wymer.

Duckworth: Stroking the thighs, sir.

Headmaster: Yes, I suppose so.

Another: Bite the neck.

Headmaster: Good. Nibbling the ear. Kneading the buttocks, and so
on and so forth. So we have all these possibilities before we
stampede towards the clitoris, Watson.

Watson: Yes sir. Sorry sir.

So, what’s wrong with a law, boy? No need to go stampeding toward the Constitution.

Trouble is a-brewing for The Daniels Plan already. John Ketzenberger has an article entitled Daniels’ plan taxes loyalty of business. Pat Kiely of the Indiana Manufacturers Association and Kevin Brinegar of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce told Governor Daniels that his plan “wouldn’t fly” before he released it.

In particular, they object to the differential in property tax caps for homeowners versus business. Under The Daniels Plan, taxes on owner occupied residences would be capped at 1%, non-owner occupied residences at 2%, and business property at 3%. It stands to reason that the business community would object to a shifting of taxes back onto them. In significant part, it was a shift away from taxing business that caused the residential property tax spike in the first place. Elimination of the inventory tax shifted taxes from business owners to residential homeowners. The old, artificial assessment rules had a tendency to undervalue residential property, thereby reducing their prices. The more recent market-based values, therefore, resulted in a shift from business to residential.

I’m not trying to say that the old way was fair. I don’t know enough about it to pass that judgment. But, the fact remains that there was a shift in taxes off of businesses and onto residential homeowners. It makes absolute sense that the Indiana Manufacturers Association and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce would want to resist a shift back.

The Associated Press is reporting:

Senate President Pro Tem David Long says Senate Republicans plan to present 10 bills with various aspects of the plan on an organization day in late November. He then wants committee hearings and votes to be held on the bills before the session begins in earnest on January 8th.

If they’re endorsed by the Republican-led Senate committees before then, they would be eligible for floor action on that day. Long wants Democrats who control the House to take similar action.

What the hell? Why? Why muck around with cutesy procedural nonsense? Let’s consider this thing head-on. Put it all in one bill, vet it through the committee process, and then vote it up or down. This seems too important to railroad through prior to the session or mess it up by having popular pieces of the plan approved while less popular (yet vital) pieces are shot down.

Maybe there is a legitimate reason for Long’s unorthodox proposal, but I don’t see it at the moment.

(h/t Taking Down Words.)