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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSen. Mike Braun, the Republican candidate for governor, released his policy priorities for farmers and rural Hoosiers Friday morning, including property tax relief and a broadband matching grant program.
Braun partnered with conservative public policy group Hoosiers for Opportunity, Prosperity & Enterprise LLC., or HOPE, to develop his agenda. The organization co-released a white paper listing several priorities, mirroring Braun’s broad goals, while providing policy specifics.
HOPE was created last year with the goal to shape public policy on a number of issues, including school choice, health care freedom and reducing the reach of government. The board includes well-known conservative attorney Jim Bopp, who registered the LLC, and former Republican Indianapolis City County Council member and State Sen. Scott Schneider.
Braun’s agriculture plan builds on his homeowner property tax plan announced last month, which calls for deep cuts. Friday’s plan is aimed at easing fears that the tax burden needed to fund local services would be shifted in part onto farmers.
The proposal says he will seek to modernize how farmland is valued “to reflect the realities of today’s farm economy.” The HOPE white paper proposes doing so by adjusting the maximum capitalization rate, removing federal payments to farmers from the base rate calculation and adjusting the state’s input cost data.
The Braun plan calls for capping annual increases and amending the referendum process. HOPE proposes capping year-to-year increases in farmland property tax bills at 3%. It also advocates for creating a Young and Beginning Farmer Tax Credit and an enhanced farm safety net program.
Braun also notes his intention to spread economic development around the state, saying there will be “full transparency and accountability” with the allocation of those dollars. He told IBJ last week that spreading the wealth with economic development dollars would include investing in small businesses as well as large corporations
“I’m just going to look for things that are going to be doable across the state,” Braun told IBJ at the IndyChamber HobNob event. “That doesn’t mean you won’t do some where they’ve been occurring, but I think that definitely is something I hear: the whole state, 92 counties of it, want to be in on the love of the state government investing.”
HOPE says the state should create a rural business growth program run by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. that would connect investors and funnel money toward rural communities.
The organization also said the state should increase transparency at the IEDC, require the IEDC to conduct studies on the utility and resource impact of its projects, and convene state department leadership regularly for input on the state’s economic development direction. Child care is also listed as an issue for needed investment.
Broadband also would be a priority. Braun pitches creating a grant-matching program to expand high-speed internet to every Hoosier. HOPE wants to create a program similar to INDOT’s Community Crossings grant program for roads and bridges.
Indiana currently has multiple broadband grant programs, including the Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program equipped with $350 million in state funds to build out infrastructure. Indiana was also initially approved for $868 million in federal dollars through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program for a similar purpose; local awards could be released before the year’s end.
Reducing foreign adversary investment in Indiana farmland also returns as a priority after the state legislature prohibited new sales to a slate of targeted countries, such as China and Russia. Taking it a step further, HOPE said it seeks legislation pushing certain entities to register with the state and divest their land holdings.
Braun and Sen. Young were part of a cohort introducing federal legislation this week to add more layers to foreign entity-involved farmland deals.
The proposal also seeks to build a farmer-specific online portal for funding, market opportunities, technical support and regulatory updates.
Nearly all policy proposals will need to pass the state legislature.
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1) Braun’s proposal is literally just a copy-paste of Prop 13 that was implemented in California and has been a DISASTER. It’s a major contributor to their housing crisis.
2) This is Braun’s, what, third property tax plan in just as many months? He still hasn’t addressed the impacts to local budgets. Everything about this campaign and its policy proposals is painfully unserious and lazy.
“Braun also notes his intention to spread economic development around the state, saying there will be “full transparency and accountability” with the allocation of those dollars. He told IBJ last week that spreading the wealth with economic development dollars would include investing in small businesses as well as large corporations”
How dare the state of Indiana invest in the places where businesses want to be? Because what’s holding small towns back is that the state of Indiana isn’t investing in the places that are emptying out? Towns and counties that are bleeding population because no one wants to live there and no business wants to be there because there is no population.
The end result, since Braun and Republicans are dead set on cutting taxes regardless of what anyone tells them, is that we will be left behind as they’re going to make sure we don’t have the funds to compete. More and more employers will end up in the states around us, because we are busy trying to restore small town Indiana from 1950’s, a past that isn’t coming back.
Braun is the latest example that the skills needed to run a business are far different from being an elected official.