Marcus: "If you believe in making local decisions locally, then vote against the tax caps."

As he's done elsewhere, former director of IU’s Business Research Center and current columnist Morton Marcus uses a letter to the editor of the Evening News to explain that the property tax caps are just a shift of the tax burden from business to individual households and, perhaps more importantly, represent a massive shift of authority from the local to state level.

That so much of the centralized power grab is being led by a Republican governor under the continuing ruse of lessened government is the cruelest of jokes, but one that will only increase in scope if Saint Daniels gets the legislative majority his corporate cronies are desperately trying to finance.

MARCUS: Vote no on property tax caps

On Nov. 2, Hoosiers will vote on making property tax caps a part of our state constitution. The governor and most state-level politicians support the caps.

I will vote “no.”

First, the state legislature understood that property tax caps would reduce local government revenues. Some think this will force localities to become more efficient. Instead we are more likely to face deteriorating public services.

To meet the potential catastrophe, localities have been given toxic remedies. The local option income tax has been forced upon our communities by the General Assembly. This tax is levied on households only. The state did not give localities the power to tax local corporations. Therefore, a reduction in property taxes is enjoyed by all property owners, but paid for exclusively by households.