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You Have To Know Which Team To Root For

by Mike Kole 

The beauty of being a sports fan is that it is always easy to root for your team. Whether you pull for Purdue, IU or Notre Dame, for the Pacers, the Colts or the Komets, you'll root for the team wearing the right colors, no matter what players are wearing them.

That's important because players come and go. College teams completely turn over every four years. Colts fans have been pretty lucky in that the high-flying offensive nucleus of Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison and Edgerrin James has been powering an exciting team together for six seasons.

Five years down the road, the blue and white could become a defensive juggernaut. Thrilled colts fans will cheer the team, hopefully to a Super Bowl victory.

It doesn't matter who is on the team or how the game is played. As long as your team wins, you're happy.

That's a fair summation of Hoosier politics these days, too.

For 16 years, faithful Hoosier Republicans have been pulling for their team, hoping for an electoral Super Bowl victory. For 16 years, the Democrats retained the governor's office, while slowly losing their grip on the legislature. Finally, this past November, the GOP won all the trophies, with Mitch Daniels elected governor and a Republican majority in both Statehouse chambers.

Republicans were ecstatic – at first. But, just eight days after his inauguration, Daniels used the State of the State address to propose a temporary tax hike on Hoosiers earning $100,000 or more. Republicans in the club seating were stunned. While there is nothing quite so permanent as a temporary tax increase, they swallowed hard and cheered. They support their team, and their team is in charge!

The Indiana Constitution requires the state's budget to be balanced. The outgoing government left Daniels with a $600 million deficit. The quickest way to erase a deficit is to cut spending, and with Daniels earning the nickname ‘The Blade' while on President Bush's staff, this seemed like a lock.

However, Daniels' budget would have spent $1 billion more than the previous budget. The two items with the biggest percentage increases? Teacher retirement went up 73 percent and something called 'general government" rose 29 percent.

Hmm. Well, Daniels is just the quarterback, and he's a rookie. Republicans have a whole team of players on this winning team to idolize.

Sen. Beverly Gard (R-Greenfield) authored a tax on food and beverages. Not to be outdone, Representatives Tom Saunders (R-Lewisville) and Matt Whetstone (R-Brownsburg) co-authored two bills that would tax food and beverages. Republicans leaving their seats thought about heading for the concession stand after the first quarter, but milled around the hallway instead.

Representative Timothy Brown (R-Crawfordsville) authored a bill permitting counties to raise taxes on gasoline from 4 to 8 cents per gallon. Jeff Espich (R-Uniondale) introduced another gas tax bill, but with a tax-per-mile formula that is specific to your vehicle. Senator John Waterman (R-Shelburn) has even written a bill that would forbid retailers from selling gasoline at below cost. If someone wants to sell gasoline at a loss right now, I want to declare him a hero, not send the attorney general after him. Can we go back to the huddle?

Politics and sports go together so well that Peyton Manning visited the Statehouse and threw passes to the lawmakers. Soon afterwards, several Republican lawmakers forwarded a game plan of tax packages in support a new stadium for the Colts.

Reps Luke Messer (R-Shelbyville), Michael Murphy (R-Indianapolis), and Ways and Means Chairman Espich all issued plans that combined taxes and gambling. Senator Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) offered another plan, minus the gambling, but including taxes on most service industries in Marion County. Not one used the prestige of their office to bring prospective investors together to create a private investment. All went straight for tax packages.

When fiscal conservatives watch the GOP team in uniform, they see the familiar elephant logo, but the Gipper's government-off-my-back players are on the sidelines. Those are the Libertarians.

Governing is not sports. When governing, policy is far more important that the colors the winning team is wearing. If you are a fiscal conservative, why continue backing the Republican Party? The GOP has run the ball to the wrong end zone and scored a safety for the Democrats.

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 Mike Kole is the chair of the Libertarian Party of Hamilton County and candidate for Secretary of State of Indiana.

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