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Forecasts? Don’t talk about forecasts. You kidding me? I just want to know what’s happening now! With apologies to Jim Mora, that’s our problem. What’s…
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Rents are falling in San Francisco. Keep that in mind as this column wanders along. The wizards in Harry Potter’s Britain use many forms of…
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We got trouble, my friends, with a capital T. The Indiana state budget closeout for fiscal 2020 was held in mid-July, so we have a…
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Indiana school districts were relieved when the governor announced that the state would not be cutting aid in the coming fiscal year. With the COVID…
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Enough already. The economy is bad. This is the sharpest, deepest recession in 80 years. We get that. Let’s talk about something else. Like, how…
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How will Indiana’s state budget do in the corona-recession? We don’t know how deep the recession will be, or how long it will last, so…
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The coronavirus is a world tragedy. Millions will get sick and too many will die. All of us will worry about family and friends. All…
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House Bill 1113 is 139 pages long. It covers lots of local government tax issues. It’s not controversial. It passed the House, with 95 members…
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Just after the new year Indiana’s Department of Local Government Finance announced the new base rate for farmland assessment. It was $1,280 per acre. The…
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We just received the most wonderful gift from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. For the first time ever, the BEA has…
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The second installment for Indiana property tax bills was due a couple of weeks ago. If you own a house with a mortgage you probably…
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We’d like our taxes to be low. Sure, we value the schools, police and fire protection, roads and parks and libraries that our taxes support.…
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Spending on K-12 education is by far the largest piece of Indiana government. Appropriations for schools make up half of the state’s general fund budget.…
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July 2019 marked the 121st month of the economic expansion that began after the Great Recession. That makes it the longest expansion in American history,…
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The Indiana State Budget Agency wrapped up the fiscal 2019 budget on July 11, with its annual closeout statement. There was good news. Revenues came…
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It happened. The yield curve inverted. The big one. The 10-year Treasury bond rate dropped below the 3-month Treasury bill rate. That’s the inversion that…
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Inflation should be increasing. But it’s not. Economist A.W. “Bill” Phillips was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia as a young man to…
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Every two years the Indiana General Assembly writes a new state budget. This year the legislature set spending for fiscal year 2020, which starts in…
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How fast can our economy grow? We often answer this question by talking about spending. Will people buy more consumer goods? Will businesses buy more…
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COVID Recession Makes Farmland Tax Predictions Harder
Predictions are hard, especially about the future. Yogi Berra said that. (Unless he didn’t. Yogi also said, “I never said most of the things I…
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