I have had Donald Sjoerdsma, Editor in Chief of the IUN Phoenix (the campus newspaper), on my show several times, and he asked me recently to write about my opinion of Porter County's decision to pull out of the RDA. I've pretty much stayed out of that discussion, because I'm personally torn. Both sides make a lot of good points, and both sides make a lot of sense on this issue. Below is my over all analysis that was run in IUN's paper today, issue 15, v.35, September 30th. I have the papers website linked on my own, check it out if you are interested. Also, Don had done some editing to my original piece that improved it greatly, unfortunately I've deleted that email on accident, so if you want to check out the improvements pick up a copy of the paper.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Porter Counties decision to pull out of the RDA, and anybody that has opened a local newspaper can attest to this. Me, personally, don’t know much about the legality (or supposed illegality) of the decision, and am pretty much on the fence (as I imagine many Porter County residents are as well) about whether or not it was a good idea in the first place. The summarization of both arguments reflects a lot of ideological reasoning, with opponents (many conservative) arguing about “huge” tax increases and proponents (surprisingly many also conservatives) saying that it is a “growth” versus “no growth” argument. Quite frankly, I’m just not sure. There have been many opinion pieces both in local newspapers and online (most notable Northwest Indiana Politics, the link is found on my site) saying that the RDA would be good for the county, and the arguments are very compelling. For example, the RDA would create jobs while also helping the needy and those that don’t want to pay high energy prices with public transportation. The rebuttal boils down to the government not becoming involved with such tasks and people in Porter County paying for other people’s transportation. The best way to fairly asses this decision is to check the ideology at the door, and look at straight facts. The estimated tax increase is .25%. Now, I’m a conservative, a Fair tax supporter, and think we are generally an overtaxed society. HOWEVER if a .25% tax increase is able to pay the RDA budget, and give back its worth or more to the community, then I don’t have a problem with such a paltry tax. The problem is that many opponents bring up a good point by saying that it STARTS with a .25% tax, but government always undercuts budgets to make them more palatable, and so we should be weary of higher tax increases down the line. Excellent point as well, and there are historically a LOT of government programs that started out exactly this way that ballooned into monster budgets that eat into our (already) horrible tradition of deficit spending. So, I took some time, looked up some information, and thought about what I would do. This is my proposal: For a couple of years now Porter County has been sitting on roughly 168 million dollars, with a lot of that obtained from the sale of the county hospital to Community. Why not try a little experiment and make both sides put their money where their mouths are? Take the projections that say how much the RDA will cost over a three year period, fund it with some of the extra cash on hand, and at the end of the three year experiment, find out how much was lost/gained, and this great debate will become moot.

The only problem that I have with this RDA debate is the assumption that because some people in Porter County oppose the RDA that they are automatically bigoted, racist hillbillies who don’t want “those people” (not my words, but the words that the Post Tribunes Rich James used) coming into the county. Basically, there are people (like Rich James) who think that the RDA debate is racial and is only a debate because people from Porter County don’t want black families coming into Porter County. This infuriates me and is preposterous in every sense. The debate is NOT racial in the least bit, and the problem isn’t whether or not minorities will enter lily white Porter County. The people that I know that are opposed to the RDA are not opposed because of racial intolerance, but because of ideological beliefs, plain and simple. The fact that this turned into a witch hunt of racists make me, an undecided Porter County resident, turn away from the pro RDA argument, as I’m sure many other PC residents have as well. If the RDA is truly what it’s cracked up to be, use my proposal and prove it. Proponents will not win the undecided over by calling them bigots.