House Republicans aren’t fooling anyone with their melodramatic response to the fact that the state has bigger issues to deal with this year than embedding existing property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution.
Democrats have urged caution, rightly pointing out that we have no way of knowing what effect the caps will have on local governments until after this year. But Republicans know the caps are the only thing they can talk about in the absence of a plan to bail out the state’s bankrupt unemployment fund, fix our economy or help hard-working Hoosier families get back on their feet.
Here’s what the Indianapolis Star’s Matt Tully had to say about House Speaker Pat Bauer’s decision to delay a vote on putting the tax caps into the Constitution until next year:
And so, critics are calling him everything from arrogant to the taxpayers’ worst nightmare. House Republican leader Brian Bosma said Bauer “ignored the overwhelming majority of Hoosier taxpayers” by blocking the tax-cap resolution. In a display of the melodramatic rhetoric you start to hear at the end of every General Assembly session, Bosma added: “I feel sorry for Hoosier taxpayers.”
Sorry or not, Bauer was right. He was right not to be swayed by polls, PR gimmicks or anti-tax tea parties. He was right to slow down a process that was moving too fast.
