A FRIENDLY DISAGREEMENT
My good friend Thomas Cook over at Blue Indiana is taking issue with Governor Mitch Daniels’ latest ad. In it, Daniels says he balanced the budget without raising taxes. Cook argues Daniels did raise taxes in the form of the sales tax, cigarette tax and increases in property taxes.
Since a lot of us are still recovering from last week, I’m willing to give the recent IU grad (congrats by the way, Thom) a pass on this one. However, allow me to set a couple things straight.
Daniels’ claim is that he balanced THE STATE’S budget without a tax increase, which is accurate. The Governor did not raise state taxes. His administration held the line on spending. Daniels’ opponents argue that he did that by balancing the state’s budget on the back of local governments by holding back property tax replacement revenue which led to the massive increase in last summer’s tax bills. Actually that was only part of it, fundamentally what led to the increase in tax bills was the assessments and local government spending, which is where 99 percent of your property taxes go anyway. And that sales tax increase was to help pay for property tax relief and the state’s assumption of a number of levies such as child welfare and police pensions.
The increase in the cigarette tax was part of a bi-partisan effort to provide health care to uninsured Hoosiers; something that has been a corner stone for my Democratic friends.
I do think the 2008 Governor’s race is going to a referendum on Daniels; as most re-election bids are. And I think the Daniels’ folks should be worried about a year where change is the big theme and Democrats are expected to come out in droves.
I also think Jill Long Thompson comes in with about 40-percent of the general electorate, but she os going to have to convince 11 extra percent that this state is going in the wrong direction. And by the way, the race for the Governor’s office is going to be won or lost in Southern Indiana (Jill did well up north, Mitch is strong in central Indiana).
Either way, it’s going to be fun to watch.
