No More Income Tax? Firearms in IN – American Family Association of Indiana
No More Income Tax?
Senator Travis Holdman is a powerful member of the Indiana Senate as the chairman of the Committee on Tax and Fiscal Policy. He is expected to put forward legislation setting up a panel to consider a restructuring of Indiana’s tax system including the elimination of Indiana’s income tax. He correctly points out that this could help Indiana compete with states like Florida, Tennessee, and Texas that don’t have a state income tax and they have seen significant economic and population growth. He told reporters, “It’s going to mean there’s less revenue for us to spend at the state level, but at the same time, we attract businesses to the state of Indiana.”
In 2022, the state took $8.2 billion from Hoosiers in income taxes. The Holdman plan would attempt to phase out state income taxes by 2030.
Anytime the state has less money to spend, but Hoosiers keep more of their money, the government is headed in a better direction in my opinion. I give kudos to Senator Holdman for putting this on the table for discussion. Too many legislators think more about how they can spend your money rather than letting you keep more of it to spend on your family as you see fit.
Indiana Ranks 17th
Speaking of population, Indiana is the 17th most populous state in the nation with 6.8 million Hoosiers. However, in 2020 we saw the smallest annual increase in our population since 2015 with only a 0.29% increase. The fastest-growing counties in the state are those surrounding Indianapolis with much of this due to people leaving Indianapolis.
If Guns Are the Problem . . .
I read a surprising story a few weeks ago noting that Hoosiers purchased 42,305 guns in November alone. The article noted that this was a 1% decrease from the prior November of 2021. It also stated that in July of 2022, Hoosiers purchased 48,210 firearms. Roughly two-thirds of the firearms purchased by Hoosiers are handguns.
It seemed from the article that one could logically assume that last year alone Hoosiers purchased about half a million firearms. This is rather amazing for a state of 6.8 million (including children). While gun control advocates wrung their hands over this information in the article, my thought was if the presence of guns is the problem, and we clearly have millions of them in Indiana, shouldn’t crime here be a whole lot higher? (We even have a law now allowing any law-abiding adult citizen to carry a handgun without a permit.)
I have always thought that the problem with crime is not what a person holds in their hand, (Cain slew Abel with a rock or a club) but what they hold in their heart. We have more crime problems because morality is quickly breaking down in our nation. Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote Crime and Punishment in 1866, once noted that without God all things are possible, crime is inevitable. I think these seemingly large firearms numbers confirm this heart theory, but that’s just my quick 10,000-foot view.
In Their Own Words:
“My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes – many times – my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens – and it happens every day in some measure – I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.” – John Piper
