surprise, surprise, surprise...

There's a running joke in our family that we have two children who most people haven't met: "Not-me" and "I-dunno". What's true in my family is often true for public policy.

The Indy Star picked up an AP story in which a number of county commissioners were complaining that Governor Daniels should quit fingering them for excessive local spending-- as part of the blame for high property taxes.

While an overarching focus on that facet would be inappropriate (or the particular focus of Daniels on a local governance structure that is "duplicative, overlapping, antique"), ignoring its contribution to the problem would be equally so. From my earlier posting on Larry DeBoer's analysis, local spending is 1/4th of the current problem-- and once the assessment errors are dealt with, it will be nearly half the remaining problem.