Q&A from ‘All Indiana Politics Special: The Governor’s Debate’
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The three candidates in November’s election for governor debated in a live broadcast Thursday night at WISH-TV studios.
“All Indiana Politics Special: The Governor’s Debate” featured Republican Mike Braun, Democrat Jennifer McCormick, and Libertarian Donald Rainwater.
Here are the questions they were asked followed with their answers. Answers are paraphrased unless they’re in quotation marks.
Raise your hand if you support cutting or reducing Indiana’s property taxes as governor.
All three raised their hands.
What specifically would you cut, and how would you replace funding for schools and local police and fire services?
BRAUN: People are complaining about property taxes. Circuit breakers put in place by Gov. Mitch Daniels are no longer working. I would reset property taxes to where they were before they went out of control. I want to assure local governments and school districts have enough to keep going.
McCORMICK: Property taxes are weighing on everyone. My property tax plan would give savings to all Hoosiers in a bipartisan way. It’ll be ready on Day 1 and particular help elderly Hoosiers and veterans. The plan would save $660 million; it’s been well-received.
Braun keeps revising his plan.
RAINWATER: In 2020 when running for governor, I proposed property taxes should be capped at 1% of the value of the property over seven years. I’ve done planning — looking at tax-increment finance districts and 10-year tax abatements — on how to fund local government amid a tax cap.
In the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a crisis, and what should be the role of Indiana government in addressing it?
McCORMICK: While in Congress as a U.S. senator, Braun opposed legislation that would have helped. Braun voted against the legislation for political reasons alone.
Indiana needs to consider legal immigration’s positive role in helping Indiana’s economy.
RAINWATER: The governor should enforce the rule of law.
The federal government has failed to enforce its mandate to manage immigration. Why hasn’t Braun solved the immigration problem while a U.S. senator? Would he do better as Indiana governor?
BRAUN: Former President Donald Trump protected the borders; President Joe Biden has not.
“I don’t think any Hoosier would be for making it legal that you could have 5,000 illegal immigrants coming across the border daily.”
Do you believe Indiana should add additional restrictions on abortion, repeal the law, or keep things as they are now?
RAINWATER: If changes need to be made to the current law, then the judiciary needs to determine that. Legislators can listen to constituents and make changes.
In addition: Many lifelong Hoosiers are pro-choice; I’ve never seen in the state constitution where Indiana is declared a pro-life state, as Braun has said; many women, lifelong Hoosiers, are pro-live.
BRAUN: Indiana’s abortion law has held up through the courts, and Hoosiers have supported it because Indiana is a pro-life state. Indiana’s legislature vetted its law carefully, and “it reflects the majority of Hoosiers in the state.”
McCORMICK: Let’s put the question to the voters in a ballot initiative. Sixty percent of Hoosiers believe in allowing women control the decisions for their health care.
Braun says Indiana got it right, but the state needs to go back to standards of Roe v. Wade and trust its women. I trust women and health care providers. “Hoosiers, I have your back on this.”
Do you believe the school voucher system is helping or hurting the education of Indiana’s children?
BRAUN: Indiana has a leading edge on school choice and competition, and also puts the parents as the main stakeholders in their children’s education. “When you have one size fits all, it’s a monopoly.”
If you’re not for choice, competition, and vouchers to make it doable, it’s not a zero-sum game.
Indiana’s money follows the kids, as was established years ago.
Pike County once had mismanagement within a school district, and shut down the one with the best performance. “If it had not been for the availability of a charter school, you would’ve had to bus those kids 20 to 30 minutes additionally. They are thriving now because they had the option, and the parents went for it.”
McCormick was in charge for four years as a state schools superintendent and that “results never got any better. I think you’ve got to be held accountable when that’s the one thing you did in state government.”
McCORMICK: I believe in fiscal responsibility. Indiana puts $1.6 billion into private education, and the results haven’t been good.
“Make no mistake, this isn’t about parents choosing, this is about a school choosing. The admission policies need to be looked at. If I showed up with a child and the school doesn’t like the academic performance, or the color of their skin, or how they identify LGBTQ, or their religious belief, they do not have to take them. … Public dollars need to go to public schools. That whole program needs to be reviewed.”
The threshold of eligibility for vouchers is $220,000 for a family of four, and how many Hoosier families make that much?
Indiana schools have been under continuously changing standards and tests before the exam results are in. Those changes, every time, cost $40 million. We don’t have good data to know what is and isn’t working.
When I was a former state schools superintendent, I didn’t have control over changing the test.
RAINWATER: I believe in universal school choice. Indiana’s public school system is failing; only 63% of children passed statewide tests in math and English.
The state constitution allows for the funding of public and private schools. “We are spending almost 60% of our state budget on education.”
McCormick, when she was a former state schools superintendent, changed the test and wasted money.
Do you support Indiana legalizing marijuana use, either medicinal, recreational, or both?
McCORMICK: I’m aware 80% of Hoosiers support legalization. My cannabis plan calls for a conversation on medical use before a conversation on adult use.
On adult use, Indiana is losing out on $177 million in tax revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs because surrounding states have legalized marijuana.
Indiana needs a commission on cannabis use.
RAINWATER: “We don’t need to expand government. We don’t need a new commission. We don’t need new regulations. We can make cannabis in all forms — medicinal and recreational — legal right now.”
“If legislators are not prepared, that is their fault, and we should probably replace them. We should make this legal now, and, as governor, I would make sure that all nonviolent criminal cannabis-related offenses are expunged.”
BRAUN: Marijuana use medicinally and recreationally is cascading across the county, and Indiana needs to address it seriously. I’d have to think about whether to allow adult use. On medicinal use, “We’re probably ready for it.” On both counts, I’m going to listen to law enforcement because they will have to enforce it and put up with any issues.
What specific agency or service would you look to eliminate first when restructuring the state government, and why?
RAINWATER: Instead of reducing or eliminating agencies, the state needs to first identify “money that is flying out the back door.” For example, $724 million in Medicaid overpayments were made in 2017, and the state “basically swept it under the rug because they didn’t want to go and try and collect that money from the health care companies and the insurance companies that had been overpaid.”
All 50 or so state agencies need to be reviewed for overpayments, poor contract management, and “where the money is going out the back door” before determining what to do.
BRAUN: A lot of state agencies have not had thorough management and need to be reviewed “in terms of ‘Do we need every employee there?’ ‘Are we spending the money correctly?’”
Indiana has a $22 million annual budget. “Imagine if you could get 5% savings. … That’s a way you could pay for a lot of other things you may want to do, or reduce taxes in general.”
“I guessing there’s not an agency that doesn’t have room to be run more efficiently.” I would find those cost reductions and make the agencies run more efficiently.
McCORMICK: While in the state Department of Education, I reviewed what programs worked or didn’t, and where staffing was heavy. “I’d do that with every single agency.” Also, interagency collaboration needs to happen more frequently.
What will you do to get young people of color prepared for high-wage jobs in the state?
BRAUN: Across the board, helping people struggling to get jobs has to be a priority. Indiana needs to share with parents what the high-demand, high-wage jobs are, and “make sure, for the 150,000 jobs that we have out there that need a better high school training, that you don’t stigmatize that and that you balance it out.”
If those 150,000 jobs were filled, Indiana would get $3 billion to $4 billion more in its economy.
Also, the state is “misguiding kids into a bad career that doesn’t have a job that you can get in Indiana.”
McCORMICK: My economic development plan touches on jobs for people of color.
“We’ve got to be business-friendly but also take care of Hoosiers, and — when you’re looking at our most at-risk areas and communities and where many of our minority families live — we’ve got to make sure that we are targeting our resources not just in the job space, but looking at it in the bigger picture.”
That bigger picture should include affordable housing, stable families, health care access, quality education, quality health care, and universal prekindergarten.
The Indiana Economic Development Corp. did a good job getting grants to communities, but those grants need to more specifically focused.
RAINWATER: The state and local governments have abandoned many urban and rural areas “that need the kind of help that we’re talking about.”
Tax-increment finance districts were designed to help economically disadvantaged areas of Indiana, but TIF districts have become a way “to gentrify entire municipalities and actually keep minorities in a disadvantaged state. We need to turn that around, and that would be Step 1.”
As governor, what would you do about affordable housing in Indiana?
McCORMICK: I know many communities are working to get more affordable housing. The definitions for affordable housing are “interesting.” Some have defined affordable housing as being more than $250,000, “and I’m not sure that’s where we need to get for affordable housing.”
My property tax relief will help to keep homeowners in their homes, renters where they reside, and promote fair lending. Local governments, chambers of commerce, and farmers have noted the tax plans of Braun and Rainwater would decimate local governments.
Another factor: Wages in Indiana are 47th in the nation on annual growth. “So, we’ve got to get those wages up.”
RAINWATER: Property taxes are contributing to the lack of affordable housing, especially for renters, but deductions and credits or tax decreases will not solve the problems. I would limit property taxes, by changing the state constitution, to be no more than 1% of the property value. My property tax plan “would make sure your property taxes never go up.”
Also, he’d make end dates for owners to stop paying property taxes.
The state and local governments are addicted to spending Hoosiers’ money.
BRAUN: My plan caps property tax increases at no more than 3% a year. The elderly, the young and “a couple of other categories” would have their taxes reset “to where they where they were before it all got out of hand.”
Localities should help builders with preinstallation of utilities.
Local governments also need to live within the means of the taxpayers to afford it.