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 Post subject: Indiana House speaker (Democrat) Screws Taxpayers
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:20 pm 
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http://www.nwi.com/articles/2009/03/10/ ... 116518.txt

NDIANAPOLIS | Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels rallied a Statehouse crowd Tuesday to pressure Democratic House Speaker Pat Bauer to cap off last year's property tax relief effort.

"We've got to finish the job," Daniels told the crowd of about 200. "There's one man who can make possible one vote that will protect Hoosier property tax payers forever. He's not hard to spot. He's a distinctive looking fellow. He looks a little Irish. He will listen to you, I believe it."

The rally represented the latest GOP ploy to pressure Bauer, a South Bend Democrat, to hold a House vote this spring to set up a November 2010 referendum allowing voters to cement new state property tax caps in the Indiana Constitution.

It didn't work.

"Approving the resolution this year will not move the referendum question up any faster," Bauer said after the rally. "If we wait until 2010 to act, we will have another year to determine the impact of the caps on schools and local units of government."

Legislative analysts currently predict that the revenue-stripping caps will sap $400 million from local government budgets next year, with cities, schools and other taxing unit in Lake County expected to take about a third of that hit.

The rally drew a few dozen members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, the road building crew the backed Daniels' 2006 lease of the Indiana Toll Road.

"If you're saving money on your taxes, you're going to have more money to spend," said John Sorensen, of Crown Point, a business agent for Local 150. "It means more money to us ... for construction projects."

Tax Caps Question

Senate Joint Resolution 1, which is identical to a measure approved last year, represents the second of three steps to write property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution, where they would be shielded from legal challenge.

If the Democratic-controlled House endorse the measure this year, voters would get the final say in a 2010 referendum. If not, the caps still could go on the 2010 ballot if the House and Republican-ruled Senate approve the resolution next year.

Starting next year the caps, which are in state law, will limit homeowner bills to 1 percent of assessed value, or $1,000 on a $100,000 home. The caps will be set a 2 percent of assessed for rental properties and 3 percent for businesses.


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 Post subject: Re: Indiana House speaker (Democrat) Screws Taxpayers
PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:07 am 
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He did it again!!

Real government reform in Indiana is still on life support, but House Speaker Pat Bauer has his hand on the plug and is tugging hard.

Bauer, the South Bend Democrat who has made it his personal mission to kill virtually every aspect of the Kernan-Shepard reform report, has managed to jam all of the reform bills into one package that all but guarantees every legislator will object to something.

It worked, too.

By combining five bills into one and sending it to the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, Bauer watched the single, 244-page amendment go down to defeat by a 7-1 vote of the committee.

Most of the committee members were probably like Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, who said she liked certain aspects of the bill, including the very significant county government consolidation, but she could not vote for the elimination of township government.

So instead of being allowed to vote for something she liked and against something she did not, she was forced by Bauer and his compadres into an all-or-nothing decision, and chose nothing.

Also killed by the speaker's machinations was a bill that would have prevented people who are employed by a political entity to be elected to boards that oversee their own departments.

Lake County is rife with city and town councils on which public employees serve, in essence making them both their own bosses and in most cases, the boss of their boss. If anything shouts conflict of interest, this does.

But although Kernan-Shepherd recommended abolishing this practice, and it passed the Senate 32-18 as a separate bill, it got stuck in with four other bills when Bauer sent it to the House committee and it, too, went down in flames.


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