The three candidates for governor have appeared together to discuss farm issues in Brownsburg.
The event sponsored by the Indiana Farm Bureau was the second joint forum of the campaign, both focusing on agricultural concerns, but was the first to include Libertarian nominee Rex Bell, who called for the abolition of Indiana’s property tax, to be replaced by sales and use taxes.
Bell, Democratic nominee John Gregg and Republican nominee Eric Holcomb all expressed solidarity with farmers, and skepticism about efforts to limit the expansion of livestock feeding operations. Holcomb called agribusiness “the spinal column of Indiana’s economy.
Gregg says he’d launch a top-to-bottom review of Indiana’s tax code if elected to see if changes need to be made. He echoed farmers’ concerns about soaring farmland assessments which jacked up tax bills. Holcomb notes legislators enacted changes to that formula this year, and says while he’s open to discussing further changes, believes they “basically got it right.”
Gregg touted his three-billion-dollar road-funding plan, which includes a half-billion dollars from the Next Generation Trust Fund created by former Governor Mitch Daniels with part of the proceeds from the Indiana Toll Road lease. Gregg says “the next generation is here.”
Holcomb says he’ll await the recommendations of a study committee looking at long-term funding options, but took a thinly veiled jab at Gregg’s call to float bonds, saying the state can’t “revert to prior ways where we’re thinking we can raid a pot of money over here, or borrow over here.”
The candidates will meet September 27 for the first of three scheduled formal debates, with a focus on education.