The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a decent editorial on the winners and losers from the 2007 General Assembly.
The legislature did all right on education, finding $92 million for full day kindergarten but not enough to fund full day kindergarten for everybody.
With respect to fireworks: “cities and counties can set tougher restrictions, but no locality can ban fireworks between 5 p.m. and two hours after sunset from June 29 to July 9; from 10 a.m. to midnight July 4; or from 10 a.m. Dec. 31 to 1 a.m. Jan. 1.” (Two hours after sunset on June 29 — that’s like 3 a.m. under Eastern Daylight Time, right?)
Cigarette taxes will go up $0.44 per pack to fund a health care initiative that will provide health insurance coverage for about 144,000 Hoosiers who earn up to 200% of the federal poverty level (about $41,300 for a family of four). The coverage will pay out at Medicare rates which are more generous than Medicaid rates and should encourage more doctors to offer services.
Owners of horse tracks in Shelbyville and Anderson will get to install 2,000 slot machines at each track. Gambling was not expanded to allow slots at bars and service clubs.
Property taxes will go up fast and some relief will arrive later. Because the property tax subsidy was structured in the form of a rebate, the property taxes will go up the full amount — predicted to be 24%. In particular, those of us who pay property taxes through escrowed mortgage payments will feel the pain almost immediately as our mortgage payments go up. The rebate won’t come until later in the year. Furthermore, next year’s escrow payments will be based on the rebate-free property tax amounts.
That’s enough for this morning. Gotta go be a dad. The boy needs toast. Can’t deprive a boy of his toast.
Because there’s nothing better than trying to plan for enabling your wife to stay home with the kids and work part-time, but instead to have to tell her she may have to keep working if the property taxes go too high. And she wonders why I rant about the Indiana state legislature.
And it was a lovely way to get an expansion of gambling through – wait until the last minute and position it as the only option for property tax relief.
My favorite nut comment was the guy who said property taxes should be capped at 1% of a home’s purchase price so no one gets taxes out of their home. It’s a lovely idea if you’re going to sell the house for what you bought for it. The sad thing is, his vote cancels out mine.
I feel your pain there. There has been some belt tightening as we went from a Dual Income No Kids situation to a single-income two kids situation. Then my wife, formerly a teacher, started making some money in a web design venture with her sister just as some of the medical expenses associated with the newborn started to subside, and things are a little better. But, it’s a tough financial world out there even without your property taxes making a quantum leap.
What’s the incentive for businesses that pay people less than $20/hour to offer any health coverage now? The people you worried about being able to pay their own premiums are now covered. The people that are paid more than $20/hour are now arbitrarily able to afford their premiums. This has trainwreck written all over it as far as wages and benefits are offered by companies. Unintended consequence never fails to show up to the ball.
I mean, there are lots of people worse off than us, it’s just hard to work for something then have the goalposts move.
So it goes.