By Brian Howey in the Elkhart Truth:
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I had lunch with a boyhood friend of mine from Michigan City, Rob Jagger, who owns Old Fort Building Supply in South Bend.
When I asked the inevitable “how’s business” question, I got the same pained look I see all across the state.
The problem is, this storm that began in September 2008 is still raging, even though the Great Recession officially ended some two or three years ago.
Washington, D.C., is in a state of gridlock. There are no solutions to be found with that dysfunctional bunch.
What can we do?
Jagger observed that in scores of Indiana communities, tax abatements are given to businesses willing to relocate or expand.
“What about a tax abatement for someone who wants to build a new house?” he asked.
It would work like this: you want to build a new house, or add on an in-law quarter for Mom, who just ain’t what she used to be. So the state could come up with a program that grants you a five-year property tax abatement, just like the big corporations and businesses get.
You build your house and pay no property taxes the first year, then 20 percent the second, 40 percent the third — you get it.
Here in Indiana, we’ve phased out the inheritance tax, which does virtually nothing for the middle class. We have cut corporate taxes, which doesn’t do squat for the middle class.
And then there was Gov. Mike Pence’s 5 percent income tax cut, which you might notice if you squint and compare your last pay stub to one from last June.
That was symbolic. It will do little to create jobs.
Indiana jobs will be created when people start buying stuff. When places like Old Fort begin to have more customers.
So Pence and the Indiana General Assembly in 2014 should create the Middle Class Home Improvement Tax Abatement Program. It should create tax incentives for Hoosiers to build more homes, and add on to the ones they’ve got.
When we start building more homes and adding on to existing ones, more contractors will be employed to construct them. More masons will lay brick. More drywall will be purchased. More toilets, granite kitchen counter tops, garage doors and fireplace inserts will be installed, and more nails and screws will be sold everywhere from Lowe’s to the local hardware store.
When we sell more stuff, more people will have work. More businesses will make money. And the more people work and the more stuff that is sold, the more income and sales taxes they will pay.
Everything Pence and the Indiana General Assembly does in 2014 should be aimed at creating incentives for more jobs and educating our workforce to fill them.
The governor laid some excellent groundwork with his Work Councils legislation that will match the needs of local businesses and industries to the curriculum in our local vocational schools.
But to really gin up the production and the sales, we have to do more for the middle class than giving them a $50 or $100 a year income tax cut.
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http://www.elkharttruth.com/article/20130919/OPINION/709199920
