Indiana

ARE THEY ON THE SAME PAGE?

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Jill Long Thompson is expected to announce tomorrow that she is picking Southern Indiana State Representative Dennie Oxley of English as her running mate for Lt. Governor. Now while no one thinks a Lt. Gov will make or break a candidate, I do wonder how Oxley’s candidacy will impact JLT’s? I don’t say that because of where he is from, but from looking at statements from the two. I wonder if they are on the same page on some issues and I’m not talking about regional or cultural issues, but the stuff that matters.

Property Taxes

For example, JLT has been very critical of Governor Mitch Daniels and the property tax relief plan that made its way through the Indiana General Assembly. In February, she released a press statement calling the Governor’s plan “nothing more than a well-orchestrated shell game designed to shift the blame and the burden of collecting taxes to local government.”

Juxtapose that with a statement from Oxley in a April 22 interview with the Corydon Democrat Newspaper, “We took a huge step forward this session addressing property taxes by passing a sweeping, bi-partisan bill which provides $900 million of property tax relief. As a result, homeowners will see significant reductions in their bills.” Who’s correct? You make the call, but take a look at these two other areas, health care and job creation.

Health Care

JLT has also been critical of the Daniels administration on the issue of health care, however if you go to Oxley’s website he talks about bipartisan work on “[the] approval of a landmark program that provides coverage to thousands of Hoosiers who were without health care.”

Job Creation

JLT had some tough words for the Governor in a March 7 interview with the Chesterton Tribune saying, she would, “would move away from the Daniels? administration?s approach to economic development, which she ripped as one that ?rewards companies for bringing in low-paying, dead-end jobs that don?t offer benefits.? Oxley on the other hand said, ” One very significant thing that we have already done was create the Indiana Economic Development Corp., which works with local economic development officials.” He later went on to say “The state is doing some things right, but I have concerns that the economic development success stories are not evenly spread throughout Indiana.” I read this to say Oxley likes what the Governor has done and would like to see more of in Southern Indiana.

This isn’t to say the two won’t well together and Oxley won’t be a good match up. What I think it does do is highlight serious divisions between the two which they should address publicly on how they’ve managed to reconcile them. If they don’t, I can just imagine what the next set of Daniels’ campaign commercials are going to look like.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on June 15, 2008 (boomark / email).