"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"

"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"
aka "Miss Victory"

Friday, December 21, 2007

URGENT MESSAGE FROM STOP INDIANA: Warning of ploy by Sen. Long & Rep. Crawford to block transparency in legislature

Please email this link and the message below to everyone you know and urge them to take action by contacting their elected representatives at the State House, including the Governor! This is dirty rotten scoundrel politics at its lowest and most immoral! The People are not having it!
-- HFFT editor

Dear Fellow Hoosiers:

Does "reform" exclude an open discussion of the elimination of property tax?

Make certain that Senator David Long and his cohorts don't shirk their responsibility by leaving property tax elimination off the very table that belongs to YOU THE PEOPLE.

The word is that there's a move afoot to kill SJR8 (Senate Joint Resolution 8 to eliminate property tax ) in the rules committee, giving Senators Long, et al, the future excuse that they've "already voted on that," to dismiss the genuine interests of citizens and their inquiries about property tax elimination, for the entire session.

How, if that's the case, is that a recipe for progress? Hint: back room butchering of the people's interests to feed special interests isn't progress.

If citizens lose representation and the opportunity to have an open debate on the property tax issue, it's logistically a two year setback for true reform and economic progress. Members of the legislature who deny Hoosiers an open debate or referenda on the elimination of property tax, should be voted out of office for dereliction of duty.

If members of the legislature are secure in their knowledge and beliefs, they'll have no trouble exposing them to the light of open debate where they can exercise the courage of their convictions. If Senator Long and Representative Crawford choose to limit open debate and kill by committee, the citizens option to eliminate property tax; Hoosiers will find themselves living Chavez style, in a place more like Venezuela than Indiana.

It's time to once again, write and call the people who are supposed to represent us, and insist on open debate of the property tax issue, on the floor of both houses! Stay tuned for updates and mark Tuesday, January 8th on your calendar, to visit the state house and voice your concern.

Stopindiana.com

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indiana Politics 101

All legislation is referred to committee where it lives or dies. That's the way it is and that's they way it will always be.

The total elimination of the property tax is something that is not going to happen, not now or ever.
In all honesty, I'll be surprised if anything positive happens this session that will have a real lasting impact on our future tax bills.
Marion County COIT will remain for two more years and the Legislature will probably increase the sales tax. That's about it.

Now you can try to vote these people out but there's not the Statewide furor like there is here in Marion County.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but we can get Bill Crawford out this time around...He's going down... Trust me!

Anonymous said...

Question. What focused effort is needed in order to get Crawford out of office. This needs to happen, but like the Peterson effort, it needs some direction. Those of you on the inside need to provide some guidance at the right time. Change needs to happen and this is the time. We are on a move to take back government....for the people, by the people.

Anonymous said...

Um, Crawford doesn't assign the bills (or resolutions in this case) to committee. The Speaker does.

Bill Crawford is not your problem. Don't focus your energy there. Focus it on the Republican leadership in the Senate. That is and has always been where the ultimate decisions are made, and, yes, they are never made in public no matter how many "public hearings" are held. The questions that are asked and answered in those forums are 80% for show. If legislators really have a question, they ask a lobbyist in private. Lobbyists also don't do 90% of their lobbying or testifying in public either. They convey their true positions in individual meetings.

Votes or money. That is the only thing advocates can bring. Bring them. Plant your butts at the Statehouse and stay there til March 15. Ask how French Lick got gambling. Their citizens put on orange shirts and parked their butts at the statehouse week in week out for about 5 years.

Anonymous said...

To 2:41 poster, before you dismiss this all as a Marion Co. problem, you need to google "property tax" on some of the online newspapers across this state. There are Hoosiers everywhere who are hurting desperately because of property taxes.

I've personally found dozens of articles in the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Muncie, Gary and Goshen newspapers in the past several months. There are many more reports coming in from the southern part of the state too. There's a statewide taxpayer organization comprised of groups from around the state who are enraged about property taxes and the ill effects this is having in their communities.

The abolition of property taxes can and MUST be accomplished in this legislative session. We WILL vote out those who do not share this goal. We WILL accept nothing less.

Anonymous said...

I got an angry call yesterday from an old friend. He called me yelling because he thought the Governor had called off the property tax increases and could not understand why his mother in Lake County Indiana just got a huge bill that he doesn't think she can pay.

It sounded like her bill is 400% higher.

He was angry that we didn't get the Governor to cancel their increases and order a reassment for her too.

The sad thing is the reassessment is not going to save the taxpayers any money. It's going to cost us a million plus to reassess. And next year we have to pay 2006 increase PLUS the full 2007 bill.

Would love to bring the Tea Party to Lake County for the tea party to get a dunk in Lake Michigan.