Government Sponsored Theft In Indiana

VALPARAISO, Ind. - A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana.

An outside user of Porter County's computer system may have triggered the mess by accidentally changing the value of the Valparaiso house, said Sharon Lippens, director of the county's information technologies and service department. The house had been valued at $121,900 before the glitch.

County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million.

Most local officials did not learn about the mistake until Tuesday, when 18 government taxing units were asked to return a total of $3.1 million of tax money. The city of Valparaiso and the Valparaiso Community School Corp. were asked to return $2.7 million. As a result, the school system has a $200,000 budget shortfall, and the city loses $900,000.

This story gets it all wrong.

The title should not be "House Wrongly Valued". It should be "Government OVERCHARGES and SPENDS Tax Receipts". Or "Government Sponsored Theft In Indiana"!

Here is the thing, folks. The story mentions that 18 government "taxing units" had to return $3.1 million in tax money. But, they would not have to "return" that money if they didn't charge for it. They also mention in the story that a "budget shortfall" has occurred. But there would BE no "shortfall" if the government agencies had not SPENT (or planned on spending) that money in the first place.

Let's put it this way. If you check your bank account and suddenly there is $3.1 million dollars in it that you've never had before, don't you imagine that something is odd? Isn't it patently obvious that you have been given money that is not yours? Of course you would realize that someone, somewhere is missing that money and they will eventually come to you to find it.

So, do you immediately start spending that money even as you know that this must be a mistake? Of course you don't. You go to your bank and ask to get a clarification. When it is proved that the sudden windfall is not yours, the bank corrects the matter and there is no harm, no foul. You are at square one, back to where your account should have been before the mistake.

But, no, the City of Valparaiso imagines that their tax base suddenly jumped $3.1 million dollars. It doesn't question the idea that it somehow must DESERVE this windfall. It doesn't investigate and try to realize that there was an obvious mistake that their tax base jumped over $3 million dollars in one year. Then it compounded the problem by imagining that it should immediately start spending all that money.

No, what we have here is a city that never doubted for a minute that it should spend money, money that it didn't deserve, money that came to it by an obvious error in the system, and money that it never had in the past. Suddenly, like drunken sailors, or thieves, they began bloating budgets and spending goals to use up this money they did not deserve.

This is morality tale, one that reveals government to be filled with avarice, greed, and stupidity.

-Warner Todd Huston

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