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Finding real answers to property tax reform and local government funding
Ensuring progress in enhancing Indiana's education system
I am the father of five young children, which keeps me in touch with the real challenges that Indiana families are facing right now in Indiana.
My wife and I come from large families that represent a myriad of different vocations, including construction workers, mechanics, small business owners, police officers, medical workers, first responders, government workers, ministers, farmers, teachers, and more. This provides me with experience from a broad range of the electorate that will give me a real-life perspective in the legislature.
I hold a Bachelor's degree, a Master of Arts degree, and have earned a PhD. This has given me the know how to research issues and assimilate facts, creating solutions and solving problems based on research.
Homes should not be bought up in droves by rental companies without any caps on the number of homes purchased. Investment companies have huge budgets and can pay more than most individual buyers. This drives up the cost for home buyers, while also creating a monopoly on the rental industry. Thus, big investment companies can charge whatever they want to in rent, and renters are forced to pay it.
Education--This is key to the future of our society and is key to the success of our children.
Community Safety--In addition to the loss of life and property, without community safety, people lack security and will end up moving away, etc., leading to economic downturns.
Infrastructure--As the Crossroads of America, our roads and bridges need to be maintained well.
Housing--this is one of the biggest economic factors for a growing family.
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When datacenters are approved in a certain locality, the data center should bear its own weight in paying for utilities, rather than the property owners and homeowners in the vicinity.
My first priority is pursuing any legislation that gets money out of politics. I am a fan of the American Anti-Corruption Act model proposed by a group called RepresentUS. Elected officials have served the wealthy long enough.
My overall goal as a legislator is affordable housing and cost of living through tax reforms and community land trusts. One tax reform in particular that would unlock major housing supply growth and lower housing costs is the split-rate property tax (lowering taxes on buildings and improvements while funding our public spending with the tax on land value)
I am a board member of the Public Revenue Education Council and also worked for several years at Aspire Johnson County, a chamber of commerce and economic development organization.
With what I learned both from a technical policy side and from forming personal relationships with community and business leaders, I'm excited to introduce new ideas and policies to make life better for Hoosiers.
This is my major platform issue. The tax on land value (implemented by the split-rate property taxation I mentioned) has been proven by economists and real world results in Pennsylvania to lower the cost of living and increase employment and wages. More housing supply means lower rents and house prices making it accessible to more people.
The cause of unaffordability is monopoly rent seeking. We let private entities buy up and drive up the price of land and housing in our state. Taxing their windfall gains through the property tax on unimproved land value totally reverses the trend. I also want a state bank to provide cheap loans like North Dakota's model.
To me, economic development, housing, infrastructure are interlocking parts of the foundation of society. When we figure out our fiscal policy and more people have access to affordable homes, the other issues are solvable downstream. A video by a British YouTuber named BritMonkey titled "the housing crisis is the everything crisis" made great points on how housing is at the root of most economic, environmental and even political crises. A good economy means most people's needs are met and housing is the most tangible way for people to build a life and have a stake in the surrounding community. We figure out property tax and housing, thats more public revenue for education/healthcare etc. down the line.
Indiana has a long term problem with heavy industry polluters and now a more recent issue with data centers consuming large amounts of land, water and power. When private companies create negative externalities they pass the cost onto the public. We simply send them the bill back. Tax pollution and tax negative externalities so they internalize the costs. Taxes discourage behavior and the behavior we want to discourage is pollution. What we don't want to discourage is building more housing supply which is why my split-rate property tax takes the tax burden off buildings. Taxing what we want less of and subsidizing what we want more of is a pretty good rule of thumb for policymakers.
See previous response.
Healthcare reform and Infrastructure
I have been a behavioral healthcare provider for 10 years and understand the nuances of medical billing/coding in addition to difficulties that healthcare providers experience which decrease our healthcare quality and options.
I support preventing the sale of our utilities to private equity. I would also support policies that would prevent corporations from owning and leasing single family homes. Any existing homes, I would introduce legislation that would cap rent payments on single family homes from exceeding a comparable mortgage payment restricting what corporate and private landlords can legally charge tenants.
Healthcare. Our healthcare system is very broken, specifically with for-profit insurance companies. These companies need reigned in and held accountable to pay their providers within 10 business days, with steep penalties for violating payment timeframes. This would reduce provider reliance on medicaid and medicare payments, allowing healthcare providers to invest in their medical practices, facilitate hospitals being able to expand their services, and support rural healthcare.
Flooding and water quality. Flooding negatively impacts our farmland and infrastructure while the poor water quality in our bodies of water impacts our ecosystem. The quality of our drinking water is also of concern due to aging infrastructure.
The state needs to ensure strict regulation and oversight of data centers to ensure that the cost of commodities such as energy and water are not passed on to residents. There also needs to be strict oversight to ensure that data centers are being powered in a Green and sustainable way without having a negative impact on our ecosystems.
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