Governor needs to be real leader

Friday, August 17, 2007
From the Indiana Democratic Party

It's been more than a month since Hoosiers across the state started receiving the sky-high property tax bills that resulted from this year's statewide, court-ordered reassessment.

In the weeks that have passed since the bills began arriving, Mitch Daniels has been scrambling to look like he's doing something to help after doing absolutely nothing for three straight legislative sessions. He hastily assembled a blue ribbon commission to study the issue and return suggestions to him later this year, but it could take years to implement their recommendations. He started randomly ordering reassessments in certain counties -- starting with Marion County -- while ignoring pleas from other areas of the state. And he's been spinning like crazy to deflect blame away from his 2005 budget, which capped property tax relief for homeowners, flat-lined state education spending, mandated corporate tax abatements and shoved off state costs for juvenile justice and child welfare onto the counties.

The bottom line? Mitch Daniels has no idea what to do because he's spent most of his time in office signing privatization contracts, outsourcing vital state services and sending billions of dollars to non-Indiana companies. The rest of the time, he was fiddling with our clocks and cleaning up the ethical messes his hand-picked appointees made. The hard-working Hoosiers who now face record tax bills now look to Daniels for solutions and find that he has nothing to offer them because he hasn't really given the issue much thought.

On the big issues that matter, there has been a leadership void at the top of state government since Daniels took over, and that trend shows no signs of changing. House Democrats and Senate Republicans, along with citizens across the state, are working together to figure out ways to ease the tax burden. Mitch Daniels is still hiding under his desk.

Now that everyone can see what Daniels has been up to these last few years, it's clear that Indiana needs a Governor who isn't afraid to face our toughest problems and work across party lines to make a difference. It's time for a change in leadership so we can start moving our state back in the right direction.