From the New Castle Courier
State Rep. Tom Saunders is all for limited government and keeping taxes down. But he was somewhat conflicted about the tax cut issue in this year's Indiana General Assembly.
Gov. Mike Pence sought a 10 percent cut and the ultimate outcome was 5 percent spread out over a four-year period. It was called "the largest tax cut to Hoosiers in the history of Indiana" on the House Republican website.
Yet, funding problems continue in schools, roads, state parks and other areas.
"I wasn't pro-tax cut at all," Saunders said. "When your infrastructure is falling apart and you need more money for roads and education, you should use any excess money for that. The majority of people who stopped me in the grocery store told me if education is funded, roads are paved and state parks are functioning well, then give me a tax cut. Otherwise, keep it and fix those things."
A prime example of the tax cut irony was on display Tuesday night at Knightstown, where another large crowd gathered to hear discussion about the possible closing of Carthage and Kennard elementary schools. Many of the people speaking on behalf of those schools will receive tax cuts, yet their schools could still be closed due to financial difficulties.
"The state has forced them into making those kind of decisions," Saunders said. "There's a case where many of those people would have preferred their income tax cap be used to keep their schools open. It makes no sense to me."
Road funding
What did make sense to Saunders were more dollars allocated for local road funding. It wasn't as much as he had hoped, but will still be helpful to places like Henry County, where road conditions have been an issue for many years.
Henry County will receive approximately $659,000 more for road funding in both 2014 and 2015.
"And that's just the county portion," said Saunders, who was a driving force behind changing how the Indiana State Police was funded, a move that made more money available for roads. Saunders was also glad the extra funds will have no strings attached. A provision requiring counties to have a wheel taxbefore getting extra money was removed late in the session.
"I don't like the federal government holding us hostage with mandates so I sure didn't want the state government doing the same thing to local officials," Saunders said.
Hoosier Park table games
Like his legislative teammate, Sen. Jean Leising, Saunders was disappointed live table games weren't authorized for places such as nearby Hoosier Park, which is located just outside Henry County borders. Saunders said Gov. Pence was "adamantly opposed" to the idea, because it represented an expansion of gambling.
"They said providing live table games would have created 600 new jobs," Saunders said. "I would have voted for it. I don't think it's an expansion of gambling. It's already there. You go to the racinos now and the table games are there. They are just run by a person on a video screen."
...
See the full article here:
http://www.thecouriertimes.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=280959&SectionID=23&SubSectionID=45&S=1
