Gov. Mike Pence showed in his first State of the State address Tuesday night that just because he won November’s election doesn’t mean he can stop campaigning.
In fact, he has his toughest selling job ahead of him: persuading lawmakers to adopt his call for a 10-percent across-the-board cut in Indiana’s personal income tax rate.
“Let’s be honest with our fellow Hoosiers: We can afford to do this,” Pence said.
Lawmakers aren’t so sure.
Although tax cuts may seem like an easy vote in a legislature dominated by his fellow Republicans, Pence’s proposal has met resistance, including from House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis. Bosma is calling for more education funding than Pence has proposed, and Bosma and others have urged caution so long as the economy remains shaky.
Pence, though, isn’t backing down and used his first statewide address to not only sway lawmakers but to rally support from Hoosiers watching the speech in living rooms across the state.
Pence, who spent a decade in Washington representing east central Indiana in Congress, argued that working people, who just saw their Social Security taxes go up as a temporary cut expired, need a break.
He sought to tie the cut to the biggest concern of both lawmakers and any one of Indiana’s 250,000 unemployed Hoosiers: jobs.
“This reduction in taxes will unleash half a billion dollars into the private, voluntary economy every year,” Pence said. “. . . By lowering taxes, small businesses will have more money to hire new employees, purchase new equipment and grow.”
Under his proposal, Indiana’s already low income tax rate of 3.6 percent would drop to 3.06 percent.
“It will be official,” he said. “Indiana will be the lowest taxed state in the Midwest. Companies who are here will have one more reason to move to the Hoosier state.”
…
See the full article here:
