(Editor’s note: Following is a paid editorial by the Committee to Elect Mike Katcher. The views presented are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kokomo Lantern.)
The electoral process in Indiana chose a white, Christian nationalist with fascist tendencies for Indiana government, a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor.
Four hundred years ago the colonists came to America to escape religious persecution in Europe. Religious persecution prevented education, innovation, and prosperity except for the fortunate, well-placed few. It caused a religious split we call the Protestant Reformation that resulted in the death of half the citizens of Europe through war and petulance.
It appears that a drift toward similar persecution revives in America with a war against the separation between church and state protected by the constitution and supported by the nation’s founders Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and Adams. It is being done through use of vouchers which represent the transfer of taxpayer funds to private, mostly religious institutions, a taxpayer subsidy for white suburbanites, says Jennifer McCormick, Democratic candidate for Governor.
When I was a child, my parents sent me to public schools during the day and after school for two hours to religious school. They paid for that religious school out of personal funds because of a religious family history.
I had a good friend of another religion, and we never talked religion. I went to school with him daily for years. However, I don’t think my parents would have wanted to pay for his religious education. Indiana is now forcing us without transparency nor constitutional approval to pay for the religious education of children whose parents worship differently.
The Republican administration in Indianapolis is providing tax-free land at homeowner expense, and tax-free income as vouchers from state income taxes to fund giant office buildings that no longer look like churches.
Do we citizens of Indiana approve such tax transfers for what is becoming a giant lobby directing Indiana state policy? Are we going to allow the anointing of Indiana governors by a religious leader? Which one?
Vouchers have sucked tens of millions of dollars from Howard County public schools over the past seven years, kept teacher salaries $18,000 less than surrounding states, reduced the rate of high school to college enrollments by 10 percent over 10 years, and probably reduced Indiana wages such that we are at the bottom 20 percent of American workers.
Spending on all education in Indiana both high school and college has declined over the last 10 years. If we don’t turn this “race to the bottom” around, Indiana will be training floor sweepers rather than competent, educated technicians and professionals. We need people trained to create the next medical breakthroughs, run the factories, and develop the next technology innovations fueling prosperity and a modern national defense.
Vouchers will require Indiana residents to pay perhaps 20-30 percent more for education expenses to cover previously private funded institutions. That will increase public and private school taxes and drive budgets to bankruptcy because funding private, religious schools was never state-mandated nor planned.
To cover these expenses, the state has drained tens of millions of dollars over the last seven years from Howard County public school budgets. It will create unused public school buildings. The buildings will be either given to private schools or left in disrepair and unused; money spent and wasted.
Farm kids won’t have nearby schools public or private. Howard County will be left with segregated public schools and private, religious schools. Mike Karickhoff and the Republicans created this catastrophe and diverted your taxes without permission for at least 10 years.