Issues

As your Governor, I pledge to oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes in Indiana.

This is consistent with the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) Taxpayer Protection Pledge.  You can learn more about Americans for Tax Reform at www.atr.org.

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to abolish the personal income tax in Indiana.  Nine states don't have a personal income tax and Indiana should be #10.

Nine states do not tax personal income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.

My first priority would be to abolish the personal property tax on all single family residences in Indiana.  Knowing that it will not be easy to convince the General Assembly to abolish property taxes, as your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to reform the residential property tax on primary residences in Indiana.

I will ask the General Assembly to amend the state's Constitution to establish a true cap on residential property taxes of 1% of the purchase price of the property.

Further, I will ask the General Assembly to amend the state's Constitution to abolish asset forfeiture to ensure that no Hoosier loses their home because they cannot pay their property taxes.

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to reform vehicle registration to be required only when transfer of ownership occurs.  You will register the vehicle one time, when you purchase the vehicle or otherwise transfer title.  We will work to eliminate the annual excise tax on vehicles and the requirement to get a new license plate or sticker every years.  The savings in BMV overhead alone will be significant.

This will eliminate the annual ritual of renewing your vehicle registration and paying the registration fees and excise taxes.  

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to roll back the 2017 legislation which now puts our gasoline excise tax at 30 cents per gallon.  I believe that the indexing of the gasoline excise tax for inflation is contrary to the spirit of "no taxation without representation" and needs to be repealed as part of this roll back.

During the pandemic year of 2020, the Governor's office issued a memorandum instructing every state agency to reduce spending for 2021 by 10% - 15% for the year.  After doing so, the State of Indiana had a budget surplus of several billion dollars.

With this example of how the state government can successfully run on less than budgeted by the Indiana General Assembly, as Governor of the State of Indiana, I will issue an Executive Order each year of my term to have every state agency reduce their spending by 10% based on their reduced spending from the year before.

As Governor of the State of Indiana, I will ask the Indiana General Assembly to freeze the State budget for a period of four (4) years, beginning with the budget session in January 2025.  I will ask that no new spending and no tax increases of any kind be passed during this four (4) year period.

I will veto any attempt to increase the state budget and any tax increases during this period of time.  

The Indiana General Assembly just passed one of the largest increases in state spending in history.  There should be no need to increase state spending over the next four (4) years.

During the government-mandated shutdown of businesses during the pandemic of 2020, over one million Hoosiers temporarily or permanently lost their jobs and filed unemployment insurance claims.  The Indiana Department of Workforce Development was ill-equipped to handle the needs of those Hoosier citizens impacted by their state government's actions.  As a result, many Hoosiers experienced financial consequences from which they are still attempting to recover.

As Indiana's Governor, I will propose extensive reforms and regulatory changes to ensure that unemployment insurance claims are processed in a timely manner that meets the needs of the citizens of the State of Indiana.  I will also work to bring forth regulatory changes that will encourage a new and innovative private unemployment insurance market that will provide options for Hoosiers who wish to pursue private unemployment insurance.

Indiana's current unemployment insurance system is obsolete, inefficient, and ineffective.  We, The People of Indiana, need to lead the way in developing privatized unemployment insurance options that will provide inexpensive and meaningful coverage for every Hoosier breadwinner, regardless of whether they are a W-2 employee, 1099 contractor, or small business owner. 

As your Governor, I will make the abolition of asset forfeiture in Indiana a priority.  This will include criminal justice reform and property tax reform.

The government should not be able to take your property involuntarily, for any reason.

As your Governor, I will work with members of the Indiana General Assembly to decriminalize both medical and recreational cannabis.

Military veterans and others who suffer from psychological, emotional, and physical pain should not be denied a proven, viable alternative to highly-addictive narcotics.  Medicinal cannabis has been proven to effectively aid cancer patients in managing the many side effects of chemotherapy and other treatments.

Anyone who has been convicted of a marijuana-related, non-violent drug offense should have their sentence commuted immediately and their conviction should be expunged.

If beer, wine, and liquor are legal for adult recreational consumption, so should all forms of cannabis.

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to bring about significant reform in the area of professional and occupational licensing. 

Hoosiers cannot pursue their own occupational Happiness when government regulations for occupational licensing create artificial barriers to entry into a career field by requiring expensive educational requirements and licensing fees.

While I agree that doctors and lawyers are occupations which may lend themselves to very stringent licensing requirements, I also strongly believe that hairdressers, plumbers, electricians, auctioneers, real estate agents, and many others could and should be "licensed" or "certified" by their respective professional associations.  I also believe that many of these occupations would be candidates for on-the-job training programs or high school programs.

I am a Pro-life Libertarian.  I believe that abortion violates the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), which is one of the cornerstones of Libertarianism. 

I do not believe that government should use tax dollars to fund any private organization.

As Governor of the State of Indiana, I will work with members of the Indiana General Assembly to maximize parent's ability to choose the school option which is best for their child.  I will work to ensure that Hoosier parents have real school choice options, such as public school, private school, online school, charter school, and homeschool.

I will work to ensure that education funding is available for every child whose parents want it, regardless of their school choice, no strings attached.  If parents wish to opt out of school funding, they will be able to do so, again, no strings attached.

As Governor of Indiana, I would ask the General Assembly to pass legislation to abolish statewide standardized testing. 

A letter to Educators and Parents on Don's vision for Education Reform 

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly and the State Department of Education to simplify our state's high school graduation requirements in order to encourage the redevelopment of high school vocational education programs.

In Indiana, we do not need to enhance post-secondary vocational education opportunities in Indiana.  We need to reestablish vocational educational opportunities in our K-12 public schools.

Too many of our Hoosier young people leave high school without any exposure to the hundreds of career-oriented vocational opportunities which are available and may be more desirable to them.

Let's provide vocational and technical educational opportunities to our young people while they are in high school BEFORE they lose hope and turn to criminal activity, not after they become incarcerated.

A letter to Educators and Parents on Don's vision for Education Reform 

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to reduce the size and scope of the State Department of Education. 

We will work together with the State Department of Education to return the decision-making power to our local School Boards and School District administrators.  

By reducing the size and scope of the State Department of Education, we will free up funding which can be redirected to our classrooms, instead of being spent on multiple levels of oversight.  This will create a better situation for both our teachers and our students in Indiana's public schools.

A letter to Educators and Parents on Don's vision for Education Reform 

As your Governor, I will work with members of the General Assembly to enact legislation establishing ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls in the State of Indiana.  These three processes will go a long way toward reaffirming government in Indiana Of The People, By The People, and For The People.

For more information about ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls, visit the National Conference of State Legislatures at www.ncsl.org.

As your Governor, I will do everything within the purview of my office to ensure that the State of Indiana upholds the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Both the Link 101 and Mid-State Corridor projects have significant opposition from Hoosier property owners in their respective areas.   I believe that both of these projects are being pursued to provide benefit to a limited number of business concerns at the expense of many individual citizens.  These projects require the government to acquire private property.  I oppose the use of eminent domain unless it is an extreme necessity and then I believe that the absolute minimum amount of private property should be purchased for market value by government.

These projects do not constitute extreme necessity.  The least invasive method of improving transportation connectivity in southern Indiana should be implemented to provide necessary benefit at minimal cost. 

Projects should never be proposed or engaged simply to redistribute federal, state, or local tax dollars to government contractors and vendors.