Mike Braun got suckered into a tax-cut promise he couldn't keep

Yahoo

16-04-2025

Few people so bad at politics have made it so far as Gov. Mike Braun.
Money can do that for you. It can open doors to halls of power. It just can't give you directions once you walk through. Eventually, you need to figure out where you're going.
Braun in three months as Indiana governor has shown he's as lost and rudderless as he ever was in the U.S. Senate. Braun adopted his lieutenant governor's top priority of slashing property taxes, aligned himself with conservative WIBC talk-show host Rob Kendall to gain favor with the conservative base, made promises he couldn't keep and now he's rammed through middle-of-the-night legislation that everyone hates.
Briggs: How Mike Braun can be a good governor (in spite of Micah Beckwith)
This was Braun's honeymoon. He threw it away. The job only gets harder from here.
Passing property tax cuts was supposed to make Braun more popular. Instead, his botched strategy has blown up his first term, turned all sides against him and limited his prospects for doing anything of consequence. Braun can look forward to three-plus years of constant conflict and an energetic primary challenge in 2028, should he decide to run again.
Braun is living every day with the consequences of his failure to choose a lieutenant governor who could win at last year's Republican Party convention.
Remember what Braun said after Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith won and hitched himself to the Braun ticket?
"There's no doubt about this: I'm in charge," Braun told reporters at the time.
Wrong.
Braun let himself get suckered into campaigning for governor on an impossible Beckwith-inspired property tax cut plan and then adopted Beckwith's media strategy of appearing on Kendall's WIBC show.
WIBC is a conservative radio station, but Kendall is hostile to moderate Republicans. Former Gov. Eric Holcomb used to pretend Kendall didn't exist. Braun, once a target of Kendall's criticism, thought he could turn things around and make Kendall like him. It worked, for a minute, because Braun told Kendall's audience (and Beckwith's supporters) what they wanted to hear: The government is wasting your money and we can give it back to you.
Here's the thing: Beckwith can make crazy promises because he doesn't have real responsibilities. Braun has to govern, and he should have known that setting expectations too high would come back to haunt him.
Braun not only shot for the moon, but then doubled down when lawmakers watered down his proposed tax cut. Braun last month made himself the third wheel at a Kendall-Beckwith rally for lower property taxes at the Statehouse.
'We'll land this plane in a good place that gives real relief and keeps our governments healthy,' Braun promised during the rally, per the Indiana Capital Chronicle. 'But if it isn't for this (rally), they're going to keep trying to push for nothing. And nothing isn't good enough.'
Actually, nothing would have been Braun's best-case scenario — certainly better than the something he ended up with.
The Indiana General Assembly worked Monday into Tuesday to pass legislation centered on a $300 property tax credit that provides marginal, temporary tax relief for two-thirds of homeowners and costs hundreds of millions of dollars to schools and local governments, which can now respond by raising taxes to offset Braun's bill.
Briggs: The Braun-Beckwith plan to abolish Carmel
Braun and legislative leaders are framing the high-cost, low-reward bill as "historic property tax relief to Hoosiers," but no one is buying it — least of all Beckwith.
"NOBODY understands this thing… including me! The Gov needs to VETO this thing, call a special session and demand the legislature pass something that the average Hoosier can understand without hiring army of lawyers and accountants," Beckwith said on social media.
So begins the Braun-Beckwith breakup.
Much like when Braun pretended to object to 2020 election results because he thought it would earn him political points, Braun cozied up to Beckwith's supporters and Kendall's audience without considering what it would cost him when he failed to deliver. That's what Braun does. He's always riding the coattails of someone else's political movement, without any apparent consideration for where it's taking him.
This outcome was inevitable. Braun had no shortage of responsible Republican leaders telling him Indiana's towns and schools couldn't afford the kind of tax cut he was promising. He pledged to do it anyway, right up until the moment he caved.
In so doing, Braun sold out moderate Republicans, who have to defend this mess, and he sold out the party's right flank, which expected Braun to fight to the finish for major property tax cuts. Braun has wasted his political capital on a cause he didn't believe in, while emboldening Beckwith to oppose him and setting up Kendall to spend the next few years talking about "Back Room Braun."
After yet another bout of political malpractice, I have to ask: Why did Braun want this job? Why did he work so hard to obtain the power of a governor, just so he can drift in the wind? What does he actually believe in enough to fight for it?
If Braun can't demonstrate answers to those questions, he might follow up his inglorious Senate career by being an insignificant one-term governor.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or [e-mail]. Follow him on X and Bluesky at @JamesEBriggs.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mike Braun's property tax cut fails to deliver | Opinion