The Grand Illusion - Buck Passing 101

Over the last several months, LaPorte County has been treated to an ongoing three-ring circus starring the County Assessor, the County Attorney, the DLGF and an appeals cast of thousands.  But just when you think that The Appointeds actually get one right and you start to enjoy the show, it morphs right back to the old classic “Why Government Doesn’t Work.”  Like poor, trusting Charlie Brown who always has the football pulled away by Lucy at the last second, it appears DLGF Commissioner Musgrave just yanked the property tax ball away from LaPorte County Taxpayers. 

According to the News-Dispatch, http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=15008&TM=24362.09 Musgrave Musgrave said “Seven county council members, three commissioners, and the assessor share this responsibility through their collective decision making,” … “County officials have the opportunity and the responsibility to resolve issues with the vendor, or exercise the ‘termination’ clause in the contract.”

Classical political buck-passing at its finest.  While most Libertarians probably have a preference for local government that is closer to the people than either the state or federal government, state government and the DLGF share an equal responsibility with our Local Electeds to fix this flaming mess.  But apparently Ms. Musgrave has already forgotten those 11 people she noted in LaPorte County government have repeatedly demonstrated total incompetence in getting this resolved and some pretty lousy decision making ability.  The DLGF should do the job it is supposed to do and make damn sure this gets fixed right. Fundamental constitutional rights need to be protected but unfortunately, We The Taxpaying Hoosier People pretty much had our fix-it tools stolen while we were napping.  Punch 10 driven paperless elections every four years certainly aren’t much of a tool against Goliath anymore. 

State legislators and the DLGF have created the laws and Alice-in-Wonderland rules that the heavily flawed reassessment was conducted under.  But like the Local Electeds,  Nexus is just another bit player who helps Alice move the shells, distracts the Taxpayer, and collects a substantial  check for doing it.  But taxpayers, please don’t be fooled again - the real constitutional power to fix the reassessment problem lies with the state legislators, not the County Commissioners, the County Council,  the County Assessor or the hired consultants who have been retained to take the heat.  It is up to them to face flawed reassessment reality and come up with a genuine long term fix instead of the smoke and mirrors legislation they passed last session.

Over the years I have had a number of discussions with friends (and foes) about the property tax system.  I have long advocated a simple “flat tax” type user fee approach on land and structures to fund basic local government services.  I believe that “Non-profits” (i.e.Hospitals, Churches, Lodges, etc) who own land and buildings that use local government services should also pay their fair share.  For far too long, the burden for government services has been excessively and unfairly put on homeowners, renters and small business - that must end.   I  believe a flat tax approach could clearly meet the “uniform and equal” requirement of Indiana’s Constitution and would totally eliminate the need for costly “reassessment” of any type.  The taxpayers’ money could be much better spent on roads, police, fire or other basic services instead of being wasted on highly paid consultants and their legal guns. And elected bad jokes like Assessor McDaniel wouldn’t be asking the Council for an additional $390,000 of our money to cover her little problem and put a few more pounds on Goliath.

Most of my Libertarian friends have come to believe that the property tax system needs to be yanked out by the roots and replaced with nothing.  After watching the DLGF vs LaPorte County game for the last few weeks, I think I am willing to concede that they are probably right.

This entry was posted on 26. June 2008 at and is filed under Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.