Mike Braun’s Property Tax Plan Creates More Winners and Losers Without Fixing Indiana’s Broken System

We start today with this bill signing that the governor had related to property taxes. And then what he said about property taxes. And I'm reading all this, and I realized property taxes are now becoming the new income tax. And what I mean by that is if you look at income tax and we all as good, decent, hard working members of society pay our income tax every year. It's a disaster, right? Doing your income tax. Paying your taxes is a disaster because the code has become so complicated, because the code is nothing but the government picking winners and losers, right? The government never does with less. They just decide who has to pay what for the thing. And so as a result, you know, with the federal government, obviously they just print the money which creates the inflation and the deficits. And then the deficits are future taxes for future generations, all of these things.

Property Tax Exemptions Are Expanding While Indiana’s Underlying Tax System Remains Unchanged

But on a local level, where a government can't print money, in this case, a state government or a local city, town, school corporation type government, when the government can't print money and you pick winners and losers. When you say someone doesn't have to pay or pay as much, then that simply means someone's going to have to pay more. And that's what we're now going to do with property taxes. And what that inevitably means is property taxes are and are going to further become the broken, complicated, despised system we've seen with income taxes. Look, either property taxes are okay or they aren't. It's the same thing we've been seeing in real time with the gas tax. Why did Braun suspend the gas taxes now? Because people are outraged about the price of gas. Whether gas is 429 a gallon or gas is 229 a gallon, it doesn't change the validity or lack thereof, of the taxes. Whether the government is. Whether the price of gas is 429 or 229, it does not change the validity of the taxes. And yet we keep acting like Braun has done something noble because he suspended the tax on gas, because gas got really expensive and everybody got mad. Either the tax is fair and the tax is right, or the tax is not fair and the tax is not right. The same thing now is going on with property taxes. So yesterday Braun has this big bill signing in which disabled veterans are now essentially going to be exempt from paying property tax. And I realize it's a really sticky situation. Anytime you say, well, disabled veterans shouldn't get something because immediately then people will say, well, you hate the vets or you're not properly honoring those who have served our country or, or you're against this or you're against that. No, no, no, no, I'm just doing math, right? I'm saying the whole system itself is broken. And the system itself that is broken is that local governments are allowed to basically do whatever they want. Local governments keep getting more. Local governments are not asked to do with less. Now, I have seen this where I live, and I'm sure you've seen this, where you live, where now they're crying because of Senate Bill One. They might get a few less dollars than they got the year before. However, if you compare it to five years ago, they're getting infinitely more than they were getting even with the Senate Bill one property tax cuts and in the case of school corporations or really any government entity, although schools are primarily the only ones who do this, whenever they don't like the revenue that they get, the amount of money they get, whenever they want, they can put a referendum on the ballot and try to raise your taxes. The state of Indiana is not solving the problem. They're putting Band-Aids on the problem and trying to appease select voter groups. And then they want you to think, oh, look at what we've done. If you're not making a government entity take less money, if you're not making the government entities be more accountable, and then you make one portion of the populace not pay, then simple math tells us someone else is going to pay more. Right? I mean, you have so many dollars. The local governments are allowed to acquire the Max Levy, as we like to call it, in government speak. And maybe someday and this would be a huge career risk, but maybe someday we'll just do a show and explain how property taxes work like levies, things that go into actually formulating a property tax rate. I don't know, that could end up be it would be for 99.9% of the population. Super boring. I might be able to make it entertaining though. I'll see. That would be a lot of work. I'm woefully busy these days. But my point is, when Braun's going to have a celebration, a celebratory bill signing going, look at what we've done for our disabled vets. I say no, no, no. Look at how you've harmed someone else. If you really want to do something for disabled veterans and all of the taxpayers, because everyone uses these services, right? Are we going to say now that disabled vets don't use the police? They do. They don't use the fire. They do. They don't use the roads. They do. They don't use sidewalks. They do. They don't flush toilets. They do. They don't turn on faucets. They do. They don't send their kids to schools. They do.

Disabled Veteran Property Tax Relief Sparks Debate Over Who Ultimately Pays the Bill

What you're saying now is, okay, these people get these services for free. Okay, that's a conversation we can have. But then we also have to tell the public what's going on on the other end of it. When the government can't print money, which creates deficit, right, deficits or future taxes and inflation. But the state can't do that. And the counties and the towns and the school corporations can't print money. When you, as the state, continue to allow local governments to excessively pilfer homeowners to whatever amount essentially they desire, which is what can happen anytime a school doesn't like what they're getting or not getting, they can go for a referendum. And we've seen that. We're going to see that. Katie bar the door. We're going to see. And it's an estimated 100 school referendums this fall. So when you say, well, we're making it so that disabled vets don't have to pay property tax anymore, then say the other part of it. We're making someone else pay more. Same amount of money the government can obtain. One person doesn't have to pay their fair share of it. Everybody else pays more. The system is broken. The system itself is broken. And until we fix the system, which, by the way, the system, the current. It's beyond fixing, guys. It cannot be fixed. Any system that allows people's taxes to go up based on what someone else did with their property is a broken system that can never be fixed. And so I posted about this yesterday and people got the, you know, in the comments section, like the guy eating the popcorn, like, oh, Rob's really going to step in at this time. Rob's challenging disabled vets. No, I'm not challenging disabled vets. God bless those people. Thank you for your service, your American heroes. What I'm challenging is the legalized vote buying process, which will continue to embolden and lift up a broken system that punishes everyone. It punishes everyone. Every single one of us is getting screwed. If you well, every one of us pays property taxes, right? Whether you rent, whether you own, whether you're a business owner or a homeowner or a home renter or a business renter, right? Like the building we're in right now, we're paying property tax on, we don't own it. And our landlords seem like very nice people. But they're not just out of the goodness of their heart, Jason and Rob seem like swell guys. We'll pay that property tax for them. No, we're paying it. And as long as we continue to do these. And again, this is exactly what we've done with the income tax. Look at what the bill that passed last year, the Trump bill. What did they do? They didn't spend less. They didn't require the government to take less money. They just said, hey, if you work, if you're a waitress or you're a bartender, you know, no tax on tips. Oh, how are we paying for that? Well, we're not right. We're printing the money, which will be further inflation, which will be further for future generations will pay that money back. And by the way, now they're saying even though bartenders and waitresses use all the services, they're saying their job is better than yours. The job's great. There's many wonderful people I know that are bartenders and waitresses. I was a bartender, as you guys know, part time job, several years. It's not an indictment of those people. It's an indictment of the system saying, why do they not have to pay taxes? Why are they better than a teacher? Why are they better than a police officer? Why are they better than a roofer or a plumber? They're not. All jobs are valuable. But our government said, no, no, no, because we want your. Well, the government, the Republicans said, because we want votes of these people in states, we think we can start winning consistently. We will pass this bill. It's exactly and look at what's happened. The deficits continue to rise. The national debt continues to rise. We're closing in on $40 trillion. It's printed money devalues money, makes everything more expensive. This is the exact same thing we're looking at with property taxes. When you say, well, we're not going to make disabled vets pay their property taxes. It's not an indictment of the disabled vets. Great. Why does anyone pay property taxes? Well, how would we fund the schools? Okay, so disabled veterans get to use all the services but don't have to pay for it. If that's what we're saying, let's just word it that way. And that's a fine conversation for us to have. That's a fine conversation for us to have. But I'm not going to let Braun get away or the General Assembly get away with acting like they've done something noble. When the obvious result, based on property tax formulas and the way the governments are allowed to levy property taxes, especially when school districts, whenever they want, can go for tax referendums, which raise everyone's taxes. I'm not going to let them act like the General Assembly or the governor did something noble by not forcing any sort of accountability on the school corporations or the cities or the towns or the counties. It'd be one thing if they said, okay, we're going to exempt disabled vets and we're going to require whatever cuts accountable, you know, accordingly so nobody else's property taxes go up. There's a pie. Guys like I know this is repetitive, but I know for a lot of people you hear property taxes, you're just like, what? There's a pie of the amount of dollars, the schools or the towns or the cities or all the government entities are allowed to acquire. When you take people out of that equation, you then force everyone else to pay more to make up for the pie until the dollar amount that they're allowed to acquire gets smaller, all they're doing is raising taxes on other people. I refuse to say that that's a good thing. I refuse to say job well done. The conversation should be right now. Are property taxes just? Are property taxes fair? Is it fair for the government to have a forever lien on your home? Is it fair for you to be taxed on something you're not monetizing? Is it fair for your taxes to go up because someone else doesn't have to pay, or someone else sells their property and makes money? That's the question every member of the General Assembly should be being asked. That's the question every member of the General Assembly should have to answer. If the answer is yes, okay, then they're on the record with that and voters can judge them accordingly. But the answer is they'll tell you no. So then the logical follow up is what are you doing about it? And the answer is nothing because they don't want to take on the school systems. We saw this last year. We saw this last year with the property tax fight, and Braun sort of admitted this. They just didn't want to deal with schools. They didn't have the stones, they didn't have the guts. They didn't have the cojones to take on the school system. So and by the way, the Indiana Capital Chronicle is a big article about this event Braun had yesterday signing this disabled veterans property tax exemption into law. And then Braun got asked about other parts of the property tax system that he wants to see reformed. And here's what he said. And everyone needs to wake up to this because this is crazy. Quote. Once you get to 65, maybe you ought to have some relief from your own government to not have property taxes after that. So I'll be looking for enterprising legislators to see if they're hearing that too. He always does this. This little digs that he takes at people where enterprising legislators. So let's talk about what he just proposed there. If you're 65 and over, you don't pay property taxes. Okay. So where does the money come from? Again, if all of these were tied into we're going to force reform at the local government level. Remember property tax caps. And this is why I get so pissed off about these referendums. Property tax caps which were 1%, were done. We're out of here. If you own a home, property tax caps were the compromise instead of local government reform in 2008. Mitch Daniels went to the General Assembly because Mitch Daniels really wanted local government reform, because Mitch Daniels recognized the only way to fix this issue is to get local governments under control. And obviously, there was this Kernan-Shepard report that was put together in the mid 2000 at the direction of Daniels, with former Democrat Governor Joe Kernan and former Chief Justice, Republican Chief Justice Randall Shepard. This fabulous document on how to reform local governments, which would save everybody a bunch of money, make them better, make them more accountable. Almost none of that's ever been implemented. And so Daniels was actually trying for meaningful local government reform in 07 and 08. The compromise was the tax caps because Daniels, and, you know, it'd be interesting to talk to him today to see how it worked out. Maybe we'll try to do that. I think Daniels believed well, at the very least, if we starve the governments of revenue, they'll be forced into reform. Now, I don't think what he factored in was you're going to have the assessment monster who can always raise the taxes and the way the school systems would bastardize the referendum provision, which is what's happened. Governments haven't done with less revenue. In fact, they have much more revenue than they used to have. But the whole premise of the property tax caps emanated out of, started out of a need for local government reform.

Braun Suggests New Exemptions for Seniors and Homeowners Who Have Paid Off Mortgages

So the question to Braun would become, okay, so now you've exempted the disabled vets, now you're going for 65 and over. Who's paying that freight? Me, I'll pay it. I pay, I pay. By the way, guys, I did call Diego Morales yesterday and I left him a voicemail. I know many of you said to do that. I did. I didn't get an answer. I left him a very nice voicemail offering him the opportunity to come on the show. He had an event last night at a house. I know the person's house. It was at the person passed the message along to him as well and said he should do the show. It's really all I can do at this point. I've called, I've offered. Other people have told him he should do it. It's in his court now. But the point is, you can't just keep saying, well, this person doesn't have to pay and these people don't have to pay without making local governments make major changes. And as long as, look, none of the changes are going to matter as long as the school corporation every two years can hold the community hostage with the ability to go for a referendum. Look, it's not about whether I think older people should be paying property taxes. I don't think anyone should be paying property tax. I don't think old people should pay it. I don't think young people should pay it. You own your home. You bought it. It's yours. The government should be able to threaten you. There's a million different ways you could fund vital services. The problem is these and these lawmakers know this. They don't want just vital services funded because then you can't do things like palladiums and reflexive pools and stadiums. All of the swimming pools, park centers, all of these things that are not part of vital services. The private sector should be taking care of government does. Oh, hotels, you know, Carmel, Indianapolis, you got taxpayer funded hotels. Now, you wouldn't be able to do that if you actually had meaningful reform to local government, which forced them to have limited resources. And the legislatures don't want to take that on the legislators. And then I love the fact that Braun tries to demean people by going, well, if you're not for exempting people 65 and over, then you're not an enterprising legislator like dad is really coming down on you. I'm very disappointed in you non-enterprising legislators. By the way, why can't Braun human? What sort of phrase is that? Are you an enterprising legislator? What year is this? 1955. Are you an aspiring enterprising legislator? He then goes on to say, oh, it gets even better. The other thing I hear is, you know, once you paid off your mortgage, why should you then have a fixed cost? And generally that's going to be later in life with a 25, 30 year mortgage, you'll be approaching retirement. So wait wait, wait now. Okay. Now the disabled vets don't have to pay. Now the 65 and over don't have to pay. And now you're saying any person who's paid off their mortgage. So in this case, Braun and his gajillion square foot home, he ain't paying property tax. And his helipad, by the way, which you paid for. Think about that. Mike Braun and his rich friends would be exempted from property tax. You, on the other hand, unless you're over 65. Oh, and if you like, you know who pays off their mortgage fastest? The rich people, right? So you might be 55. Well, not rich people, either the rich or the very financially dedicated. There's a lot of people who have paid off their mortgage, who are not rich, who are very, very financially dedicated. I'm trying to do that right now. But it's ridiculous that whether you have a mortgage or not dictates whether you pay property tax. That's just ridiculous. Either the tax is fair or it's not. Either the tax is just or it's not. Either the tax is the best way to fund local governments or it's not. I say it's not. It's part of why Braun's initial plan. Look, it took him three tries to get it right and I had to correct him multiple times. But the initial plan that Braun rolled out in 24 was pretty good. What would it have done? It would have stopped the assessment madness. It would have reverted bills back to 21 levels. So all this assessment craziness gone. It would have capped the growth of your bill each year. So again the assessment madness. It doesn't matter. That's stopped. Those were positive things that would have at least somewhat targeted a major cause of the issue. This stuff we're doing now, this stuff we're doing now, all it is doing is shifting the burden to someone else. You don't get any points from me for saying, well, I'm forcing somebody else to get screwed so that someone else can have something for free, so they'll like me. No, that doesn't work. Like go walk the Carmel School campus, like these people starve, Braun. These people should be on My 600-lb Life. They're morbidly obese. I don't ever want to starve the local governments. Go look at all of these agents of government. I'm picking on the schools right now because they deserve it. But the towns, the aquatic centers, the stadiums, they're building literal stadiums now with taxpayer dollars. Like I'm not talking like the Colts Stadium, like go Noblesville, Fishers, a hockey stadium. You're worried about starving someone that has enough money to build a basketball stadium or a hockey stadium. Remember when we talked about the Noblesville High School spending? What was it, $14 million on tennis courts? Starve? No. It's grandiose. It's excess. It's disgusting. And you're not going to fix it by just saying, hey, disabled vets don't pay property tax anymore. It's not a conversation about whether disabled veterans should be paying property tax. It's a conversation about whether any of us should be paying property taxes. We're all in this together, and we all have a vested interest in a fine local police force and a reliable fire department that can come in case of an emergency and roads that are passable. We have an interest in all of those things because we all use them. This is just going to keep getting worse, guys. Now, one more thing before we get off of this, because again, I come back to Braun’s. Every conversation I ever had with Braun was the most uncomfortable conversation I think I've ever had. Like even when we were quote unquote getting along, you would just sit there and he'd be like, so how's it going? Like there there's nothing about Braun where you're like, that's a dude, right? Like there's nothing about Braun where you're like, that's the guy I'd want to hang out with if you saw Braun, and you could remove the fact that he's the governor and he was a senator. Like if you just saw him and you tried to engage in some sort of conversation, you would walk away going, what the hell's wrong with that guy? Like, I remember the one time he got asked. We asked him, I think it was on our show about what he likes to drink, and he was like, I enjoy a good blueberry wine every so often. No, no, no. Like beer. Oh, was it Michelob Ultra? Holy hell. Have you ever heard of Miller Lite, dude, or Pabst or something? Anything that dude would be like, yeah, that's my drink, right? I enjoy a nice blueberry wine. Well, Mr. Endearing over here, Mr. Common Man as he. Aren't you just picturing the weekend at Braun's, his ten gajillion square foot mansion in southwest Indiana that he gets on his helicopter with his helipad and swoops into. And then he enjoys a nice $500 bottle of blueberry wine. Like the man cannot human. And when he speaks, it comes off. Here's what he said. He got asked about the assessments because that is the problem guys. The assessment is the problem. I mean, property taxes are the problem, but the fact that every year people have no idea from one year to the next what their property tax bill is going to be. And it's some while elected, not a fiscal agent who raises your taxes, the assessor, and it's based off of what someone else sells their home for. Here's what he said. We need to figure out like, who talks this way? Okay, I'm just going to read it to you. And as you're hearing this, who talks this way? Like if you saw some guy at the grocery store, you saw your buddy at the local VFW or the golf course or whatever? Does any normal person talk this way? We need to figure out if, in fact, the assessment process gives an opaque way for somebody to have a hike in a property tax bill. Guys, I like to think I'm a pretty learned person. Like I went to college, I graduated, I was on the Dean's list. Now, granted, my degree is general studies. I'm not saying I was a rocket scientist. I'm not saying that I have started a Fortune 500 company, but I've started multiple successful businesses. I've started this with Jason. I had a number one rated radio program for six years. I've been an elected official. Like I feel like, I understand government and I understand business and I like, I think I'm at least average in intelligence. I had to look up opaque and try to figure out how it fit in what he just said. Now, for those of you who don't know, here's two options you can use with opaque. The AI. See, I'm figuring out the AI now. It's like AI, tell me how this fits into this sentence. In communication, it describes opaque as using vague, overly complex or convoluted language designed to obscure the core message or avoid giving a direct answer. I was like, well, okay. In business or finance, handling tracks, transactions, pricing, or decision making behind closed doors, this often means the inner workings or rules are hidden from public view or regulators. And that's the word he used. This is the dumbest quote ever. Like, why can't you just say, hey, this system is super hard to predict. It's super hard to figure out. It's super unfair that people get their taxes raised because of what someone else sells their home for. Bam, that's English, that's English, right? Like okay. Yeah, right. Instead of the assessment process gives an opaque way for somebody to have a hike in a property tax bill. What? What? That's what you came up with. Hey, let me. Human from the assessment process, gives an opaque way for somebody to have a hike in a problem.

Assessment Growth, School Referendums, and Local Spending Continue Driving Property Tax Frustration

And this is the problem. And I've said this for years and years and years, all the way back to when Braun was a senator. He's totally disconnected from reality. He's totally disconnected from the average person, the average person's plight, the average person's experience. So he does like it's really hard to try at something that you can't relate to, or it's really hard to understand something you can't relate to. Mike Braun never wanted to do property taxes because property taxes are not a big deal to him. They're not a big deal to his friends because they're super rich like him. Oh. The bills. What? Okay, great. Thank you. Goodbye. Like the average person that sees that increase or sees their mortgage payment change based on their escrow falling short, it's a massive deal. It's not to Braun. He doesn't. He's not into it because it doesn't affect him. He's not into it because he doesn't understand it. And not to be Bill Clinton, but he doesn't feel your pain. So you're going to get him just going by force rather than choice. And in the property tax. And look, Micah, to Micah's credit, Micah Beckwith, the lieutenant governor, Micah, told Braun this from the beginning. So you guys remember Braun and I get into it at convention. Remember we had this I mean, not getting it was like we weren't throwing fists at each other. But Braun and I, at the convention, I shouted something at him, not like derogatory, but to his credit, he bowed up and walked over to me and I said, all right, let's do it right here in front of everyone. And we and there was like a, you guys remember this? There was like a crowd of people got around us. This was before the vote on lieutenant governor or anything else. And we had a spirited. We had a spirited five, seven minute conversation. And after Micah won, Micah told him, Micah said, whatever you do on property taxes, you're not going to BS Rob because he knows it better than anyone else. He said, if you're not into it, don't do it because you're not going to BS him. You're not going to get away with the nonsense with him because he's more passionate about it than anybody else, and he knows it better than anybody else. And Braun never wanted to do property taxes. He never did. His heart isn't in it. He doesn't understand it. He doesn't feel it. He doesn't think it's a big deal. Everything he's done with this is kicking and screaming. And so he's just trying to check boxes. Okay, well, let's get everybody to leave me alone. Okay? Now, I did the disabled vets. Will you leave me alone now? Now I'm doing 65 and over. Will you leave me alone now? Now I'm doing. If you paid your mortgage off, will you leave me alone now?