Indiana has never elected governors from the same political party for more than 20 years in a row. Libertarian Donald Rainwater wants to keep it that way by upending the two-party system entirely and making history as a third-party candidate. Indiana Public Broadcasting’s Brandon Smith sat down with Rainwater to discuss some of the biggest issues in the open governor’s race.
You can also find interviews with the Republican and Democratic candidates .
IPB News Statehouse Bureau Chief Brandon Smith: I want to start with something that seems to be on a lot of Hoosiers’ minds, and it's certainly been a major issue in the campaign so far, which is property taxes. How do you address people's property tax bills without struggling or hitting local governments in a way that they're going to struggle with their budgets?
Donald Rainwater: So, when somebody says to me, ‘Well your property tax plan is going to reduce the budgets for fire and police,’ I'm going to say, ‘No, the local government's already decided to do that with tax increment financing.’ What my proposal forces local governments to do is to decide, are we going to fund the necessary functions of local government and take care of the people with the tax dollars that the people are paying? Or are we going to continue to give it to economic development? Which should be private development, not private development funded with taxpayer dollars.
Smith: One of the most growing parts of Indiana's education budget is private school vouchers. We have a near-universal program now — only the very upper most income limits are barred from getting those dollars. Would you like to see that program expanded further to basically be universal, get rid of the income limits?
Rainwater: I am 100 percent supportive of not only universal school choice as it's currently defined, but I believe that we need universal school choice that allows parents to find any school option that provides the right environment to maximize that child's positive outcomes, whether it's state accredited or not. We need, I believe, we need to decentralize education in the state of Indiana.
READ MORE: What do I need on Election Day? The general election is Nov. 5
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Smith: So, lawmakers are looking for ways to curb the exponentially-growing cost of Medicaid for the state of Indiana. Is there any way to rein in those costs without cutting services to Hoosiers?
Rainwater: The services that have been promised to Hoosier citizens — state government made the promise, they need to keep it. We have a $1 billion accounting error. But we also have in the last budget about $1 billion of new budget allocation to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. But to tell these people, well, we made a budget mistake, so we're going to have to cancel this program, but it's OK because the IEDC is going to bring in 1,000 new high-paying tech jobs that you won't be able to do because you've got to stay at home with your child — morally and ethically reprehensible to me.
Smith: We have Indiana's near-total abortion ban. As governor, would you like to see that change? Do you think Indiana's abortion rights are in the correct place?
Rainwater: The current law needs to go through any and all legal challenges that may need to go through the court system. And that the state legislature should listen to the people and if there are adjustments that need to be made, they should make them. I'm a pro-life libertarian. But I don't believe that one person should make that decision as to what changes should be made within that particular legislation. I believe that that is a very delicate issue and I'm really tired of politicians using it to get votes.
Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5 .
