Brownsburg Property Tax Debate Exposes Local Government Failures and “Lost Revenue” Mindset

You guys know, and I've done this for years, I live in Warehouseburg on the west side. Brownsburg is the technical name for it, though it has over time become nothing but high density housing and warehouses, like so many of our once eclectic, different, special cities and towns, it's just become a dystopian, bland, very crowded existence over there. And I will use things that go on in these meetings, and I know a lot of you obviously don't live where I live, but the things that are happening there, if I think they're applicable to where you live or likely applicable to where you live, I'll use them, I'll use the things that I see, the things that I hear. So I heard something last night and I was like, man, I have to talk about this with you guys because it was a great insight into how governments view taxpayers, about how governments view our money, local governments. And one of the mistakes we've made, look, Braun is a bond villain, right, he's a wussy, that's what he is, and he totally wimped out when he had an opportunity to defend us last year with property taxes. He never wanted, his heart was not in it, he didn't want to fight for property taxes, he went into it kicking and screaming, and then when he had a chance to stand up for us, he wimped out. The General Assembly, they're bad guys too, they're rotten, they screwed us on property taxes, they make the laws.

Why Local Governments Became the Biggest Villain in Indiana’s Property Tax Fight

But ultimately, I was at this meeting last night, and I'm watching this meeting and it really dawned on me, it's like, you know, the local governments probably are the biggest villain of all in this property tax debacle because they were the ones that fought against us. And now that's Braun's excuse, right, because he didn't have the stones to stand up for us, well the local governments were very vocal, and he went from, this is the only issue I hear about when I go places, everyone talks about property taxes, it's all I hear about, to as soon as he caved, well we just didn't hear about it from enough people. Dude, you got like tens of thousands of emails and phone calls and the rally at 1000 people, and well the local governments were very vocal, and you realize that property taxes became a battle of the people against the governments. And I was thinking last night as I'm watching this meeting, man, I have given local governments, I mean look, they're totally irresponsible, a lot of our local governments are run by complete idiots, complete uncreative idiots. They used to get mad at me at the radio station when I would call people idiots, they're like you can't do that, I can do that here, the program director of this place is producer Jason, that's who the program director of this place is, the owner is me, I pay, well that just alienates people, okay, and I always used to say, what would you call it, you got to be nicer in the way you say things, you just, I mean you have some very uncreative, low IQ people who run our local governments. I was talking with a local government person about this yesterday, and they were talking about they were having an issue in their community and they were presenting an option and the government was not responding, and I said this, when my wife was pregnant with Olivia, she had gotten a vaccine probably four or five months before we knew that we were going to have a baby, and as most of you know throughout the process there are different things that they recommend pregnant women get for the baby when the baby's born, all these sorts of things, right, and as you're a new parent or expecting parent you guys know this, you've been through this, it's a nightmare, you're reading this and reading that and talking to this person and that person, you're trying to figure out what to do. And so they're coming up on, I don't know, we're probably five, six, seven months into the process, but they're like okay it's time for her to get this vaccine because then it gives the baby antibodies when the baby's born, and we start thinking and go wait a second, she just got this vaccine like three or four months before Olivia was conceived. So we start reading into this vaccine, it's like well the antibodies tend to last or will last for two years, we probably don't need to get this vaccine, and we go back and forth and we're reading stuff and yeah it kind of looks like you're going to be all right, you don't need to get this, and we say we'll ask the doctor. So we go to the appointment and the doctor says okay it's time for you to get this vaccine, and I said well hey doctor if you look at her records she got this vaccine, you know whatever at the time, now it'd be like ten months ago, and according to this the antibodies can last for up to two years, and you can tell the doctor's getting this very confused look on her face, and I said I don't think my wife needs to get this vaccine, she doesn't think she needs to get it either, because if the goal is to transfer these antibodies to the baby which is great, that should be being accomplished in the time frame we're at here. And the doctor's still looking at me and not saying anything, and I finally am like so do you think she needs to get the vaccine. And I will never forget this, the doctor starts talking in a circle, right, and I'm saying finally, I'm like no, I'm telling you what I'm reading about this, I'm not disputing whether the vaccine is valuable to the baby, she's already had this thing, do you think she needs to get another one. And finally the doctor just looks at us and goes well the book says she needs to get it, the book says she needs to get it, and I said ma'am, I said I get that you have MD next to your name and you went to medical school, and you're probably far more advanced than I am when it comes to understanding pregnant women and babies and everything else, so don't take this the wrong way, I know what the book says, I've been reading the book, if I wanted the book's opinion I could just buy the book, I'm paying you because you're the doctor, what is your opinion on this. And she would not just come out and say it, she went all the way around saying yeah you don't need it but she wouldn't say you don't need it, and I suddenly realized I've gone over her head in the sense of, and there are many fine doctors who do phenomenal jobs, and part of it was probably liability concern, like if we say you don't need this and something goes wrong, well the doctor said we don't need it, but I realized they're going by the book, like the process of birthing a child from conception to live birth, there's like a book, they're literally working through the process.

How Bureaucratic Thinking Blocks Common-Sense Government Decisions

And so I told this person yesterday when they were talking about their issue, I said local governments are basically the same way, they are career and state governments, they're run by career bureaucratic people who work off of a playbook, every situation in some sense has to fit into the book, the elected officials be they city councilmen, town councilmen, county councilmen have no idea what's going on, they don't read, they don't engage, they don't indulge, they don't have creativity, they rely for the most part on the bureaucrats to give them the information, or in the case of the General Assembly whatever the party bosses tell them to do, and they can't fathom how to respond for something that's not inside the book. If it doesn't fit in the book, they don't know what to do, they don't use common sense, they don't use creativity, they don't go yeah that's probably right, let's figure out a way to make this happen. And so last night I'm at this meeting and it's for you guys who've been following along with this, our school system to their credit is trying to avoid asking for a referendum this fall. Now nobody should cry any tears for the public education system, Brownsburg has two football fields, Brownsburg has four field houses, ain't no tears being shed for these people, all right, so I don't ever want to say like Rob Kendall is crying a river of tears for public education, no, they get way too much money, it's ridiculous, we've been taxed to death.

Brownsburg School Funding Debate Shows the Pressure Behind Referendum Threats

And the biggest reason in almost every community, the school system probably gets 50% or more of your property tax dollars on top of the money they get from the state, it's an embarrassment that these people can't make it work, it's an embarrassment. That being said, most school systems in this state, because the legislature are a bunch of wusses, they allow these schools whenever they want to go to the ballot and get a referendum, they can go force the community to vote against getting their taxes raised, and they can use a lot of public money in order to do this, like Carmel, they're about to enact their third referendum, not one, they voted for three times, they'll have three active referendums very soon. So to Brownsburg's credit, having said that they have too much money and I don't think they're responsible with the money, but that's not just Brownsburg, it's all the public schools, to Brownsburg's credit they have taken a responsible approach of saying we do not want to do a referendum, we want to avoid asking the taxpayers to raise the taxes, mostly because they don't want me spending six months running them through the mud, but it doesn't matter why they're doing the right thing. And so as you guys know we've laid this out, they have come up with what I think is a pretty reasonable request from our town and township governments asking for a short term cash infusion, and then they believe they will get money from the state in the upcoming budget that will rectify the situation, and in a couple of years they'll be fine, and I have supported them in that endeavor, not because I support them having the money but because I support my taxes not going up, I've paid enough, you've paid enough. So anyway that's the background of this, so they have another town meeting last night where they're supposed to either vote on this or have some robust discussion on this, and they still won't make a decision on this, they've kicked it down the road again, because again these government people have been asked to do something that is outside of the book, it's outside of the box, it forces them to have the least bit of critical thinking, of creativity imaginable, they've been asked by the school to do something that isn't in their book, they've been asked to do something by the school that isn't in their box, and so they just sit there every time they get asked to make a decision and they go, and they can't do it. They don't want to say no to the school, they can't figure out how to make it work because the town staff probably doesn't want to do it because it would involve taking money that they want to spend on something else. So anyway all that being said they open up the meeting last night with this statement and it's clearly written by an attorney and bureaucrats and the town council president who is up for reelection, by the way Ben Lacey has been a disaster in Brownsburg, guys you've got to fire this guy, if you live in Brownsburg and you hear my voice please vote against Ben Lacey, if you want to do anything, if you would like to give me an early Christmas present in May that would be it. He reads this statement, he's the council president and he reads this statement, and it's just nonsensical garbage that means nothing to the average person, but in the middle of the statement they start crying, which was written by staff and attorney, the council president is reading it, and I'm assuming he's speaking for everyone up on the stage, they start crying about the lack of revenue or quote unquote lost revenue.

Why ‘Lost Revenue’ Claims Anger Indiana Property Taxpayers

And nothing, nothing makes me angrier than when I hear a government talking about lost revenue, because lost implies you had some entitlement to it, like you owned it, like it was yours. They start crying about the lost revenue from the property tax bill, now look there's a lot of things to hate in that property tax bill, but you getting a fraction of the money back from the tax increases that you have paid over the past five years ain't it, and it enrages me. I see the schools do it and the cities do it and the towns do it and the counties do it and the fire territories do it, and I'm sure if I knew who was running the libraries they would do it too. People have seen their property taxes double or triple over the last five years, and you're getting two or three hundred dollars back, and I gotta watch this guy cry a river of tears over quote unquote lost revenue, no offense, but kiss my ass. Now look again there's a lot of stuff in there that I don't like, the way that businesses ended up getting the most, I don't like that, but I'm not mad that property owners are getting property tax relief, and it is highly offensive that whether it's school systems or cities or towns, after all this excess revenue that has flowed in from our pockets, these governments are crying over a lack of money. That's our money, what did you do with all the excess money, this is the question that none of these governments will answer, when they get angry or upset or have some sense of entitlement for you getting two hundred dollars back. What did you do with all the excess money that you got in 21 and 22 and 23 and 24 and 25. Look, the new data that is out, I forget where I read it, oh I know where I read this, one of these people who thinks they're special because Braun invites them to his house every month posted this, yes they are still meeting with Braun, and even though Braun and Micah have done nothing for these people for a year now they still go and they post about it, the governor invited us and Micah was there and Diego was there, they were so wonderful, they're lying to you, they're using you, stop going, I said this a year ago, I'm saying it now, they've done nothing since you started going to those meetings, stop going. This person claimed that Braun said 57% of people saw property tax decreases last year, that means 43% of the people saw their property taxes go up, let's review, there was a property tax bill to decrease property taxes for Hoosiers and 43% of the people saw their property taxes go up from that. Those were Braun's numbers, that's the Indiana Republican Party, that's Mike Braun, their property tax reform bill saw 43% of the people see their property taxes go up in year one. And if those numbers are wrong, take it up with Braun. Those 57% of people who saw their taxes go down, we've already laid out the math and the reality, because they're not touching assessments those decreases are going to go away within two to three years, and you've got income taxes that are going to go up for a lot of people, and you've got these referendums that are going to hit Braun. Beckwith blew it.